Reflections Writing

Running head: FIRST REFLECTION 1

(student name here)

MADS 6645: Marketing Social Change

Prepared for Rajesh Kumar

FDU

Assignment # 1; First Reflection

FIRST JOURNAL ENTRY 2

Objective

This is my first reflective writing entry for PIDP 3100: Foundations of Adult Learning.

For this assignment I have chosen to look at the quote “ “21 st century competencies” include

“deep understanding, flexibility and the capacity to make creative connections” and “a range of

so-called ‘soft skills’ including good team-working” ” (Merriam & Bierema, 2014, p.4). At its

core, this quote is saying that it is no longer satisfactory to simply know the facts and theory of a

particular field of study, it is also important to be effective in the way we deal with people in our

chosen profession.

Reflective

This quote brings home the frustration I dealt with in my former career managing an IT

team. Trying to get highly intelligent IT professionals to carry on a simple conversation,

especially in a business setting, was exceedingly difficult. Many of these folks graduated in the

‘80’s and ‘90’s and were very well educated in how computer systems operated. However, the

skills they needed to “sell” their ideas to management were not taught. As a result, many good

ideas were never brought to fruition. In some cases, an inferior solution was chosen simply

because the employee proposing the idea was far more coherent to the people signing the

cheques.

This has led me to emphasize the idea of professionalism in my students. Much of my

week in the classroom is in a lab setting. One of the courses I helped develop involves

performing a scheduled inspection on a small aircraft. The class is broken into groups of three to

four students, predetermined by the instructor. It is very self-directed in that the group members

select tasks from the inspection sheet, research how to do it, then perform the inspection. The

FIRST JOURNAL ENTRY 3

emphasis of the evaluation is not based on whether or not they complete the entire inspection,

but rather the quality of the work in completing those tasks.

Essentially, we don’t teach the students how to do the task; we try and teach the students

how to work as a team. Quite often, we’ll grade a student poorly, even though they are proficient

in performing the task, simply because they are working as “loners”. With a daily rubric to

provide feedback, they can take steps to correct this tendency. This is the first time I’ve been

involved in a course like this and we’ve had a tremendous amount of positive feedback from the

students on this course. Unfortunately, when other instructors teach the same course, this

approach can be lost.

Interpretive

There is one incident that really brought home the “aha” feeling for me. A few years ago,

a group of students rebuilt a light aircraft engine as part of a lab course. During a run in the test

cell, the engine suffered a catastrophic failure. Fortunately, there were neither injuries nor further

damage to the facility. However, the $30,000 engine was destroyed. The cause of the failure was

determined to be an under-torqued nut on a connecting rod. We now use the engine as an

“educational tool” to show the results of not following instructions.

However, the first year I taught this course and showed a group of students the engine, I

was asked “Did the student fail the course?” I thought about the question and replied that he

hadn’t. In fact, he got a pretty good mark.

I then posed the question, “What do you think the purpose of this course is?” Some reply

that it’s to rebuild an engine. If that was the case, we wouldn’t disassemble them to begin with.

Others say that it’s to learn about what’s inside an engine. If that was the case, we’d simply take

FIRST JOURNAL ENTRY 4

ONE engine apart and show the students the parts without risking ten engines worth $30,000

each! Usually someone will come close to the answer I’m looking for: we have them rebuild

engines because it’s a good exercise for them to learn and practice teamwork, following

instructions and hand skills. The student responsible for damaging the engine only made one

mistake. However, he was an excellent team player and showed excellent leadership skills, even

owning up to the mistake.

In lab courses, it’s easy to demonstrate and promote soft skills. Traditional lecture style

courses can be a lot tougher. “Soft skills cannot necessarily be taught as separate course material,

and require much practice and repetition. From the very beginning, professors should make clear

that there are actual grade ramifications for neglecting certain soft skills, such as

professionalism.” (Adjunct Professor Link, 2016, para. 10). For this reason, in our lab courses,

we have started using rubrics defining what we regard as professional behaviour and marking the

students accordingly. It provides the students with timely feedback and instructors with

validation for the marks given. I had always though that this type of skill could not be taught in a

lecture style course, but now realize that it can and must be integrated into my courses.

Decisional

To bring the idea of soft skills into the classroom, I will be trying techniques in my

Aircraft Systems lecture classes that will require many of the soft skills outlined by Schultz such

as interpersonal skills, communication skills, problem-solving skills and teamwork (Schultz,

2014). An in-class research activity with the students working in small groups could easily be

used. An aircraft systems problem can be described, requiring the students to develop a

FIRST JOURNAL ENTRY 5

troubleshooting plan and present their findings. I can evaluate their teamwork and problem

solving skills as they work. Communication skills can be evaluated as they present their findings.

The Adjunct Professor Link (2016) suggests critiquing e-mail etiquette as a method to

evaluate professionalism. Building on this, I will be looking at ways to incorporate discussion

forums in the curriculum for the same purpose. So far, all of the adult educational courses,

including PIDP 3100, have used forums for evaluation so I intend to try this in my classes.

As both the Adjunct Professor Link (2016) and Schultz (2104) suggest, leaving it up to

the students to learn professionalism on their own is a recipe for failure. Going forward, I plan to

put a lot more emphasis on these skills in my own classroom. I plan to use one quote from my

research in class. It is attributed to Rick Stephens, Senior Vice President of HR, The Boeing

Corporation and I believe it sums up the importance of soft skills nicely: “There's not one

specific thing or skill people have to have to work for us. But I can tell you why we fire people:

soft skills. We hire for hard skills. We fire for soft skills.” (Adjunct Professor Link, 2016)

References

Merriam, S. B. & Bierema, L. L. (2014). Adult learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Adjunct Professor Link. (2016). Shifting to a Hard Focus on Soft Skills. Retrieved from

https://adjunctprofessorlink.com/blog/best-practices-for-teaching/Adjunct-Professor-

Link---Shifting-to-a-Hard-Focus-on-Soft-Skills

Schultz, J. (2014). Soft Skills Curriculum in CTE Education. Retrieved from

http://www.aeseducation.com/2014/06/soft-skills-curriculum-cte-education/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoI67VeE3ds&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SntBj0FIApw&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2qZX3M_9MY