A Team Approach to Using Student Feedback to Enhance Teaching and Learning

This study investigated how one type of student evaluation of teaching (SET) tool and a team approach to evaluating a course helped to provide feedback in an online, synchronous and asynchronous course and an in-person, face-to-face course through a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) study. Student observational narratives and responses to a feedback tool were gathered for two undergraduate courses, one that was offered face-to-face (n=167) and one that was taught online (n=155), over several semesters. The most important factors, with regard to the teaching of the courses, were ensuring that the courses were well organized in terms of assignments and course platform sites, being careful to communicate succinctly and thoughtfully, and showing care and concern for students. Implications are provided

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability in Hospitality and Tourism: Implications for Education and Practice

Sustainable tourism appears to be a natural fit for entrepreneurs wishing to pursue business opportunities in this dynamic, economic climate, especially in the area of hospitality and tourism where sustainability is receiving increasing attention. 1 Sustainable tourism can be defined as "tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social an

Learning Preferences Instead of Learning Styles: A Case Study of Hospitality Management Students’ Perceptions of How They Learn Best and Implications for Teaching and Learning

This Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) study focused on understanding more about how hospitality and tourism students prefer to learn and considers the implications that these preferences have for teaching methods. The case is made that learning preferences matter even though critics indicate that there is no evidence for the use of learning styles. Perceptions of students’ learning preferences were gathered from students in six face-to-face undergraduate hospitality and tourism classes at a university in the southeastern United States. In accordance with previous research, hospitality students in this sample tended to prefer active learning opportunities. Implications, suggestions for teaching and further research, and limitations are presented

Educators’ Use and Views of Simulations as Teaching Tools within a Discipline: The Example of Hospitality and Tourism

This Scholarship of Teaching and Learning study investigated hospitality faculty members’ perceptions and use of industry-related simulations in hospitality and tourism education to help the authors understand how simulations are and can be used as educational tools. Using learning engagement theory as a framework, respondents to a survey perceived that simulations help students develop decision-making skills, increase problem-solving skills, integrate knowledge from other classes, learn to work with others, and link theory to practice, and noted that simulations are fun to use. A significant positive relationship was found between the number of semesters educators have used simulations and their satisfaction with the simulations. Perceived drawbacks to the use of simulations included that they are costly, time-consuming, too complex, and lack realism and validity. Based on the findings, suggestions are made for improving the use of simulations in hospitality and tourism education, and limitations and ideas for further research are offered

The Use of Exit Interviews in the U.S Lodging Industry

This study investigated whether hotel managers systematically collected and analyzed data via employee exit interviews to determine why employees left jobs at their properties. Telephone interviews were conducted to determine whether exit interviews were conducted, what use was made of the interview data, and whether there was a relationship between the use of interviews and the level of turnover. Exit interviews appeared to be more common in larger properties and were used primarily for improving employment conditions, identifying problem areas, and providing closure for the employment relationship. There appeared to be an inverse relationship between the use of exit interviews and the level of turnove

COLLABORATION USING CLOUD COMPUTING AND TRADITIONAL SYSTEMS

ABSTRACT Cloud--computing is quickly becoming a useful collaboration tool in businesses and universities. This paper describes one of the first empirical studies comparing outcomes of collaboration using cloud computing with traditional collaboration systems. For collaboration tasks, participants' ratings for cloud computing systems were significantly higher than ratings for traditional collaboration systems

What Does It Mean to Follow? An Exploration of a Followership Profile in Hospitality and Tourism

Although leadership has received considerable attention from many scholars, much less research has focused on those who follow leaders; yet, followers contribute much to the success of an organization. This study explored the followership profiles of stakeholders in hospitality and tourism education. The findings summarize the followership dimensions of a sample of hospitality students, educators, and industry professionals. For each of the five followership dimensions the mean scores for industry professionals were rated higher when compared with students and educators, with courage to participate in transformation being the highest rated among all three groups. Implications for hospitality education are presented

A Case for Selective Marketing: Identifying the Ecological Wine Tourist

The main resource for many tourism destinations is the natural environment. Tourists are increasingly interested in visiting unspoiled locations. Accordingly, managers are pressured to execute ecologically sustainable practices. One approach is selective marketing. The feasibility of this approach remains untested for wine and other types of tourists. This study investigated how respondents viewed wine tourism’s influence on a community. As consumers’ environmental knowledge increases, their attitudes change, influencing perceptions of a wine region’s, environmental policies. Results suggest environmental attitudes differed, by demographics, regarding wine tourisms influence on a community, providing those involved in wine tourism ideas for further marketing efforts

Lessons Students Teach Us: Pursuing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning through Text-Based Methods Of Inquiry

Established academic disciplines have agreed upon methods of inquiry and standards of methodological rigor. Because SoTL has little history, is undertheorized, and is explicitly multidisciplinary, few such standards guide those who practice SoTL. Given SoTL\u27s multidisciplinary nature, which can accommodate the concepts and sources of evidence of the arts and humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences, the goal of this session is to present practical guidance for using text-based methods of inquiry where student work products serve as both the texts under analysis and the evidence of learning. The presenters provide guidance for and stimulate conversation about ways to probe the learning process in the classroom or the online environment. Attendees are asked to consider how they could use text-based methods of inquiry to pursue questions about student learning in course-based SoTL projects in their disciplines