My Philosophy of Education and My Method of Teaching at a Christian University

Self reflection and personal assessment are important aspects of any professional\u27s life and career, not the least of which is the professional educator. I have offered my own expression of education and method of teaching in reflecting on thirty-seven years of experience teaching at the college/university level in the hopes it might stimulate other professional educators to reflect on their own educational philosophy and methods of teaching

How Conceptual Modeling Is Used

Conceptual models play an increasingly important role for business process engineering, information systems development, and customizing of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Despite the widespread interest in conceptual modeling, relatively little is known to date on the level and nature of conceptual modeling use in practice. Therefore our study investigates how practitioners use conceptual modeling. In particular, we address the following three key questions: To what extent do practitioners use conceptual modeling techniques and tools? How relevant is conceptual modeling for certain purposes? Are there barriers and success factors in using conceptual modeling? This paper informs information systems professionals about recent trends in the area of conceptual modeling. The results of our study should be considered when developing syllabuses for modeling courses as well as when judging the relevance of various research streams in the area of conceptual modeling

"Beasts," "Beings," and Everything Between: Environmental and Social Ethics in Harry Potter

This paper examines J.K. Rowling's fictional textbook, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, alongside the Harry Potter series, exploring how Rowling questions official academic discourse that defines boundaries between the human and nonhuman. By creating magical characters that straddle the line between "beast" and "being," as defined by fictional scholar Newt Scamander, Rowling blurs the boundary between human and animal and questions the treatment of the nonhuman as subhuman that results from such firm boundaries. At the same time, in other areas of her novels Rowling seems to reiterate the division of the human from the nonhuman, and seems to maintain a hierarchy of power that positions fully human characters over their nonhuman - and "part-human" - counterparts. The weakened boundary between beast and being complicates any discussion of the novels' social agenda, particularly regarding what many critics have perceived as Rowling's racial stereotyping of her part-human characters according to white, imperialist tropes. The result is an ambiguous code of environmental and social ethics that hinges on the question of what it means to be a being - human - as opposed to a beast - animal - and whose right it is to define these important legal and social categories

What Makes an Excellent Teacher?

Everyone who attends any place of education on any level wants an “excellent” teacher; however, is that word —“excellence”— ethereal, mystical, or just entirely subjective? In this essay I wish to propose a definition of what excellent teaching entails by referring to the spiritual and social formation of the teacher. Central to my thinking is how the work of the Holy Spirit affects “excellence.” Reflecting on my long years of experience teaching in a Pentecostal college/university and as someone in pursuit of “excellence” in my own teaching, I think I have something to say about it which involves teachers, students, and a whole community

Towards Situational Reference Model Mining - Main Idea, Procedure Model & Case Study

This contribution introduces the concept of Situational Reference Model Mining, i.e. the idea that automatically derived reference models, although based on the same input data, are intended for different use cases and thus have to meet different requirements. These requirements determine the reference model character and thus the technique that is best suited for mining it. Situational Reference Model Mining is based on well-known design principles for reference modeling, such as configuration, aggregation, specialization, instantiation, and analogy. We present a procedure model for Situational Reference Model Mining and demonstrate its usefulness by means of a case study. Existing techniques for Reference Model Mining are examined and mapped to their underlying design principles. This way, we are not only able to provide reference model designers with concrete guidelines regarding their choice of mining technique, but also point out research gaps for the development of new approaches to reference model mining

Towards Situational Reference Model Mining - Main Idea, Procedure Model & Case Study

This contribution introduces the concept of Situational Reference Model Mining, i.e. the idea that automatically derived reference models, although based on the same input data, are intended for different use cases and thus have to meet different requirements. These requirements determine the reference model character and thus the technique that is best suited for mining it. Situational Reference Model Mining is based on well-known design principles for reference modeling, such as configuration, aggregation, specialization, instantiation, and analogy. We present a procedure model for Situational Reference Model Mining and demonstrate its usefulness by means of a case study. Existing techniques for Reference Model Mining are examined and mapped to their underlying design principles. This way, we are not only able to provide reference model designers with concrete guidelines regarding their choice of mining technique, but also point out research gaps for the development of new approaches to reference model mining

ON THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF RESEARCH INTO THE UNDERSTANDABILITY OF BUSINESS PROCESS MODELS

Against the background of the growing significance of Business Process Management (BPM) for Information Systems (IS) research and practice, especially the field of Business Process Modeling gains more and more importance. Business process models support communication about as well as the coordination of processes and have become a widely adopted tool in practice. As the understandability of business process models plays a crucial role in communication processes, more and more studies on process model understandability have been conducted in IS research. This article aims at investigating underlying theories of research into business process model understandability by means of an in-depth analysis of 126 systematically retrieved research articles on the topic. It shows in how far process model understandability research is multi-theoretically founded. Identified theories differ regarding addressed subject matters, their coverage, their focus as well as the underlying notion of model understanding, which is exemplarily demonstrated and discussed in this article. Moreover, implications of the findings are discussed and an outlook on future business process model understandability research and on the integration potential of theories in this field is given