Our Pedagogical Epiphanies: Moments of Clarity in Our Teaching Practice That Created Windows for Change

Abstract

In this essay, we offer two personal narratives of how we innovated in our approaches to teaching and learning—our pedagogical epiphanies. The first narrative, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, focuses on innovating and moving from the use of a single learning process to the use of a portfolio of learning approaches that align with the learning objectives for the course. The second narrative, triggered by the instructor’s inner dissatisfaction with the level of student preparation and engagement, focuses on innovating and moving from the use of a different case each class session—a surface approach to learning—to the use of two cases for the entire semester and eventually just one—a deep approach to learning. We describe the temporal and experimental character of the caring and innovating relational processes in each narrative, the insights gained across the narratives, and the implications for pedagogical practices and pedagogical research in management education. We ground our narratives in the conceptual literatures on a process-relational ontological view of teaching and learning, pedagogical caring, and innovating. We conclude with our desire to encourage others to embrace their own pedagogical epiphanies.