After my note to Sandi on teaching, Charlie Wankel asked about the
assignments I use in my Organizational Behavior. I'll post a short
description here for everyone that may have some interest. If anyone else
wants a copy of the syllabus, please contact me directly and I'll mail out a
copy.
I try to have my students be thinking all the time of how the information in
class applies to their own plans for the future--how they can apply it to
their careers and lives. Or course, some are more sure of what they want to
do than others are, but I think they all should view their education as part
of a process. Understanding that process requires they give some thought to
where they've been and how they got to where they are now, as well as where
they think they are going.
The team project I use has two options:
#1 -- teams can interview an executive about organizational change.
Nearly all organizations have experienced tremendous change in the last few
years, so this is a relatively sure discussion prompter. It also tends to
lead to talk about how those changes impact careers of the people in that
field. The teams self-select, so they are usually able to pick an
interviewee whose comments are meaningful to most of the team member's career
plans. Most OB text books have a chapter near the end on organizational
change. Rather than me lecturing on change, the teams that select this
option do team presentations on what they learned from their interviews.
There are nearly always good results, most notably the teams are amazed that
their discussions uncovered that fairly high ranking business people do think
and talk about the exact same topics we have been studying in class.
#2 -- teams go out to a high school or community college to do an
interactive presentation to students about college. This gives them a clear
message about how far they have progressed in the last couple of years. It
also reminds them that they won't be working only with people ahead of them;
they also will have to work with those coming behind and that's a
relationship they rarely have given any thought to--at least to the extent of
interacting with specific individuals. Fewer students pick this option, but
it seems to be extremely rewarding. The teachers, guidance counselors, and
students in the high schools love it and most of my teams have been "held
over for additional performances." When these teams present in class, it is
in conjunction with the textbook chapter (also usually placed near the end)
on career management. They review their experience, the information they
provided and the questions/concerns of their audience in terms of career
guidance for themselves and the others.
Finally, each team does a second presentation, which is less formal and
occurs a week or two after the big presentations. For this we all sit around
in a group and each team debriefs on the experience they've had working
together. Earlier assignments in the class have included a lot of team
building focus. This is the necessary reflection on how they've done on
applying those things, and I consider it a necessary component for learning
from the process whether things went well or not. It always turns into one
great big celebration of success.
Not all teams do as well on the project itself, and in every class
there seems to be one team that struggles all semester. They know that they
can recover from receiving fewer points on their main presentation, if they
correctly assess what the problems have been and talk about how they plan to
avoid a similar situation when they work in teams in the future. Believe me,
they get very honest in these sessions but then are able to walk away feeling
as good about it as those teams who functioned more smoothly.
Again, I will be happy to mail out a hard copy of the syllabus to anyone who
would like more information. This gets a little more into the philosophy
beyond it all than the description written on the syllabus.
Gayle
Gayle Porter, PhD
Rutgers University
School of Business
Camden, NJ 08102
609-225-6216
gporter@crab.rutgers.edu