My BRIDGE Project: Company Portfolio Projects in an Introduction to Business Class

1. My BRIDGE Project:Company Portfolio Projects in an Introduction to Business Class Betsy Haywood-Sullivan Assistant Professor of Accounting Rider University msullivan@rider.edu (609) 895-5544

2. Overview • Objectives of Target Course • My BRIDGE Project • My BRIDGE Journey • CAT: Portfolio Worksheet • Student Examples • Assessment: Grades and Student Responses

3. Objectives of Introduction to Business Course • Provides a foundation for advanced business classes by introducing business terms and concepts and by demonstrating the relations between business disciplines • Helps students focus on an area of interest, often directing them to a major if they are undecided • Connects students to the College of Business in their first semester/year

4. My BRIDGE Project:Students’ Company Portfolio (Scrapbook) Project I require the students to include a minimum of three articles on the following areas: 1) information technology and/or operations management; 2) management and human resources; 3) marketing and/or advertising; and 4) accounting and finance. For each article the student submits, I look for two types of analyses. The first explains why that article represents a business area (i.e., marketing) and the second demonstrates how this area impacts other functions of business.

5. Example of Business Connection “X Company laid off workers this quarter (human resources) because of the decrease in demand for its product last quarter (supply and demand – economics) and the decline in sales and profits (finance).”

6. My BRIDGE Project:My Journey Over Time

7. My BRIDGE Project:Classroom Assessment Technique (“CAT”) Hybrid

8. My BRIDGE Project:Example of Student Worksheet

9. My BRIDGE Project:Example of Student Worksheet

10. My BRIDGE Project:Assessment of Project

11. My BRIDGE Project:Assessment of Project

12. My BRIDGE Project:Student Responses to Project Question List the two most important things you learned from this project. “I learned to see the business articles from a businessman’s eyes. I learned to look beyond the story in the article and to pick up various details about plenty of different business departments that contributed to the article.”

13. My BRIDGE Project:Student Responses to Project Question List the two most important things you learned from this project. “I learned that companies have many different parts entailed in order for it to be a company. Usually I don’t really think about the different departments that make up a company; however, now that we had to look up the different aspects of the company like management, human resources, finance and so much more, I now look more into a company as opposed to just looking at what they sell.”

14. My BRIDGE Project:Student Responses to Project Question List the two most important things you learned from this project. “I didn’t realize in the beginning, but definitely did at the end of my project, that everything is related to one another some how. Whether it is human resources to accounting to technology, they all need one another to make the company run. But more importantly, they all need one another to make themselves work.”

15. My BRIDGE Project:Student Responses to Project Question List the two most important things you learned from this project. “On a more personal note, I learned how to be more responsible; it is a big transition from high school to college. Teachers are willing to help you if you are willing to help yourself.”