Dr. Araceli Hernández, Assistant Professor of Management at the Melvin D. and Valorie G. Booth School of Business at Northwest Missouri State University, is an Academic Partnerships grant recipient.
Her research, “Engagement as antecedent of academic achievement and the moderating impact of work-family-school inter-role conflict for online graduate students” explores the impact of student predisposition toward a course on engagement and academic achievement while examining the impact of work-family-school conflict. Access her research abstract and bio in the growing Featured Research section of Faculty eCommons.
We sat down with Araceli to learn more about her, her experience teaching online, and her research interests.
About Araceli
What was your journey to becoming online faculty like?
I started my academic career in Mexico teaching management courses at the associate level. At that time, I never considered the online modality for any of my courses and truly believed it was not a good option for teaching. As years went by, I saw how fast online classes grew, and in 2016, I had the opportunity to teach my first online course. I started with an undergraduate course, but pretty fast, we moved many graduate courses online. Currently, the vast majority of our MBA courses at Northwest Missouri State University are online.
What do you enjoy most about teaching online?
What I enjoy the most about teaching online, is the diversity of students that you can access and how the experiences that each one of those students brings synergize to create an incredible learning experience.
Why was this research of interest to you?
This research came from realizing that most of my students were struggling to balance work, family and school. They chose the online modality because they had so many commitments that pulled them in every direction and that was interfering with them being fully engaged in class.
What was your takeaway from your research?
The main takeaway from this research is that course design is of utmost importance. It is not just filling the course shell with all the available information but finding the activities that produce the most learning according to your topics and timing those activities correctly. The published paper can be accessed through the International Journal of Management Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2022.100676
What would you tell someone new to online learning?
If you are new to online courses, the first thing you need to figure out is what are the things you want your students to remember. Once you know that, then work on your design. Use material that will spark their interest and give them opportunities to bring their personal experiences to the class. Also, give them some autonomy and control in the course, and make sure you provide the necessary resources for them to succeed.
What is a perfect Saturday morning?
My perfect Saturday morning would be spent gardening. Our work as professors is mostly intellectual, so getting a break by doing physical work that I like gives me the chance to recharge for the following week.a
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We are grateful to support innovative teaching and learning practices with people like Araceli!
