2009-2010 Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award

David A. Jones
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
School of Business Administration

David A. Jones, since arriving at the University of Vermont in 2004, you have established yourself as one of the best professors in the School of Business Administration.

You are the admired teacher of Principles of Management and Organizational Behavior. "Learning by doing" is the hallmark of your teaching, and you use experiential learning exercises in nearly every class including individual and group exercises, short simulations and cases, and group reflection and discussion. The capstone of experiential learning in this course is a team project. Each semester, you work closely with 16 teams to help them develop their project to its fullest potential.

Although the coursework and team project are demanding, your students consistently comment on the level of support you provide by being available to clarify course content or performance criteria. Your goal is to help students understand the material, not just remember it, and you are willing to work with any student to achieve that level of learning. In the words of one student, "I have never had a professor spend so much time helping me to improve a project, and that motivated me even more to do the best that I could."

Your success in motivating and engaging students is due in part to your understanding of the diversity of students’ learning styles and the need to reach them through a diversity of teaching methods. In course evaluations your students repeatedly remark about your "enthusiasm" and "passion" for your work, and the value of sharing your own real-life experiences to illustrate a point.

Just as you encourage your students to be committed to continuous improvement, you are deeply committed to improving your own skills by attending teaching workshops, conferences and soliciting anonymous feedback from your students several times a year. As such, you bring new ideas and techniques regularly into the classroom.

Congratulations on receiving the Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award.