A Trio of Experiential Exercises for HRM Courses Kenneth M. York & Lizabeth A. Barclay School of Business Administration Oakland University

Experiential Exercises  Can help students to learn the skills they will need in their careers  Textbook provided exercises often take considerable preparation time to set up  This presentation outlines three experiential exercises for an undergraduate or MBA course: –Realistic –Minimum preparation time –Exercise + Instructor briefing –Linked to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Education Objectives

Videotape Job Analysis  Learning Objective: –Students will practice writing a job description (job tasks) and job specification (worker requirements), by collecting job analysis data from a videotape of a worker doing their job, and being interviewed about their job  Materials: –Videotape: The Changing Nature of Work: Stone Carver [ –Dictionary of Occupational Titles: Job description for STONE CARVER (stonework)

Videotape Job Analysis  Discussion Questions: –Why does observational job analysis work well for the job of Stone Carver? –What job tasks for Stone Carver might have been missed if job analysis was limited to observation? –What worker requirements for Stone Carver might have been missed if job analysis was limited to observation? –What are the working conditions for Stone Carver? –What safety hazards are there for Stone Carver?

Implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act  Learning Objective: –Students will learn how to deal appropriately with an employee or an applicant with a disability, following the legal requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act  Student Roles: –All students given a general role assignment: Assume they are a group of managers at a large software company, in a staff meeting to discuss how you will implement the ADA at your organization –Each student is given a specific role assignment

Implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act –Specific role assignments:  #1: You must say “Can you repeat that?” every time someone says something  #2: Turn your desk/chair around and face away from the group  #3: You must raise your hand to talk. You cannot say anything until someone calls on you  #4 You can only communicate by writing your comments and showing them to the person on your right  #5: You must sit with your eyes closed during the discussion.  #6: You can only talk to the person on your left

Implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act  Discussion Questions: –How did you feel about your role working in the group? –How do you think others in the group viewed you? –How did you feel your role affected your ability to contribute to the group task?

Creating a Management Development Program  Learning Objective: –Students will learn how to create a management development program for adult learners (the rest of the students in the class  The Exercise: –Develop a management development program with three parts:  Classroom instruction  An experiential exercise  Evaluation of participant learning

Creating a Management Development Program  Classroom Instruction –A short presentation in a lecture format, guided discussion, PowerPoint presentation, or other method –The participants will be applying what they have learned in the Experiential Exercise  Experiential Exercise –Create a realistic situation for participants to immediately apply what they’ve learned in the Classroom Instruction –A simulation, role play, an interpersonal activity, a management problem, or a combination of things

Creating a Management Development Program  Evaluation of how well participants have learned –Create some method of evaluation to see how well students have learned –Paper and pencil test, an oral quiz, an application of the knowledge to a new situation, or other method –Should measure how well participants have learned what the Classroom Instruction and Experiential Exercise was intended to teach them

Creating a Management Development Program  Discussion Questions –What management development programs have you participated in? –What did you learn about creating a management development program after creating one of your own? After being a participant? –What different methods of evaluation did you consider? –Why is it important to measure participants’ learning, not just participants’ reactions to the program or their own estimate of how much they learned?

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Cognitive Domain  Videotape Job Analysis –Application, Synthesis  Implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act –Application, Interpretation  Creating a Management Development Program –Application, Synthesis