A HandBook for Student Management Teams

Student management teams are a means to vest students with more responsibility for success and quality of college education. Management teams may be a way of stimulating in young people a desire to be teachers. They begin to see the teacher as a person rather than an authority figure, and indeed a person who genuinely cares about students, about teaching and about learning. If you are looking for a way to improve your effectiveness as a teacher, to raise your scores on your student evaluations, or simply to make some refreshing changes that can retrieve the luster which sometimes vanishes through doing something well too many times, then starting your own student management team is an excellent choice for both improvements and refreshing surprises. However, student management teams are not for everyone. Read this manual before you decide to actually form a team.

       Students represent one of the greatest untapped potentials on campus for improving teaching and effecting change. Campuses don’t always use available talents effectively, and there is no place in which this is more true than in the case of students. Student evaluations are not a substitute for communication, and research shows that evaluations in themselves have a miserable record for producing change. Performing a student evaluation only at the end of a class is an action somewhat akin to reaching for a map only after one is completely lost. Maps are better used to chart progress of a journey,and when so-used the issue of being lost just doesn’t arise.

      I (the senior author) became particularly impressed by the effect of rapport on student evaluations when I gave the University of Colorado’s 37-point Survey of Lecture Skills to my evening physical education class that I taught in Wisconsin as an overload to my normal geology classes. The class was a martial arts class in aikido, run in the fairly traditional manner of Japanese aikido schools (which are superb models of cooperative learning). I received marvelous ratings from the students in all categories, particularly the items that related to clarity, organization and effectiveness of lectures. There was one problem however; traditional martial arts teachers don’t lecture — and neither did I. I got top ratings on lecture skills without giving a single lecture! Instead of lectures, I demonstrated with senior students, and then the class worked in pairs to perfect the movements and learn the concepts. I moved through the class and was able to work individually with practically every student. That personal contact brought superb rapport (a rapport that I sadly have not always been able to achieve in some other classroom situations). That rapport translated into some of the highest evaluations in the university, even on items in which I had absolutely no business being rated highly.

      Since then, I have come to believe that student evaluations should really be called “student satisfaction surveys.” Calling these surveys of “satisfaction” does not belittle their importance any more than customer satisfaction is belittled by manufacturers. One must acknowledge, however, that assessment of quality or quantity of knowledge gained, such as that which might be measured on tests, is not what is being measured during student evaluation. Student evaluation, particularly global questions used as rating items, show a high degree of reliability (i.e. — consistence) with correlation coefficients above 0.8 for classes of 20 students or more. Some faculty committees and administrators have noted that consistence; they then have (unfortunately for all concerned) presumed that the consistence actually translates into an actual measure of successful teaching (i.e. — higher achievement in standardized test scores, higher success of students in careers and graduate schools, better skills in creative or critical thinking, exceptional quantity of learning). In truth, we should make conclusions only on the basis of what we really measure. To claim that what we measure infers something valid about what we do not measure is very dangerous. If one is in fact preparing students successfully and yet receiving low or mediocre evaluations (and this does happen), then communication is likely at fault and there are few better ways than a student management team to improve that wrinkle.

      While even the worst-designed of student evaluation forms will reveal consistent and significant trends of satisfaction, even the best kinds of evaluation forms are unlikely to capture the reasons why students are satisfied or dissatisfied with a course or an instructor. When great efforts are taken in hit-or-miss efforts by faculty to improve evaluations and nothing very beneficial happens, this is truly discouraging, and it can lead to burnout or movement of a good, capable person out of teaching and into another career field. Student management teams can do much to take the hit-or-miss guesswork out of what needs to be done to get improvements. To find solutions, one must communicate and talk with students, and the strong suit in universities, whatever else it may be, is not in promoting such communication. Until the reasons are known, the professor is left in a quandary about what action to take. Student evaluations are valid measures of student satisfaction, but student management teams go beyond evaluation to actually get improvements.

      Our work (the collective work of faculty authors of this manual) with student management teams has drawn heavily upon our prior experiences from industry, research centers, professional societies and community endeavors. Universities are often structured in much the same way as a dysfunctional family, where the members avoid communicating. “Students,” “administrators,” and “faculty” are more likely to be counseled to avoid one another socially than to work together enjoyably and productively to build a true academic community. One only needs to read a single issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education to see how common are the disparaging views that faculty hold about their administrators and administrators hold about their faculty. Department and college structures too often include political and territorial baggage that prevent diverse faculty from working together as effectively as they could. It is small wonder that one of the major complaints of employers is the lack of social skills of new graduates that come from such university environments. Most students have never seen a good example of cooperative management within their university, and this is indeed an embarrassment for institutions which claim to be educating people in how to live rather than in just training them in how to make a living. Student management teams are a means to restore essential communication about teaching and learning between students and faculty.

       “Total quality management” (TQM) using similar principles of Deming and Juran is now being tried at universities to help restore cooperation between members of the academic community. Success in these endeavors will vary, primarily as a function of the sincerity and commitment that participants have in making TQM succeed.

“Students, in conjunction with their instructor, are responsible for the success of any course. As student managers, your special responsibility is to monitor this course through your own experience, to receive comments from other students, to work as a team with your instructor on a regular basis, and to make recommendations to the instructor about how this course can be improved.”

     Student responsibility thus defined is foreign to the traditions of most universities, which seem to assign all blame or credit for teaching and learning to the professor. Teaching is an interaction between a teacher and students, and a class can be improved or damaged by the actions, inactions, attitudes and behaviors of students.

      In implementing the charge, our experience shows that two main themes of focus can often evolve, either or both of which can serve as pathways to improvements.

      One is to focus on the course and to request team input with respect to syllabus, texts, content, emphasis, methods of covering material, improving discussion, attendance and testing. This can begin immediately and has its greatest payoffs later in the semester, as students master and gain perspective of the subject.

      The second is to focus on the professor and to invite the team to suggest ways in which teaching style and general pedagogy can be improved. As one colleague states, “This is not for the fainthearted,” but it is easy to implement and provides tremendous benefit that reaches beyond single classes. Several of our faculty have begun by providing the management team with the 40 - point Survey of Lecture Skills (a modification of a survey developed primarily at the University of CA at Berkeley) as a means to survey the entire class after a few weeks of teaching have transpired. Results from this computer-scored survey serve as a starting place to show which areas might yield the greatest improvements, and the team can commence with concern , and have simply said to the team members, “I want your help on improving in these special areas.” Those with the courage to do this have reaped some of the most spectacular benefits. For students, it is sometimes a shocking revelation to see the kinds of comments that professors receive on evaluations.

Choosing the Team

      Because team members will share in discussions, they must be allowed to share in the information behind those decisions. That often means that the professor must provide the rationale behind the course content, the sequence in which the content is presented, the teaching strategies employed to implement the ideas or behaviors, and the measurements used to assess learning.

     The students whom you choose for your team could be selected: (a) by lot, (b) as volunteers, (c) through nomination by peers, or (d) by personal invitation from the professor. Any mix of students — level(s) freshman through graduate, majors, gender, ages, ethnicity — all may influence the composition of your team. Survey courses, courses which are part of a major or minor sequence, graduate or graduate/undergraduate courses — all service different aspects of the student’s education and engender attitudinal differences and motivations for taking the class.

      Teams with nontraditional student members who had work or military experience flourish. These people sense quickly what is needed to keep a team productive rather than drifting. Such members convey these skills by example so that other members are stimulated to take initiative and responsibility too. A team without direction that lacks members with initiative will simply drift and will produce minimal results. For this reason, a professor will do well to choose at least one of the team members based upon displayed initiative. It is better to assure a productive team than to end up with a team of democratically-elected members, all of whom wait to be led.

      In lieu of having nontraditional students with leadership or teamwork experience, some training in group dynamics can be used to get the team started. We found that teams that receive instruction do tend to achieve earlier results than do teams which learn by experience, but toward the end of the semester many teams without any training perform as well as those with training. Training may be essential to success at those schools on shorter quarter systems. Experience in leadership responsibilities among some of the student members of the team seems to be an effective substitute for formal training in stimulating success. The Appendix contains copies of handouts which have been given during training sessions to student management teams.

       In retrospect, our initial participation in this project indicated that the following practices are helpful.

1. Make the selection of team members after the first 2 or 3 weeks of class. The instructor then has an opportunity to assess individual student interest, perceptions, creativity, and problem-solving abilities.
   
   
2. Invite students who have desired attributes to participate.
   
   
3. Talk with each candidate privately about the role he/she will play in the management circle. Upon acceptance, request a copy of the student’s schedule of free time. Poor attendance will cripple the effectiveness of a student management team. Selecting of students whose schedules are too busy or whose personal tendencies are to lack disciplined commitment will result in too many cuts. Such students should be avoided as team members, no matter what their other qualities or criteria for selection may be.
   
   
4. Encourage students to meet weekly and with you twice monthly.
   
   
5. Provide an initial agenda for the first meeting (see last pages of this section). List some areas of your teaching performance, course, etc., that you want students to help you improve upon.
   
   
6. Be available on request for input, clarification, or to receive the results of the team?s deliberations. Listen.
   
   
7. Follow up and implement selected student suggestions.
   
   
8. Remove any image of elitism at the outset. Inform the class that team is their representative in a quality-improvement role. Encourage class members to contact team members. Occasionally, come a few minutes late to class and give your team those minutes to poll the class for suggestions and concerns.

      Provide clear messages to the students that this is voluntary on their parts and that the tangible rewards come both from improvements for students in their class and for future students whom you teach. Assure them that they are empowered to make changes. It is worthwhile to add that this is an exciting experiment; it is being tried only in a few places and thus they are “cutting edge” in what they may discover.

Stages of Action

      Initial planning takes little time and involves only the decision to form a team and assemble the members. However it is of paramount importance that this planning involve your commitment as a faculty member. If you do not show up for the bimonthly meetings with your team, your sincerity will soon be questioned. Don’t start a team if you aren’t going to give it a fair chance of succeeding by supporting it with your presence.

      The second stage of trust building is very important. As the initial leader of the team, you should try to help define a goal which the team can easily succeed in achieving. Nothing breeds confidence and growing effectiveness faster than an initial success. After that success, the students will likely assume a more independent role in which they are encouraged to think more deeply and can then handle more challenging problems. You must be careful that your own set opinions do not result in belittling students’ concerns at this initial delicate stage.

      In getting effective, you will find that if you act upon the suggestions provided during the term, you will likely be surprised at how greatly these changes actually increase your awareness of students’ needs and, eventually, how employing that awareness improves your students' satisfaction with your course. Most faculty are also pleasantly surprised about how innovative and useful their team members suggestions turn out to be. The most difficult challenge here will be to overcome your own propensity to keep things as they are. Within the limits of good sense, take some risks and see what happens. If students are starting to make their needs known, your positive response to these will likely provide benefits.

      To reap long-term gains, it is important that the team keep a written log of progress. It can be helpful to you if you also keep notes and reflect on insights you’ve gotten or changes that will be needed. One of the most beneficial final activities arises when you have the log and notes in hand and look at the current syllabus at the end of the term. The ideal time to revise a syllabus is when the ways to improve remain fresh in your mind.

Initial Directions and Practices

      If you wish, you can announce to students early in the term that a student management team will be tried in your class. The charge at the bottom of page 3 makes a useful overhead with which to explain the function. You can invite people who are interested in participating to come see you before the team is actually formed. The team should not actually be formed before two or three weeks of ongoing classes because students need time to learn what will help them, and you will be looking during these early weeks for one or two individuals who display real energy to be useful team members.

      Once the team is formed, you can save much explaining by giving every student team member a copy of Section II of this manual. It explains students’ roles as team members and how student management teams may change ideas that students may have had about student-teacher relationships and responsibility for a class.

      1) The team should meet weekly. You should meet with the team twice monthly, or less frequently if the team so recommends. Teams will actually function differently when you are present. It is important to give students their space to develop ideas without any pressure and to let them develop their own team spirit and initiative as opposed to being led by you.

      2) The team should meet in a neutral area away from the classroom and office. If you want to get the deeper thoughts from members, then it is essential that warmth and spontaneity eventually develop within the group. Student center eateries and coffee shops are thus good meeting sites. On occasion, some faculty meet their teams for an evening pizza.

      3) One member of the team should function as a recorder at each meeting. The role of recorder should be rotated among members. Formal minutes are not necessary, but it is important to keep a record of what was discovered, what was recommended, how students’ recommendations were implemented, and what degree of success resulted. Use a single notebook that gets passed between recorders. You will retain the notebook at the end of the course, and you'll find it very useful in preparing your next syllabus.

      4) Remember, you are giving students real authority to make changes. You join the team as a member and as a major resource, but never as a boss and not always as leader. It is important that you listen and try to implement fairly the recommendations that the group makes. The fastest way to destroy your own credibility and to cause the team to fail in its function is to ignore or, worse, belittle your students’ concerns.

      5) Results are not free. Changes require time and work. You yourself must make the ultimate decision about how much time you have to invest in making change during the term. However, you must attend meetings that you commit to, and you must accommodate some of the team’s suggestions during the year. If you do not, you will fall into the role of “unresponsive management,” which is the greatest reason that quality circles in industry or TQM efforts in universities fail. A more complete list of pitfalls is found in “Care and Feeding of Your Professor,” on page 21 of the section that follows which was prepared for students who serve as team members.

      6) If you form a team, make contact with others who are doing so. You will have much in common with other faculty who are also trying this unique and exciting experiment. In our initial research, we had massive gatherings of students and faculty who were members of teams, and students reported on what they were doing and what progress they had made. These proved to be such exciting experiences in forging academic community that we launched a mentoring program based upon student management teams. You may wish to plan a group meeting of teams with other faculty.

Why Should Student Management Teams Work to Improve Teaching ?

      1) The student management team idea is based upon principles of management rather than upon educational theory. Quality circles (QC's) in industry are respected as a means to solve problems and produce quality. Companies that exist to make profits are pragmatic, and those embracing “Japanese management” do so because it works. Corporations have happily experienced the circles producing results for themselves or, failing to use them, have unhappily seen QC's increase the strength of competitors.

      2) Research by Dr. M. A. Shea of University of Colorado at Boulder revealed that the single common trait shared by teachers who were rated as outstanding was interaction with students outside the classroom. This contact builds rapport, and it affects student attitudes and student evaluations. Student management teams can secure that out-of-class time for anyone who chooses to use them; you don’t have to be the student club advisor, a team coach, or a student organizational sponsor to get that time.

      3) Other evidence comes from the field of faculty development, particularly from research on student evaluations. The research of Cohen (1980) shows that evaluations produce major beneficial changes in student ratings only when consultation occurs afterwards.The value of consultation in use of student evaluations has also been documented by research of Robert Menges of Northwestern University and his former graduate student, Kathleen Brinko, now a faculty developer at Appalachian State University. None of these workers considered using one's own students for the consultation process, but our research shows that the student management team meetings serve the consultation function exquisitely. This is because the consultation occurs every two weeks, not just every couple of years, as is usually the case with faculty developers whom the researchers above relied upon. Further, students in the team are not part of an intimidating power structure occupied by higher-ranked tenured colleagues, chairpersons and administrators who might actually do damage in their role as “counselors.” It is easier for professors to expose weaknesses in the context of getting the weaknesses eliminated rather than in the context of being judged for rank and salaries.

Graphical depiction of results of study by Cohen (1980, Res. in Higher Ed., v. 13, pp. 321-341). Faculty who give no midterm evaluations score in the 50th percentile on student evaluations. Faculty who give a mid-term evaluation and examine it raise their scores to the 58th percentile. Faculty who give midterm evaluations and have consultation about them raise their scores to the 74th percentile. Consultation is tremendously important in making improvements in student ratings. Student management teams can provide a large part of the consultation function.

       4) Research (Feldman, 1986; Erdle and Murray, 1986—see p. v this book) show that students' satisfaction ratings are affected by a complex assemblage of traits and behaviors. Improvement must come by working throughout the course at the level of the individual professor. Quality cannot be obtained en masse by administrative mandate nor by "inspecting it in" through en masse evaluations given at the end of a course.

      5) Of faculty who try this, odds are that at least ten out of eleven will achieve benefits from the student management team approach that they will endorse as worthwhile. Of students who were involved as team members, over 97% state that they would serve as team members again. In forty classes where these teams have been used to date, students noted specific improvements in every one.

      Three brief reports from faculty follow, one from a faculty member in English, another from a faculty member in engineering, and a third from a member in business administration. These were prepared in response to the question, “What would I like to tell other faculty and our UW - System sponsors in Madison about my experiences with this year’s Teaching Excellence Center Project?”

      Management teams may be a way of stimulating in young people a desire to be teachers. They begin to see the teacher as a person rather than an authority figure, and indeed a person who genuinely cares about students, about teaching, about learning. Persons can be role models and inspirers; authority figures generally not.

      Management teams are a way of providing a partial substitute for the general lack of individual attention students receive in most classes, particularly large classes. They are a democratic way of focusing on a smaller number of students, paying attention to their concerns and suggestions, and thereby ideally and indirectly paying attention to all students (to the extent at any rate that the management team is representative of the whole). If classes were small enough, if teachers were not overburdened with four sections each semester, the processes used in management teams would be automatically incorporated in the class at large, or at least could be.

      Much of education privileges the professor. Student management teams restore some measure of equilibrium to the process of information transfer by allowing students to reclaim their own education, by allowing them to see their own education not as something done to them, but rather as something they do.

      Student management teams encourage the use of critical thinking and meta-thinking. What happens in the classroom must be put into larger contexts of the total educational process, pedagogy, and personality interaction.

Mary Patricia Dalles, Assistant Professor, Department of English

      Out of this process I have changed the order of material presentation, restructured small groups, changed from groups to pairing f      Out of this process I have changed the order of material presentation, restructured small groups, changed from groups to pairing for outside projects, revamped my handouts, given more exams and fewer papers, and better clarified my expectation. Although many of these changes were not major, the feedback from students through personal discussion and the management team has made it very clear that they have enhanced learning. The class I used this concept on (thinking through a problem and making decisions) is a process rather than content course and thus more difficult to teach. Thus any change which facilitates improvement is usually slow and laborious. The management team concept has created a fast and enjoyable way to change and improve.

      The other aspects of the project were videotaping a class session and administering a developmental questionnaire. The two aspects allowed me to better understand my delivery of material and to use my delivery strengths and work on delivery weaknesses.

      I feel all faculty, no matter how good or bad, would gain insight to improving from participating in the Teacher Excellence Center. I do feel that it has to be voluntary participation and approached with the desire to listen, learn, and improve.

Steve Kleisath, Business Administration/Extended Degree

      So it was with that I embarked with my colleagues on the Teaching Excellence Center Project here at U. W. Platteville. Frankly, I would be lying if I did not admit that I did so with a hearty degree of skepticism. Several biases undoubtedly fueled this uncertainty:

      1.) How could I possibly learn anything from my students? Why, many professors vehemently argue that student evaluations used by many universities are nothing more than meaningless popularity polls. The use of a student management team to critique my course would merely magnify this absurdity!

       2.) How could I possibly learn anything about teaching from my non- engineering colleagues? How could they possibly learn anything about teaching from me? Our courses are so different that certainly we are not qualified to critique or help each other!

      3.) It’s too late to change! I’ve been teaching this way for ten years and the Teaching Excellence Center can hardly change me now! Besides, what do I have to gain from changing or adjusting my teaching methods?

      One year later, I can honestly say that my skepticism was totally unfounded. Not only I have learned more about “teaching,” I have also learned much about my colleagues, my students and myself.

      First, I did learn from my students! From my two student management teams, I discovered that I could relate effectively to my students and they could effectively relate to me. Sure, they know no more (and probably less!), than I do about teaching. But they could tell me when I was getting my point across, and when I wasn’t. They could tell me when they were overwhelmed, and when they understood. From their perspective, they not only gave me suggestions on improving the course, but also complemented me on aspects of my teaching that they thought were positive. Together, we discovered what worked best for that class - not for every class. All of us completed the course with a true sense of accomplishment.

      Secondly, I did learn some things from my colleagues. I even think that they learned a few things from me. Even with little or no comprehension of the subject matter, we could effectively analyze each other’s teaching style in a non-hostile learning environment. The experience of working with colleagues outside my college was in itself so positive that I would embark on the entire process again if that were the sole benefit to the project. I found that the support and exchange of ideas offered by the pilot staff was truly inspirational and rewarding.

      Thirdly, even though I believe that I have been a successful teacher during my career, I could make positive changes to my teaching methods. While some changes were harder to implement than others, I found myself continually making a conscious effort to improve. It is difficult for me to gauge if the Teaching Excellence Center Project raised my individual classroom student evaluation scores. But honestly, I don’t think that is necessarily an objective of the project. If we can assist the teacher and the students in creating a better learning environment, positive feedback will be forthcoming. I do know that my experience was truly enlightening, and I feel my teaching skills have improved and will continue to improve. The Teaching Excellence Center Project worked! When do we start again?

John A. Krogman, Assistant Professor, General Engineering

      The above statements are representative of teachers’ responses. None of these individuals was a “believer” in student management teams before trying them. These were pioneers, trying the idea for the first time and seeing what the results would be. sss

Pitfalls and Healthy Criticism

      Professors who use these teams should read Part II - “Care and Feeding of Your Professor,” particularly the list of points that outline why quality circles fail in industry. There is no need to duplicate that material again in this part. However, below is a listing compiled from student responses. It is useful for learning some trouble spots that students noted in use of the teams. We solicited their response by the following statement.

      We are including a chapter in our report titled “Pitfalls and healthy criticisms." This is intended as a resource on difficulties or problems to look out for during the course of a semester. It will be used by new teachers and students who try student management teams for the first time. If you were to contribute a statement or anecdote that would be helpful under this theme, what would it be?

      This question was added in order to invite devils' advocate stances from students. Students’ responses ranged from “no response” (9) to essays (2). Eighteen students made suggestions only for group members; thirteen students focused only on suggestions for professors, and one student addressed both students and professors. Answers are grouped here by topic, followed by a lesson of what they teach us about planning and working with student management teams. The sample used for this chapter is small but typical.

      A. Three suggestions were made concerning the scheduling of meeting times. This is a major pitfall. If you can’t meet regularly with everyone, you have a major problem.

LESSON: Since students need instruction about SMT ideas and techniques, the “group” meeting at the beginning must be scheduled so all may attend. Scheduling team meetings so that all may attend is important. Some students may not be able to participate at all if they can’t match other students’ schedules. Get started between 1 month and about midterm, after students know you and the course. Meet regularly.

B. Students who chose to address professors grouped their suggestion around (1) communication and understanding student viewpoints and (2) the importance of implementing suggestions.

Typical responses regarding communication and understanding follow.

1. Instructors must remain “open minded. “ (This suggestion appeared twice concerning two different groups).
   
   
2. Don’t lose touch with student needs and problems.
   
   
3. Try to remember what students are experiencing in life and the college experience.
   
   
4. Remember what it was like to be a student.
   
   
5. Give students room for suggestions.
   
   
6. Don’t refuse to accept criticism or beneficial ideas.
   
   
7. Realize some complaints are valid.

LESSON: Professors must remember how difficult this communication situation is for students. Many students are very sensitive to professor attitudes and choice of words or phrases. What we may see as ironic or satirical can easily be interpreted as a ?put down? or rejection. Even our choice of words may be alien to students? vocabulary or understanding. Failure to respond may be perceived as ?closed minded? when, in actuality, we have taken suggestions positively. Communication should also be aimed at student experiences outside our class to avoid a perception of having lost contact with what it means to be a student. At the same time, it must be conveyed to students that nonacceptance of a suggestion does not mean that it wasn?t considered seriously. This is an opportunity to enlighten students about the problem.

Typical responses that show importance of implementation follow.

1. Honestly try suggestions.
   
   
2. Show efforts being made to try improvements.
   
   
3. Don’t remain “set-in-your-ways.”
   
   
4. Don’t refuse to accept criticism or beneficial ideas.
   
   
5. Bring students into day-to-day process.

LESSON: Obviously people become irked when they see their ideas ignored, especially when they have been asked to meet specifically to make such suggestions. The key may well be the involvement of students in the day-to-day process. Showing students why you are not implementing a suggestion (syllabus conflicts, alternate goals, scheduling difficulties, etc. ) may ease such problems. Every effort must be made to communicate about suggestions even if the suggestions are not to result in action. Such communication really helps students see the course from the viewpoint of a teacher, just as they seek to have us see the problem from their viewpoint.

C. Students who chose to address other students grouped their suggestions around (1) making realistic positive suggestions, (2) minimizing “fear” and encouraging open participation, and (3) relationships between instructor and students.

Typical responses regarding positive suggestions were:

1. Nobody will listen to “bitches” and “gripes” - seek reasonable and effective alternatives.
   
   
2. Don’t just complain - seek positive criticisms. (3 responses)
   
   
3. Note strengths as well as weaknesses in course.
   
   
4. Present realistic ideas for change.

LESSON: Such responses would appear to be aimed not only at keeping the process of course modification moving along, but also keeping all members of the SMT on track. A pitfall would seem to be students who slow the group by airing personal complaints and wasting time with self-serving suggestions for improvement. There is opportunity here to promote personal growth and stronger social skills in these students, particularly if the group addresses the problems they may be causing rather than justthe professor. The professor may be rejected out of hand by some difficult students who are still hanging on to the old “they and we” teacher-student adversarial models that actually provide an excuse not to mature. If student peers validate the same concerns as the teacher, that excuse and limit to growth and maturity is removed. They are really forced to confront the power and results of their own actions.

Typical responses to minimizing fears follow.

1. Don’t be afraid to contribute (2 responses).
   
   
2. Get involved and take chances.
   
   
3. Keep class members’ names anonymous.
   
   
4. Show respect and concern for anyone’s opinions - build on them.
   
   
5. Cooperation is essential.

LESSON: Any small group will experience internal problems that stem from individual differences. Some persons don?t speak up, some dominate, and others seek to keep the process moving. It is probably an excellent learning experience in itself to put students in small-group problem-solving situations, especially if we give them training or instruction in group processes.

Typical responses regarding student-teacher relationships in the circle follow.

1. If instructors don’t try changes - call them on it.
   
   
2. As a student you have a right to voice ideas.
   
   
3. Don’t give up - stand up for your ideas.
   
   
4. Seek open communication with students and professor.
   
   
5. Instructors and students must listen to each other’s point of view.
   
   
6. Understand the teacher isn’t a “bad guy” — relate as adults.

LESSON: While it is clear some students see the need for increased communication and open relationships, others perceive of the professor/student relationship as adversarial. There could well be a relationship between the perception of instructor’s not implementing suggestions and the need to “stand up” for ideas. The focus should remain on interacting as adults who are involved for a central purpose. This will go a long way to breaking down the “we/they” mind-set that results in an adversarial relationship and bad cooperation. Maybe then the faculty can retain their image of “good guys” who really care about teaching and learning.

      It is important to note that these insights were obtained by a questionnaire that was filled out anonymously by the student team members at the end of the semester. There is a copy of that questionnaire at the end of Section II (pp. 31 - 33). It might be worthwhile after the team has met for a month to six weeks to have students complete that questionnaire and bring up their concerns at the management team meetings so that perceptions and problems can be examined and confronted. Even with the success of these teams, it was obvious that some opportunities were still being lost through non-communication.

The First Meeting

      We provide suggestions in this part and in the following part to help you and your students to structure your first meeting together. These suggestions work best if both students and professor have read their respective sections of this manual prior to the meeting.

      Along with initial introductions, exchange names and phone numbers in writing so that you can communicate as desired.

      As a professor, it is best if you begin now to practice the skill of listening to students rather than speaking to them. A good way is to ask each student in your team: “What did you learn from reading your section of the manual?” “What are your major aspirations for this team?” and “What are your major fears, if any?” Ask each student to explain why he or she consented to serve on a team. One of these people is likely to ask you in -turn why you consented to form a team.

      At the end of this listening session, let them ask you their questions (their Section II has a “first meeting” suggestion list too).

      You can break ice here if the conversation lags by explaining to the team the reasons for the course, its relationship to the field or profession or general education, and what you expect to accomplish. Ask the team if their expectations and concerns for the course are in accord with your own. Unless this is a new offering, you can bet your students have heard about your course and have some preconceived biases, concerns and reasons for enrolling. This is especially true on a small campus. Learning these can be a good starting point. Bring up particular concerns or problems that you discovered when teaching this course. Assure the team that they are free to select an agenda of their choice.

      If you want the team to focus on your teaching rather than on your course, you might suggest that the team use a good student evaluation survey tool to note what the general class already sees about areas of your teaching that could be improved now. Alternately, supply the results (if you have a good multifaceted evaluation tool) from the last time you taught the course. Your own willingness to see areas that can be improved and asking for students’ help in how the improvements can be made are sure ways to get the team warmed up to produce results.

By the close of the first meeting try to define one small goal — one that can be accomplished without much difficulty, and set a deadline for recommendations. Early success is vital to building group confidence, and deadlines help the group to get into the habit of making good use of their actual meeting time.

PART II - CARE and FEEDING of YOUR PROFESSOR

(SUGGESTIONS for STUDENT MEMBERS of STUDENT MANAGEMENT TEAMS)

We invite your involvement in a student management team. It is far more likely than “evaluating professors” to improve the class you are in, and it will very likely improve it markedly for hundreds of students who will follow you. Moreover, it will probably improve your professor’s desire to teach better, restore his or her faith in students and your own faith in professors, and give you tremendous managerial skills that you can use later in life. Students often believe that only the professor is responsible for the quality of a course and that students are powerless to enact change. In fact, students have power of which they are unaware and they simply fail to use it.

      In 1990 and 1991, students at University of Wisconsin at Platteville demonstrated the error of the image of the “student as powerless.” These students not only improved their professors as teachers, but they also improved their own social skills and those of their professors. They rekindled in some of their professors an enthusiasm for teaching and learning that had become subdued. In the end, they realized that students are as responsible for the quality of a course as are their professors. If twenty courses can be so improved in one short year, whole universities can be improved dramatically in a short time. All it takes is students realizing that they can be effective colleagues with professors in the building of a true learning community.

   Student management teams come out of the concept of quality circles of industry and the life-styles of researchers that allow them to stimulate one another to achieve breakthroughs in research centers. Although the names “quality circles” and “brainstorming sessions” are contemporary, the idea is not new, and one should not attribute the origins of working together to contemporary authors of management philosophies. Informal discussions that produce breakthroughs and improvements arise from both the astounding creative capacity of the human mind and the natural inclination of humans to work together. The first “quality circles” may well have been a group of mammoth hunters discussing better and safer ways to obtain their next meal. Cooperation was once a life and death matter. Only as general cooperation became nonessential to survival was it even possible for such cooperation to become a lost art. Organizations can survive without cooperation, but such organizations are seldom inspirational places in which to work.

     Other than in research centers, sincere informal discussions that involve all levels of the organization have become rare in universities. The formal meeting run under Roberts’ Rules of Order has become the accepted way to interact among members of the university, and the limitations of such structured meetings are seldom questioned. The attendants of formal meetings are not diverse; they usually come from within narrow organizational units. Attendants of these meetings are not simply free to raise the topics that most concern them. Formal meetings do not stimulate new ideas or produce breakthroughs. Successful research directors know the function of informal discussion and the value of the team spirit that comes from human support su     Other than in research centers, sincere informal discussions that involve all levels of the organization have become rare in universities. The formal meeting run under Roberts’ Rules of Order has become the accepted way to interact among members of the university, and the limitations of such structured meetings are seldom questioned. The attendants of formal meetings are not diverse; they usually come from within narrow organizational units. Attendants of these meetings are not simply free to raise the topics that most concern them. Formal meetings do not stimulate new ideas or produce breakthroughs. Successful research directors know the function of informal discussion and the value of the team spirit that comes from human support supplied by groups. They support informal discussions that are held usually outside the work place, because they know what occurs in them.

      Edwards Deming saw the potential that informal discussions between co-workers and management could bring to industry, but his ideas were initially ignored by American boss-managed corporations. Japanese companies were faced with rebuilding a shattered national economy, and thus cooperation for them, as for the mammoth hunters, was a question of survival, not mere political control. Under these conditions, it is not surprising that Japanese companies generally and enthusiastically embraced the cooperative management techniques like those suggested by Edwards Deming. Cooperation among very average people produced the transformation of Japanese manufacturing from the time when “Made in Japan” was a synonym for shoddy junk to the present, when Japanese quality is the very standard by which product excellence is defined.

How Student Management Teams (SMT’s) work