Knowledge Update

Shopping is an indispensable part of the ilgrimage. Religious tourists buy myriad range of merchandise at religious destinations for their survival, religious or social needs. A lot of shopping is by the virtue of traditions.

Retailers across the world have capitalized on the opportunities of marketing their merchandise to pilgrims using all the possible techniques since time immemorial. It is difficult to trace the definitive history of retailing at religious destinations, and we get some ideas through the old pieces of literature and religious treatises. We can say that even thousands of years ago, people used to shop for items for their survival at these religious places, and they also used to buy memorabilia, and many other products of religious significance for their relatives and friends. It was the part of their social obligations to bring and distribute the items of religious significance to the members of their family and society. The merchandise included various edibles, photographs, replicas, statues and so on.
The merchandise these religious tourists purchased to carry them back to their homes differed a lot according to their faiths, culture, distances and various demographic variables. Pilgrims shop religious items to adorn their homes and offices or to gift these items to their relatives & friends in future. Religious items can serve as visual reminders of spiritual beliefs as well as inspire people and give them comfort in times of trouble. With changing times, modes of transportations changed, new religious destinations emerged, social practices changed and so a lot of changes happened in the merchandise in demand, and the ways these merchandise were retailed.

In the modern era, when first time in the human history we have the facilities virtual pilgrimage and live telecast from religious centers, the enthusiasm among the worshippers and other types of tourists has not dampened at all, rather the number of people visiting the religious destinations and the frequency of visits are continuously increasing worldwide. The modern transportation infrastructure and related facilities facilitate the rapid movement of larger volume of merchandise of any size and features. To boot, the new means of promotion help in attracting the shoppers to the stores in larger number.
The retailing at pilgrim centers may not be sophisticated and high end as airport retailing, but the number of stores and volume of trade is much higher. The pilgrim retail is still largely unorganized, and we do not have many international retail chains catering the shoppers at these religious places. There are large number of small shops, and the retailing practices are still traditional.We rarely find salespeople in uniform talking in sophisticated language, and the use of plastic money is still limited. Although, some modernization is visible in a few high end hotels at these religious places, but these hotels cater to a very small proportion of religious tourists.

All these facts hint toward the huge opportunity of modernizing the retailing at pilgrim centers, which can result in better economies of scale, better merchandises, improved services and enhanced customer satisfaction. The modernization will be beneficial for all the stakeholders including retailers’ religious tourists and others. It may even help in increasing the number of tourists to these religious places, because it will bring the tourists hooked to modern retail practices in larger number and for longer durations.
Now, students have lot of options for a better career in marketing. They can pursue MBA in UAE. MBA Marketing opens up doors to a large number of career opportunities across the world. They can also opt for diploma in tourism from various universities like skyline to have promising career in tourism.

By: Umer Mehmood Dadu

In everyday life, a person does many things like managing home, family, work, shopping, saving pocket money, purchasing vegetables, managing social life, and many more. If one observes keenly, unknowingly, in all these activities, a person actually manages many things in the daily life. Activities like money management, saving, expenditure, things to purchase, giving priority to immediate activities, and postponing the unimportant things are all part of life. At the time of shopping or purchasing items, importance is given to the quality of product as well as its features. In summary, all these activities can simply be called as ‘Management.’ There is a perfect correlation between the management thoughts and theories proposed by famous management gurus in our lives.

F.Y.Taylor defines management as “the art of knowing what you want to do and then seeing that it is done in the best and cheapest way.” This definition is highly apt for our personal lives too.

To increase the efficiency in organizations, the management is used in a broader prospective. The main objective of all organizations is to earn profit and be responsible to the stakeholders. Similarly, in one’s personal life, we manage money, price, quantity, quality, budget to get a quality product for a low price. Organizations also manage money, plan for their budgets and expenditure, procure raw material economically, manage people, and manage the organizational processes to achieve targeted productivity. In all these management activities, various functions of management like Planning, Organizing, Directing, Controlling, Staffing, Leading and Motivating are involved. These activities belong to several departments like Marketing, Finance, HR, Business Strategy, Operations Management, IT and Systems among others. Management is a dynamic process and whether organizations or human beings, it is essential to adapt the management strategies to the ever changing external environment. Organizations and people do constantly interact with the external environment and change their management styles as per the requirement.

For example, due to the introduction of the VAT (Value Added Tax) in UAE, organizations have to immediately make lot of modifications to their cost structure, profit margins and competitive strategies to sustain the business. Similarly, the citizens of UAE also need to modify their daily lives and habits by looking at their spending patterns and tune them to VAT. In organizations, every activity or process are inter-related and mutually dependent on one another. For example, production depends on market demand, market demand depends on economy and spending habits of individuals, and customer behavior. Requirement of manpower depends on production capacity and in turn production capacity and manpower planning depends on the availability of budget. Thus, management process is a highly dynamic one.

Management can be compared with the clutch, accelerator, break and steering of a car which control the entire movement of the car. Similarly, in a personal life, individuals apply all these parts of a car to their lifestyle by using one or the other part, whenever and wherever it is required to manage according to the ever changing dynamics of external environment. Thus, all the human beings perform several management activities in their everyday life unknowingly.

Human beings can manage their personal lives by learning management skills, like organizations train their employees to learn the management skills. This requires a formal management education in some reputed Business School. Undergraduate and Post-graduate programmes like BBA and MBA programmes in various disciplines of management i.e., Marketing, Finance, HR, Operations, Business Strategy, International Business, Information Systems will develop these management skills with specific emphasis on these disciplines.

Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to have founded the first crypto currency Bitcoin, in the year 2004. No one knows the whereabouts of Mr. Satoshi so far. The reasons are clear. Now we find more than 1,000 crypto currencies in the world financial market although unregulated.  When this article is being published, the Bitcoin was traded in the CEX 10 (Bitcoin exchange) for $ 6,000.

The most important feature of these crypto currencies is that the transactions are completed without intermediaries. No banking or non-banking financial institution is involved. All transactions are settled faster without any hindrances whatsoever. The parties to the transactions need not reveal their names and need not pay any transfer fees or transaction cost. These are the two reasons which have given rise to the discovery, evolution and growth of the crypt currencies.

The success of any business depends on the model or the mantras. The mantra followed Need and speed and the Blue Ocean technology: the need of the investors or businesses is to settle the transactions smarter and faster and this is found in crypto currencies including Bitcoin. There was no transfer of funds by without involving banks but crypto currencies there are no intermediaries for the transfer of funds. The names of the parties are not revealed. Crypto currencies have entered an unregulated market using cloud computing which has no competitors.

The ledger accounts of the investors and customers in these crypto currencies transactions are maintained by miners (accountants) by using high speed processing computers. These miners have a huge reward for solving a puzzle in every transaction of the Bit coin.

The Bitcoins are stored in Digital wallet, which can be found in cloud or on the users’ computers. This wallet is nothing but the bank account of the individuals who transact in the crypto currencies.  The users of this Digital wallet can buy even a Pizza or anything using their public keys and private keys which are allotted to the users.

Small businesses generally prefer this system as no credit cards are required for the processing of the transactions.

The growth of Bitcoin from $ 1 to the $ 6,000 + or – is attributed to the Silk Road (on line black market) which needed a currency that could clear transactions without using banks. Even the closing of the borders of countries for legitimate business for various, has paved the way for business in these countries.

Calculation of the price of Bitcoin is done by CEX 10 (bit coin exchange) on the basis of the trade of the transactions. It has 100 million dollars market capitalization. Some of the international banks are trying to be a party of this block chain technology, which has a definite amount like the capital of the banks.

To invest one need not pay $ 6,000 dollars to buy one Bitcoin?  You can buy even a fraction of that provided the country you live in, allows such transactions.

Future of Bitcoin: In spite of the unprecedented growth of the Bitcoin, it can’t be stated that, one should invest or transact though the Bitcoin as many governments have not supported it although some of them did support. The governments of various countries including the UAE, have not appreciated this technology as it might encourage illegal transfer of money for illegal activities

Investing in Bitcoin is like betting a T-20 Cricket International match. Anyone can win right? The theory of risk and rewards applies to this technology as much as it applies in the regulated markets.

To grow is a basic human instinct. Civilizations across the globe and across the time have celebrated growth and people responsible for growth have always been admired and respected and others have been advised to get inspired by these examples. Nations from every corner of the world have made policies, provided incentives and have taken steps to facilitate growth and development in economic terms. In the past environmental issues were not crucial as number of people on the planet and the amount of natural resources used by them were comparatively. The accelerated development of technology, growing human population, and exponentially growing usage of resources and consequent wastage have brought the environmental concern on the forfront.The inventions of non-biodegradable materials,deforestation,pollution of various kinds created by machines and automobiles have made the sustenance of this growth pattern questionable. The use of a new pesticide can have harmful impact on food products and soil, and the long run damage caused by it can be much more than short term benefits. Various new drugs and medicines can cause severe damage to human organs in the long run. The growing industrialization and usage of automobiles may pollute the environment ultimately resulting into a series of diseases and untimely deaths of human beings. Various industrial accidents like Bhopal Gas tragedy are hard to forget for any civilized human being. The fear of rising temperature and meltdown of glaciers, damages to ozone layer, depleting drinking water, vanishing animal and plant species can put the entire civilization’s existence at risk. Hence, there is a need of tackling these issues with conviction. The real concerns for environmental hazards started getting voiced at national and international forums in the second half of the twentieth century. Various protocols and summits like Kyoto, Montreal and the latest Copenhagen summit etc. are evidences of growing concern across the globe regarding environmental issues. People from every country have started thinking and working for sustainable development. A real development is the development which can be sustained for a long term. We can’t afford to ignore the issues related to environment, if we want to hand over a beautiful earth and prosperous future potential to future generations. We must look at the both sides of effects related to usage of new inventions and adoption of new processes. Our experiences with legislations and summits have taught us the hard way that a lot more needs to be done. The issue of sustainable development or growth with environmental protection may be ensured with following for steps: 1) Creating awareness through media and education-No universal problem can be solved without creating awareness about it to all. For this, environmental study should be made the compulsory part of education at all levels in all streams. It should be given the same importance what we give to the education of languages, technology, mathematics and general awareness. Secondly, the power of all types of media including print, electronic, internet, campaigns should be harnessed to the maximum to make people know about the environmental impact of their consumption or activities, and their probable consequences. 2) Making uncompromisable legislations- Although we have various legislations related to protection of wildlife, forest etc. and there are government institutions and ministries to look after environment, but it’s obviously not sufficient. There is a need to enact legislations which make intentional damages caused to environment as serious as causing damages to human lives or sovereign nations. We must realize that if environment does not sustain then nothing will. People with power and contacts should not be allowed to remain unpunished if they have committed crimes against environment. 3) Emphasizing research on environmental protection-In order to ensure growth without environmental hazards, researches related to it must be given due priority. We spend billions of rupees on researches related to industries, defense, health etc., but environmental researches still do not attract best talents or substantial resources. There is a need to promote environmental researches with the cooperation of both governments and private sector at every possible level.Universities, institutes and research agencies must work in this direction in every related discipline area. There is also a need to facilitate environmental researches at local levels to find alternative ways of production and consumption which are environment friendly. 4) Balancing the distribution of Income-One of the major causes of environmental hazards is the fact of people in large number struggling for survival every day in the different parts of the world. An individual, who is not sure of his next meal, can’t be sensitive to possible problems in future years or hardships to next generation. For him survival at any cost is the fact of life. No campaign or legislation can stop a starving individual to cause environmental damage. This is evident in damages caused to forest in areas full of poor people and a large number pf poverty stricken employees working for dangerous and environment damaging occupations. Hence, enough honest efforts must be made to create a reasonable balance in the distribution of income. The poverty of masses also makes the economic growth unsustainable in many ways including sustainability in environmental terms. In order to ensure the growth with safe environment these points should be considered by policymakers and general public at large. Human beings survive on hope of better future, and without protecting environment we lose the hope of bright future. It’s the case of saving our hope and our environment. Skyline University College is among the top educational institutes in Sharjah and it continues working for sustainability and environmental protection through the community service activities and training to students. SUC is among the best options for BBA in Sharjah. It has also started BBA in public administration to prepare a students for administrative responsibilities.

Student Name: Moath Assad Srour  

ID: 11088

Currency crises played a huge role in the economic disturbance of the interwar. Currency crisis is a type of financial crisis that occurs when there is decline in the value of a country's currency. This kind of decline in the currency impacts the economy severely and brings it to the downward trend and creates instability in the exchange rates. Due to this, the value of currency in the international market decreases drastically. One of the methods of minimizing the impact of currency crisis is by pooling adequate foreign reserves.

The world witnesses many instances of currency crisis till now. One of the recent crisis was during 1990s. The European Monetary System started experiencing a huge offloading of assets by the investors. The reason attributed to this was the disturbances in the exchange rate mechanism. Soon after this crisis followed the crisis in Asia and Mexico. It was thought that the crisis would spread to other parts of the world and would negatively impact their monetary systems. Researchers and Analysts generally do not provide any single acceptable reason as to why currency crisis would occur in some countries. Traditional models attribute currency crises to a deterioration of economic fundamentals. On the contrary, the recent models hypothesize that such crises may be as a result of the self-fulfilling prophecies or the shock effect that spreads over many countries. The different perspectives of the various models on what causes a currency crisis makes the study an interesting one and needs further investigation.

It is very important to understand currency crisis and develop mechanism to minimize its impact. One of the most important mechanism to minimize its impact is to analyze the degree of risk tolerance of investors. Past experience shows that before the financial crisis, most of the shareholders enjoyed several years of relatively good returns with little volatility. They became comfortable with the market's risk and reward proposition as long as it heavily favored rewards. As markets began to drop, many shareholders who thought they were comfortable with their risk tolerance, overestimated the risk and they left the market. Risk tolerance is unique to each shareholder. Some shareholders are more comfortable with market volatility than others.

The second strategy is to maintain a cash reserve. This strategy focuses on the need to balance both flexibility and discipline in responding to sudden events like currency crisis. This can be achieved by maintaining reasonable levels of cash reserves within an investor's overall investment and funding plans. The third strategy is to develop and inculcate good financial habits by the investor. It is important for the shareholders to realize several behavioral and environmental factors which can either assist or prevent the achievement of their targets. The shareholders should use the past lessons to build excellent financial habits which help in minimizing the stormy financial periods like currency crisis. The other strategies which can be used are Weigh Fundamentals versus Feelings and using the debt strategically.

 

Student’s Name: Shaikha Majid Alshamsi           

Student’s ID No.: 12437

Every leader performs two roles in the organization, one is macro leadership role and the second one is micro leadership role. This article focuses on understanding the functions of a leader at macro and micro level and attempts to compare these two types of leaderships. Building a right environment and culture in the organization is an essential ingredient of macro leadership and analyzing and implementing the strategies on a day-to-day basis by monitoring every activity by doing an in-depth management is micro level leadership.

 Macro is generally considered to be the ‘Big Picture’ of the leader and micro is considered to be the ‘task’ accomplishment of the leader.

 At the macro level, the leader is more focused on bringing a transformational change in the organization by carefully monitoring the external and internal environment of it. The leader develops a long-term strategy by visualizing and anticipating the changes in the external environment and makes the structural changes required in the internal environment of the organization to synchronize the external changes.

 Macro Leadership:

 This leadership level or role is a strategic one. The leader thinks from a very broader perspective by scanning the business environment and suitably adapting the organization to the dynamics this external environment, keeping the vision, mission and objectives of the organization in mind.
The leader makes plans to expand the business by looking at various opportunities of investments. Keeps trying to innovate by launching new products, entering into new markets, making modifications to the existing products and services, and modifying the organizational strategies to deal with all the external stakeholders of the organization. Depending on the need, the leader also modifies the vision, mission and objectives of the organization from time to time. All the actions of the leader at this strategic level of leadership are oriented towards achieving sustainability of the organization. Therefore, at the macro leadership level, the leader plays a ‘transformational’ leader role.

Micro Leadership:

At this level of leadership, the leader tries to build the capacities of the organization in terms of manpower, finances, and other resources like machinery, equipment, and facilities. The leader also develops relationships with employee teams, lays out plans to complete the tasks, provides all the necessary support and motivation. The leader brings clarity to all the departments and functions by assigning them their roles and responsibilities in accomplishing the given tasks. All these actions match with the information gathered from the external environment at the macro leadership level.

The leader displays the necessary attitude by encouraging the employees to put their efforts to reach the goals for completing the tasks. The leader provides the required support to achieve the objectives of the organization.

Finally, for any leader to be a successful leader it is essential to display the leadership qualities at both the levels i.e., Macro and Micro.

Almost every marketing strategies revolve around 4Ps or 7Ps.It’s also been supposed that all Ps are usually controllable factors, were in PESTL (Political, Economical, Social, Technological, and Legal) are uncontrollable factors. It’s time to review on the academic scholarship, particularly in context to create awareness to the Marketers by providing insight to the analytical approach in distributor’s change over the decision.

It’s true that CMO on his immediate discretion can discontinues a product from

Any date he wishes merely with one circular to all stakeholders and shareholders of the company. Perhaps he also in tandem can do the same with the Price, Promotion, people, process and physical evidence too. But the decision to change place (i.e. Distribution) at once, perhaps is the daunting task.

Depending upon the industry, Intermediaries have a variety of titles/Names. Among popular names are C&F, Distributors, C&A, wholesalers, retailers, Propaganda, agents, etc. The titles also depend upon the ownership & job description and responsibility to be carried out by them. As their function demands they are responsible for indenting the good, receiving the good, inventory the goods, invoicing the goods, assorting them, sorting, repackaging, shipping the goods, ensuring the transportation, insurance, the goods to forward movement to the retailers for the ultimate destination for the consumer. In this process, they also promote the product and provide required services facility if needed for the product. At this point they display and facilitate the choices to be made by the purchaser which is typically important for new products. Feedback is also a very important function which they extend (Customer's feel, repurchase, compliments, and dissonance) that makes companies make required changes in other Ps to stay competitive & relevant for the customers.

As known that the flow of goods also carries revenue (the carrier of Profit). The delay the decision of discontinuation/substitution of distributors is great concern for CMO on the profitability of organizations. Since decision exacerbate while holding on present sales, substituting the demand and lead to issues which get put on hold leads to scrap the value of goods due to breakages, expiry, leakages, & spoilage unattended. Regular customers to the distributors take time to set to another route to purchase or show their resistance or get influenced to substitute the demand with competing products. Power of distributors they will take the issues to litigate where another hold on the decision can harm the sales and impact the progress of organizations.

 

What is advised?  A distilled MOU is to be concocted, incorporating all possibilities of happenings which can impact business progress and process and secured the organization with clear acceptable norms where both the parties are at mutual welfare without hammering the work?

To reaffirm “Thinks before you act” Since an effective distribution channel are a source of strategic advantage for companies.

 

Article written by Ibrahim Abdelrahman Alkhayyal, MBA Student

Etisalat, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, is one of the largest corporations in the GCC. It provides all kinds of internet, mobile and Television packages. It has many firsts to its credit in GCC and in the world. It has the largest number of customers in UAE and provides widest coverage of 3G and 4G technologies. It also is the first corporation to 4G+LTE network. Moving ahead, it recently started focusing on 5G superfast networks. It tested the 5G through a trial and has been successful. The company claims it to be world’s fastest live trial of 5G. This technology is the next step in the high-speed mobile broadband services. The objective of 5G is provide customers with highly efficient, faster, cover more customers and cover more devices.  At the same, it maintains the lowest levels of carbon footprint and causes absolutely no harm to the environmental aspects. Introduction of 5G will impact TV, Media, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Transportation, Infrastructure and education sectors (Schools, Colleges and Universities) which will in turn impact all the other dependent sectors.

Etisalat recently completed deployment of 5G and conducted a live trial of its pre-commercial 5G mobile technology using millimeter wave operating over e-band through 2GHz of bandwidth and a massive MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) technology. The live trial reached the highest speed of 71 Gbps, a global record in the industry.

The 5G technology enables the concept of ‘global computing’. Through this the user can access the services from multi platforms from any location and at any time. It provides a great facility to customers to use application simultaneously in many platforms at a time with high speed. The 5G technology also aids in developing smart cities and enables digitization of all user services. It is expected that this technology is also going to develop the ‘Internet of Things’ at revolutionary speed. The utility services provided by the government and all the other private services are going to have a total transformation due to this technology. Etisalat is going to be the first corporation to initiate and implement the 5G network in UAE by 2020. The proposed investment on the required infrastructure and other supporting activities is expected to be around AED 3 Billion. This investment will be distributed across activities like upgradation of mobile network, installation of robotics technology and artificial intelligence.

Therefore, to conclude, in the next couple of years, UAE is going to witness a dramatic impact of 5G technology on all kinds of services offered to the citizens which can be customized as per their requirement. In future, it will be very interesting to watch not only customers interacting with each but also all the ‘things’ interacting with each other. 5G of Etisalat will become a way of life in UAE. In addition to all this, 5G will enable reduction of pollution and expenditure on usage of paper-based transaction and services by providing energy efficiency and ease and comfort. The 5G technology also benefits higher level, quality conscious technology and management educational institutions like Skyline University. The university can become completely a digital university and offer wide variety of programs in the areas of Information Technology and Management at BBA and MBA levels and also BS(IT) level. This technology also helps in offering diploma courses in various fields like tourism and travel.

Article Written by Eman Ali Ahli, MBA Student

The transition from the operational level to the strategic level is an important process that every leader needs to overcome. It involves many challenges. Many leaders face difficulty to pass this step and they fail to overcome it. Due to the rapid changes in the business environment and the growing competition and changing attitudes of employees from one generation to other generation, it is necessary for organizations to develop strategic leaders who are able to formulate and implement strategies which deliver the desired results to achieve sustainability.  In contrast to operational leadership, whose role is limited to managing only the day-to-day operations, leaders who transform from operational leadership to strategic leadership need to play different types of roles to achieve long-term strategic results. This will help their organizations to grow and gain competitive advantage. It will also help them to implement the change management process easily and quickly. The importance of each role depends on the status of the business that the leader is associated with. The strategic leader generally plays nine roles in the organization while displaying his leadership style.

These nine roles of the top strategic leadership are:  

1.Navigator— In this role, the leader works quickly and clearly to deal with difficulties, solves problems and takes advantage of various opportunities to influence existing work and people. The Navigator role of the leader makes the leader to analyze a large amount of conflicting information, understand the root cause of the problems and identify the feasible and optimal solutions.

 2. Strategist— The strategist role of the leader enables the leader to develop a long-term strategy and set targets to match the vision of an organization. The strategy is focused on creation of future plans and required actions immediately. The strategist role enables the leader to provide a direction to the organization to achieve the desired vision. 

3. Entrepreneur­— In this role, the leader acts an entrepreneur. He/she identifies and takes advantage of opportunities and expands business by creating innovative products, services or markets. Thinking like an entrepreneur and owner of the organization, the leader generates new ideas, takes advantage of opportunities or proposals and transforms them into a new path. The leader develops the ability to solve problems easily through his acumen and shrewdness and creates a new style of leadership.

 4. Mobilizer— Playing the role of mobilizer, the strategic leader mobilizes all kinds of resources and develops teams and partners to work with them by leveraging the synergy of wide variety of talent. Also, he / she builds a capacity that allows rapid implementation of work in order to achieve complex objectives.

 5. Talent advocate - In this role, the strategic leader identifies talented and skillful employees, internally and externally and stays in touch with them to tap their talent as and when required. He / she creates a culture of talent development by encouraging innovative ideas, by providing training, by empowering the talented employees to reach their highest possible abilities.

 6. Captivator— Playing the role of a captivator, the strategic leader continues to build confidence among employees, and creates positive feelings and a culture of belongingness. In this role, the leader converts the talent of employees into a useful outcome for the organization. Also, he convinces employees to accept his leadership style, synchronizes it with the vision of the organization and empowers them achieve the vision.

7. Global thinker— The other important role played by the strategic leader is as a global thinker. The leader understands and respects all types of diversity in the organization and designs the strategies and action keeping the diversity factor in mind. He thinks from a very high macro level perspective and keeps identifying global opportunities.

8. Change driver— Organizations need to adapt to the dynamic business environment by making changes on a continuous basis. The strategic leader plays an important role as a change driver. The leader creates and develops change management strategies and evolves techniques to make the employees accept the changes from time to time. The leader convinces the employees by projecting the fruitful outcomes of the changes.

9. Enterprise guardian - In this role, the strategic leader acts as an enterprise guardian. He / She keeps a constant check on the status of the organization by keenly observing the business environment and guards the enterprise from any disturbances. The leader refuses to negotiate over long-term gains. He / She takes bold and wise decisions with courage and risk taking attitude for a long-term benefit to the organization. The leader takes the onus of failure and shares the success with all the employees. Keeps away from emotions and personal relationships when it comes to the achievement of results. He / She becomes popular in the organization and outside by taking bold, useful but unpopular decisions.  It is essential to develop the leaders with the above abilities in every organization. Management institutions like Skyline University, an accredited university in UAE offering MBA courses, BBA courses and diploma courses in Sharjah have a key role in inculcating such leadership traits right from the college days among the management students to enable them to grow and become strategic leaders in future.  

 

By: Mr. Haftamu Menker Gebre Yohannes

Instructor of Mathematics

Skyline University College, Sharjah College, UAE

 It is the responsibility of the teacher to actively involve his or her students in the learning process.  The most important thing he or she should do is to avoid giving clear, concise, organized lectures. If the presentation of a lesson is too easy to follow, most of the class will not need to learn the new material on their own.  They will have a certain degree of confidence in their new knowledge, and this will tend to stifle their intellectual pursuits.  If, on the other hand, the lecture is vague, rambling and disorganized, the students will leave with their heads full of questions. In fact, they will be so filled with curiosity that they will try to expand their knowledge on their own. There are many ways to present a thought provoking lecture.  One of the easiest techniques to use is a foreign accent. If the accent is thick enough, even a well-organized lecture will produce expressions of intellectual wonder among the students.  Effective accents can be acquired in Alabama, China, India, Latin America, New York City, Germany, or any foreign country.

For individuals who cannot speak anything but perfect Midwestern English, this technique may offer difficulties.  There are two possible solutions:  (1) one can teach in a foreign country or at least in Rome, or Paris; or (2) one can incorporate a new syllable into one's language.  Two very effective syllables to use are "um" and "uh".  The chosen syllable should be uttered every second or third word.  This reduces the possibility that any coherent concept will be given to the class.  For example, one can say, "Um, today, u...m, we will be, um, discussing, um...um, determinants."  After a couple of sentences, most of the class will be staring at their watches or out the windows.  Very quickly, they will become very anxious to go out and learn the material on their own.

  In addition, to being aware of one's own speech patterns, the teacher should also pay close attention to the written word.  Effective use of the blackboard should be considered almost a necessity.  Illegible handwriting can stimulate a student's interest in new material almost as effectively as incoherent lectures.  Often students will meet outside of class to exchange interpretations of lecture notes.  Thus illegible handwriting encourages students to work together and share ideas. Writing illegibly requires a great deal of practice to be effective.  If one does not have satisfactory handwriting (that is to say, if one's handwriting is suitable only for formal invitations and eye charts). Certain "tricks" can be learned:

1. Write small. For students in the back rows, this is almost as effective as writing illegibly. The disadvantage is that students in the front rows will probably be able to read the board and may possibly learn something without having to spend hours interpreting their notes.  Also, the teacher who writes small may find that most of his or her class will try to sit near the front of the room, which may be too close for comfort, especially on hot days during summer sessions.
2. Write fast. The faster the teacher writes, the faster the students will have to take notes. Often the teacher can move on to a new subject while his or her students are still trying to copy what is on the board. Students will be so busy during class that they will wait until after class to try to understand the lesson.  In addition to spurring students to learn on their own, writing fast allows the teacher to cover more material in a given class period.
3. Write something while saying something different. For example, after working out a lengthy problem the teacher tells the class the answer; is x²+ y while writing on the board y² + x.  This forces students to rethink the problem in order to decide which alternative is correct.  Students are thus actively involved in problem solving even after the problem is finished.
4. Erase quickly. This technique practically forces those members of the class who take notes to pay constant attention to the lectures. Those who doze off for a few moments will awaken to find nothing to record in their notes on the topics they missed. This technique is especially effective if one uses both hands to write and erase simultaneously.  If all else fails, stand in front of what has just been written. By blocking any clear view of the blackboard, the teacher will help improve students' speculative and psychic abilities. Those instructors who are short or underweight may find this procedure extremely difficult. The above "tricks" may be used separately or combined. It is a good idea to change them occasionally in order to add some variety to the classroom routine.

It is very important that the teacher lecture to the blackboard when using it.  This helps demonstrate to students how involved the teacher is with the subject.  This enthusiasm will most assuredly rub off on the class.  Also, by facing the blackboard, one cannot face the class. It is therefore easier to ignore students' questions which tend to interrupt the presentation of topics and make the class period seem to last forever.

There is one last point on teaching technique.  It is important that one does not over prepare for lectures.  Generally, one should arrive at class a few minutes early, open the book, and glance at the topic for that particular day.  Lectures prepared in this manner have a certain freshness and spontaneity that is often missing from those which are more carefully organized.  In addition, students will gain a greater appreciation for a correct proof if they see how much time can be spent on a wrong approach.

For any question or further knowledge on the topic, email Mr. at haftamu.yohannes@skylineuniversity.ac.ae, Instructor at Skyline University College, one of the top accredited universities in UAE.