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Faculty forum
You
can't dance...if you don't move your feet!
By Edwin G.
Sapp, UMUC stateside
A long, long time ago, one of my buddies was driving across Texas
at a high rate of speed when he saw a blob on the highway about five
miles ahead. Finally he was close enough to see it was a giant buzzard
feeding on some fresh lunch. He continued to watch this critter until
a minute or so later when he hit it head on, destroying his radiator
and making the predator into fresh roadkill itself. There he sat until
another driver speeding toward him tried to make out what was in the
road ahead. Luckily, the second driver stopped, or I wouldn't have
my friend's story to pass along.
Something dramatic has happened to textbooks in the last few decades:
they are now ''user-friendly.'' This means the columns are smaller,
there are tabs and headings, white space and color coded sections,
text box inserts and elaborate graphics C— all to make reading
difficult material easier. The result is an "uh-huh" textbook.
You read a page, say "uh-huh," read another, say "I
knew that," and 40 pages later you're clueless in Seattle about
what you just read.
If a student doesn't get involved, the student doesn't learn. If
my buddy just watches the road, he kills a buzzard and his car.
If you don't move your feet, you can't dance.
In my Writing for Managers (COMM 390) classes, I require new employee
background papers from each student who now "works" for
me. I assign four or five to find new employees and the rest to
write résumés for positions in our company. The positions
open are related to but deliberately not exactly matching student
experience. The group selects candidates, interviews, and the class
lives the position filling process firsthand. This exercise works
in the four-walled classroom, in interactive television (IVN), and
in instructional television (ITV) settings. The students have moved
their feet.
In all my classes I require the students to do a good deed —
with some amazing results. The assignment is simple. Students are
instructed:
1. Carefully select an individual at your place of work or at
some establishment with which you do business.
2. Consider any significant act of kindness or "above and
beyond the call of duty" that this person has performed in
your behalf or for another person.
3. Determine the name of the individual's supervisor.
4. Write a short note to the supervisor, describing the action
that merited your appreciation. Be certain to include FACT, QUANTITY,
and IMPACT (that is, substantive details) in your description of
the service performed.
5. Deliver the note to the supervisor.
6. Write me a note describing precisely what happened as a result
of your note.
7. Verbally report the project and its results to the members
of your class.
Since I introduced this assignment last year, some 300 students
in each of my classes here and at Prince George's Community College
have participated in this simple task — motivated in part by
the note on the assignment that their compliance will weigh heavily
on their "participation" grade for the semester.
Among the results: A new employee at Wal-Mart was given permanent
status and a salary raise as a direct result of a student's note
to the supervisor reporting her effectiveness, three employees were
given cash awards, and a dozen or so received recognition ranging
from free parking or lunch to a letter of commendation for their
promotion files.
Student reaction was overwhelmingly favorable and included universal
surprise that a simple note could have such an effect. Several of
my business writing students have since told me that this practice
has become a way of life for them. I printed the assignment on gray
parchment paper and explained the impact they should expect. Consequently,
all took the assignment seriously, performed a service that otherwise
would not have occurred, and cemented the relationships between
this campus and the surrounding business community in a lasting
manner through a simple note and an act of kindness.
When their feet moved, they touched nearly 300 lives and learned
that positive actions in the workplace bring powerful results —
but require breaking down a wall of inertia that too many managers
have, because they never learned to dance.
Do you wanna dance?
Ed Sapp has been an adjunct professor of communication
studies at UMUC since 1993. A native of North Carolina, he and his
wife Jeannie, pictured with him, above, reside in Bowie, Md., with
the remnant of their eight children, a watch dog (Max), and two
attack cats (Hobbes and Lexi). As Ed explains, "Whenever anything
happens, Max watches and the two cats promptly have an attack."
He has written several articles for UMUC's Faculty Focus newsletter.
Faculty forum
is a new series highlighting the work of UMUC faculty. To be included,
e-mail Pamela Witcher, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment,
at pwitcher@umuc.edu.
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