Dr. Alavi have taught a variety of Information Systems (IS) courses at the undergraduate, graduate, executive development and doctoral programs. At the undergraduate level she has taught decision support systems, systems analysis and design, and the IS practicum. At the graduate level (MBA and MS), she has taught both required and elective courses including the core IS course, strategic information systems, management of IS, and e-business analysis and design. She has supervised several MBA group field project (GFP) courses . Her teaching activities at the executive development programs has involved teaching courses at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University, the Smith School at the University of Maryland, Harvard Business School, and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. She has supervised several dissertation and master theses over the past several years in addition to teaching doctoral seminars in IS. Dr. Alavi's teaching evaluations in the courses across all the different programs have been consistently high (over 4.0 on a 5-point Likert scale where 5= very high).
Dr. Alavi uses a variety of pedagogical approaches including lectures, class discussions, case analysis, small team discussions as well as hands-on technology sessions to create interactive and engaging class sessions and to accommodate different learning styles of students.
A key part of Dr. Alavi's contribution as an educator in the information system field has been application of new technology-mediated teaching approaches to her IS courses. Her innovations and achievements in teaching have been recognized by several teaching awards including the University of Maryland Alan Krowe Teaching Innovation Awards (1994 and 1996), as well as the prestigious Distinguished Scholar-Teacher (DST) Award (1995-1996). The DST Award at the University of Maryland recognizes exceptional teaching and research contributions by faculty from across the campus and is the highest honor the Campus can bestow on a member of the faculty.
Dr. Alavi's teaching innovations involve using information technologies to develop pedagogical approaches that promote critical thinking and problem solving, while emphasize active learning strategies. The success of her teaching innovations has stemmed from the effective integration of her scholarly and teaching interests. She has made innovative attempts in using technology in her teaching the subject of significant scholarly research. For example, in some courses, she has used groupware software for development of effective collaborative environments for support of face-to-face as well as distance learning (see video 1 below). In another course, she created a new structural form through an information technology-enabled partnership between University of Maryland and University of Arizona (see video 2 below). The objective of the innovation was to use electronic linkages between two remote classrooms to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of learning and teaching processes at the two universities through developing synergies by combining faculty expertise and experience, student perspectives, and technological resources at the two campuses.
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