{"id":1161,"date":"2022-05-09T14:08:30","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T21:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2022-05-09T14:08:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T21:08:31","slug":"faculty-spotlight-amanda-bickell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/faculty-spotlight-amanda-bickell\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Spotlight: Amanda Bickell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amanda Bickell<\/a><\/u> is the Program Chair of the <\/em>Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Entrepreneurial Leadership program<\/em><\/a> at KPU. For this edition of our Faculty Spotlight, Amanda joins us in a conversation about her entrepreneurial spirit, her role as a learning coach in the classroom, and creating spaces for failure.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe one thing I show almost every class is a video of a baby learning to walk,\u201d Amanda tells us during our conversation. She sends us a link to the video<\/a> over the chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video is exactly as described on the tin. It\u2019s a montage that condenses one full month into a blink of an eye; in two minutes, we witness a baby take his first steps and slowly gain confidence with each step, stumble, and stagger. Time and time again, the baby pushes himself to teetering feet. Within a few seconds, he topples over \u2013 and without fail, his face squeezes into a joyous smile, and he tries again. And again. And again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, we catch glimpses of a parent with hovering hands, mirroring his bright smile onto their own faces, ready to catch him at any given moment. When he stands, they celebrate. When he falls, they still celebrate. Each effort is momentous and triumphant. And it\u2019s the cumulation of all these falls and failures that build and build over time until we witness the baby finally take his first full steps at 11 months old.

\u201cI challenge everybody to think of when they were that happy to fail,\u201d Amanda says. \u201cWhen did you embrace it so genuinely, and with so much enthusiasm to get up and try again?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Bickell is no stranger to failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born and raised in southwestern Ontario, she moved with her family throughout the province until she was nine years old, when her father settled in Stratford and opened his own grocery store. Mr. Grocer<\/em> was an independent grocery store that belonged to the National Grocers Conglomerate, and is where Amanda and her younger brother spent most of their childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After most school days, Amanda and her brother would find themselves in Mr. Grocer <\/em>and busy themselves with everything from the menial tasks of counting coins, tidying up, to playing together in the backroom. On Sundays when all businesses were closed, they would ride their bikes in the store, weave around on roller skates, and play laser tag with the lights turned off. Their fondest memories took place between the aisles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, both Amanda and her brother graduated into officially working for the family business. To Amanda, this was a natural progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe business was the whole family,\u201d she tells us. She says this with certainty, and with a lightness associated with recalling one\u2019s best memories.

As with any business, however, not all days can boast sunshine and clear skies. There were challenges too. Amanda alludes to them in our conversation. \u201cYour family\u2019s livelihood is on the line,\u201d she explains. There\u2019s a lot at stake to run a business, especially a family business. \u201cWhen something happens, you have to adapt quickly, you have to think about all of the people that are involved, and who it\u2019s going to impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You encounter failures before you encounter success. In fact, there may always be more failures than success. Yet it is from the experiential learning attained with her family business and from challenging failure, that Amanda found her passion for entrepreneurial leadership. The grocery store showed Amanda the benefits and challenges of having an entrepreneurial spirit, and what it takes to keep going, and to make it successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda didn\u2019t so much as walk away from her family\u2019s grocery store, as she walked forward with the lessons learned as forever a part of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an instructor for Entrepreneurial Leadership at KPU, Amanda describes her role in the classroom as \u201ca coach.\u201d Her definition of a coach is derived directly from her experiences with business while growing up; it means developing a team, meeting their needs, and lifting one another up as a leader. Ever since she started teaching 20 years ago, she has always embodied this approach in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She paints a stark contrast from the conventional pedagogical models. Rather than standing at the front of a classroom \u2013 as the \u201csage on the stage,\u201d she describes it \u2013 and delivering information through lectures for the sake of standardized examinations, Amanda wants to focus on how she can empower students in academia and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And where does empowerment stem from? \u201cHelping them through failure,\u201d Amanda explains. \u201cSetting the stage for exploration that will motivate students. To take the journey, to do the work, to feel the suck<\/em> of failure, and to say \u2018oh well, we\u2019ll try again<\/em>,\u2019 and to get excited to try again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Amanda breaks this approach down further for us with a helpful example. Currently, she teaches a course where students develop business-making skills. It can be a challenging course, and it requires a deeper understanding of information that students learned previously at introductory levels (business, marketing, operations, etc.) in order to problem-solve the case studies presented in the course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Amanda tries to do differently is implement mechanisms that allow students to overcome roadblocks with her guidance. Students are encouraged to revisit course assignments and to complete them for escalating marks, all of which are designed to incentivize students to fix mistakes, to grow, to learn, to succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she wraps up her tenure as the Program Chair of the Entrepreneurial Leadership (ENTR) program, Amanda also looks towards a new project on the horizon. In order to motivate her students, Amanda hopes to gamify this same course. Gamification is the use of game design elements in education to enhance learning and participation for students (a popular example can be seen in Duolingo<\/em>, the language-learning website).

\u201cIn a video game, you have to get good enough to pass level one,\u201d says Amanda. \u201cBut in a traditional class, if you don\u2019t get it at level one, then the whole class moves to level two. You are just left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a standard course structure, classrooms are founded on the binaric oppositions of pass or failure \u2013 and regardless of your individual outcome, the class continues to progress. While there are merits and reasonable rationale for this structure, particularly as it creates timelines, expectations, progression goals that can be more sustainable for both instructors and students to follow, it also poses a risk of leaving students behind before they have the opportunity to truly<\/em> learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she plans the course re-design, Amanda hopes to personalize the course material for students to progress at their own pace. Rather than a strict pass-fail model, students may take longer to learn \u2013 and while they may not reach as far in the development of the curriculum, they would attain a much deeper and fulsome understanding of what they have<\/em> been able to learn. Each student can move along in the course at their own pace. The final grade will be based on everything a student has satisfactorily completed. It is a recipe to set students up for success, and to encourage sustainable learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This approach to pedagogy also intertwines with Amanda\u2019s work as the Program Chair. In this role, she has led the revisioning of the ENTR program with a strong emphasis on modernization and experiential learning. Ultimately, the program is built around student autonomy and agency, and giving the student the power to choose their path and to set a target for themselves.

It\u2019s not going to be easy, which Amanda is aware. \u201cThe real challenge to integrating this approach is how do I do this meaningfully and authentically for students, and how do I stay within my 40 hours a week?\u201d She recognizes that in her goals to enhance teaching excellence and pedagogical innovation, she must also protect the wellbeing of instructors and faculty members as well. It must be sustainable, and for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s a challenge that Amanda is excited to tackle. Just like the video she had shown us of the baby taking his first steps, just as she has learned from her parents\u2019 grocery store, and just as she\u2019s come to understand as an Entrepreneurial Leadership instructor at KPU \u2013 Amanda is ready to fall down, and get back up again. Always, she gets back up again. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Amanda Bickell is the Program Chair of the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Entrepreneurial Leadership program at KPU. For this edition of our Faculty Spotlight, Amanda joins us in a conversation about her entrepreneurial spirit, her role as a learning coach in the classroom, and creating spaces for failure. \u201cThe one thing I show…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":566,"featured_media":1167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","iawp_total_views":31,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[374,376,187,68,180,186,375,60,46],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-spotlight","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-instructor","tag-kpu","tag-kwantlen-polytechnic-university","tag-professor","tag-school-of-business","tag-teaching","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1168,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}