Faculty Excellence at UMUC

Interviewer:

Please tell us about yourself—what made you decide to teach at UMUC? What kind of work do you do when you are not teaching at UMUC? Are there any life experiences that have influenced your teaching at UMUC? If so, please share one story.

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

After retiring from the World Bank, I wanted to go back teaching. As I had a large experience in implementing Knowledge Management Program at the World Bank and my dissertation was related to Knowledge Management, I thought that I could contribute positively with my experience in this area. I also wanted to teach online due to my constant travel overseas. By coincidence, UMUC needed a teacher in this area. For me it was a great coincidence since I know that UMUC is one of the biggest online universities in the country.

I provide consultancy in information and knowledge management in the USA, Brazil and Europe. I also work full time in Brazil during 8 months of the year as an adviser for the President of the University Center of Joao Pessoa-UNIPE.

Interviewer:

How would you describe your teaching style or philosophy? What experiences or person(s) have influenced your style or philosophy?

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

I tend to like discussions about the practical experiences of the students and how to apply theoretical concepts into real life situations. I also tend to provide a substantial amount of feedback to the students, particularly in individual assignments and final project.

My own experience attending courses guides my teaching philosophy. I noticed early on that many courses provide a substantial amount of reading material without connecting the students with real life situations related to their particular work environment. Therefore, I concluded that it was important to give the students concrete skills when understanding of the application of the concepts they learn.

Interviewer:

Please explain if you do something special or unique in your teaching and what made you develop this.

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

I use videos with interviews of Knowledge Management professionals and I also like to provide weekly feedback using videos. They seem to provide a good “rest” from the excessive amount of reading and writing and also create a better “rapport” with the students. The results have been very positive. I also create the individual assignments in a way that builds towards the final project and finally I provide access to the students to a very interesting tool developed by me for assessing Knowledge Management preparedness in their own organizations. It makes the subject very concrete and at the same time provides them with a Knowledge Management Maturity Diagnostic that they can present in their organization.

Interviewer:

What do you think it is about your teaching style that appeals to students?

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

The use of video as mentioned before seems to be very successful. In addition, I use feedback, feedback, feedback. Students really want the teacher's inputs in their weekly conferences as well as related to their assignments, etc. It is particularly important in online classes.

Interviewer:

Do you teach face-to-face, online, or both? Do you have a preference between teaching face-to-face and online? If so, please explain.

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

I teach both face-to-face and online. At UMUC I teach online. In Brazil, I teach face-face classes in Knowledge Management, Electronic Commerce, and Web Development.

I prefer teaching online even if it is much more time consuming for me. The reason is that you can give undivided attention to each student and also you can work at your pace, your time and place.

Interviewer:

Please tell us about your chosen discipline-i.e., what made you interested in the area initially? What do you do to stay current in your discipline? What do you like best about teaching in your discipline?

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

During 20 years I was the Manager for Information Management Services at the World Bank and also its Chief Information Architect. In this position, I was able to devise and implement a substantial amount of information programs. It was always very clear to me that technology was just a support to organizational processes. As such, the management of information content and what people knew became the focus of my work. The variety, difficulty and contextualization needed to develop a good program attracted me to the area of knowledge management. Knowledge Management includes managing people, processes and systems.

I stay current mostly by personal contact with people and groups designing and implementing Knowledge Management programs in several organizations in the USA, Europe and Brazil. I also attend conferences and participate in discussion groups.

Knowledge Management relates intrinsically with the organization’s strategy and problems. As such, one has to understand organizational strategy, management of people, designing and evaluating organizational processes and understand the overall systems adopted by the organization. It is an all encompassing area.

Interviewer:

What is the most challenging to you in teaching in this area? What teaching strategy do you use when you encounter the challenge? Are there any special challenges in teaching this subject matter online?  If yes, please explain what could be done to meet the challenges.

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

It is very challenging to change students’ perception that Knowledge Management is only about technology. It is very hard in an online course to explain that Knowledge Management is more than that and that the result of the program is not to create a system. I use lots of case studies to exemplify all the facets of Knowledge Management and also apply the OKA Tool (Organizational Knowledge Assessment) to provide a clearer view of all the Knowledge Management dimensions included in the discipline. I also provide feedback emphasizing this fact.

I suspect that detailed feedback provided face to face is still more effective to the students. I am therefore thinking to establish a telephone conversation with students to provide feedback. I also want to create a voice file for each student with my comments on the final project. I can always provide more feedback this way.

Interviewer:

What suggestion would you give to students who are interested in majoring or working in your discipline?

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

Start understanding organizational strategy and problems before deciding to develop a Knowledge Management program.

Interviewer:

In your opinion, what makes UMUC the college of choice for students?

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

It seems to me that UMUC provides a fantastic support to the students and has a very capable faculty.

Interviewer:

In your opinion, what makes UMUC the employer of choice for future faculty members?

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

UMUC provides support to the faculty but at the same time provides freedom for the staff to devise new ways of teaching and test new methods.

Interviewer:

What suggestion would you give to new faculty who are interested in teaching in your discipline at UMUC?

Ana Flavia Fonseca:

I suggest that faculty teaching the same, similar and complementary disciplines interact more frequently. For me it is always a challenge to know what the students already know and the depth of the training in areas that are important for Knowledge Management.