Today was the last lesson for BES 2100 class and also our presentation day for the work life balance industry project. All of us of us had being well-dressed for the presentation because Ms. Suma wanted everyone of us to wear in formal. I was quite nervous about the presentation.
Before we start the presentation, Ms. Suma wanted all of the groups’ power point slides to put into the main computer to prevent any corrections or plagiarism. Our group was the third one to present. Before that, we had watched the other two group’s presentation and their performance was just great. We started to feel more nervous because we do not have confidence to perform as well as them.
Finally, it was our turn to present. The introduction part was presented by Joycelyn. At first, she was so nervous until she almost forgot about her script, but slowly she was able to present it in a more comfortable way. Then it was my turn to present the company’s vision part. I was so nervous and my voice was so low. I tried to make my voice louder but I still seem very nervous. After that, it was Millicent’s turn to present on the introduction of work life balance. She was so steady, good and can present it very well without any fear or nervous. Then, it came to the three work life balance that we used for this industry project. Louis Hoe’s presented on Family Day. He looked so nervous also, but yet his overall performance was also good. After that, it was my turn again to present and this time I presented on Company Trip and Millicent presented on Company Annual Dinner. Lastly came to the conclusion and it was presented by Joycelyn. We did show them two video clips of company trip to encourage our agents to hit the target production before we ended our presentation.
I was satisfied for the overall on our presentation. I was so surprised that Ms. Suma said that the information given from our group was specific and very detail. Lastly, I want to say thank you to Ms. Suma and Ms. Linda who thought us a lot of thing in BES 2100 and I learnt a lot and really enjoyed this module very much. I hope I still can see Ms. Suma for the next BES class on next term.
9:19 PM
When I reached the classroom, my classmates told me to get the script result on Giving Voice to Values from Ms. Suma. Out of my expectation, I got 15 out of 20 marks. I saw Ms. Suma’s remarks on my script, which she said that I did not show a development of Lisa’s voice on situation one and situation two. I can see that she likes my situation three more as I did showed a development of Lisa’s voice on that situation and I think that lead to more marks given to me based on situation three because it showed a development of Lisa’s voice. I was so happy and satisfy with my script result. After that, we returned back our script to Ms. Suma because according to her, our script will be sent to Ms. Linda for the second marking, which means that this script’s result was not the final marks.
After that, we submitted our minutes of meeting to Ms. Suma. Today, there’s one group going to present on their industry project. After watching their presentation, every group was required to ask one question for the group which have presented just now. Ms. Suma also commented about the merit and weaknesses of the group which have presented just now. Overall of their presentation, I think that their presentation was good and I like the theme of their work life balance activity - Live Life Lightly (LLL).
After their presentation, Ms. Suma let us to have the remaining time to discuss on our industry project. So for our group, we distributed works to be done for each of us and have decided on parts that each of us do in the report also have to do for the power point slides as well. Our group has discussed about the industry project for nearly 1 hour, after that we went back home.
3:21 AM
Ms. Suma told us that she’s going to show us two videos today. Ms. Suma asked us to discuss on our industry project while waiting for the video buffering. So for our group discussion, we have discussed our company would be an agency under Prudential Insurance. We had also planned schedule and brain stormed for the three types of work life balance activities that we had decided during the previous lesson.
The first video that we watched was about a guy called Richard Branson and the title of the video was “Life at 30,000 feet”. He was the leader of an airline company called Virgin, which has around 55,000 employees working in his company. In this video, Richard Branson shared his success behind the story which includes the ups and downs of his career which lead him to become a multibillionaire today and also talked about work life balance that practice in his company. Richard Branson had a strong believe that if you treat well, people will come back for more, which means that if you treat people good, in return they will treat you good also or even more. He also emphasized that we should be fair in dealing with people. From this video, I’ve learned about leadership and motivation.
The second video was about teen millionaires. The first one was Cameron Johnson, who started his business since he was young and was very successful during his age of 12 and can managed to earn $50,000 in a day. Now he was a millionaire and he had 12 businesses at his age of 21. In this video, he also shared his success which was motivated by Donald Trumph. The second one was Ashley Qualls, who started her web pages business during the age of 14, which lead her to earn around $50,000 to $70,000 per month and she managed to buy a house and staying with her mother currently. Both of them started to make money at a very early age and I’ve learned that motivation can lead to success. Before Ms. Suma dismissed the class, she reminded us to submit the minutes of meeting in the next lesson.
1:55 AM
Today’s lesson was held in the computer lab. Before Ms. Suma started the lesson, she let us played an online game called “Lady Bug Maze”. We were required to find the correct direction for the lady bug to reach the finish line by clicking on the button and make it move. If it faced a corner, we had to find the correct direction to let it moved on until the finish line. We were told to play the game as many times as we can within 10 minutes and I only managed to play 2 games. Ms. Suma told us that this game can help in problem solving.
After everyone had finished playing this game, Ms. Suma wanted us to watch a video about “Belbin Team Role” in YouTube. This video described about the nine different team roles in terms of features, positive qualities and possible weaknesses. Ms. Suma wanted us to listen carefully on the video especially the team role that we had on the Belbin team roles quiz.
After that, Ms. Suma wanted us to sit into our own group for the work life balance industry project and write minutes of meeting and discuss about what kind of work life balance are we going to do for our own group. Besides that, Ms. Suma also asked us to search for the template of minutes of meeting on MDIS blackboard, which she had uploaded it at there. She also asked us to go to ehow.com to read on how to take minutes at a business meeting. Our group had come out with three types of work life balance that we going to use for the industry project. We had also think of the name of our company and number of employees that we going to have in our company. All of our discussions on today will be written in the minutes of meeting.
11:51 PM
Today was the day that we need to submit for the Lisa Baxter’s script. Most of us were late for the class as we all were in the library to print our works. When we reached the classroom, Ms. Suma asked us to have a group discussion based on the scenario that given on last week. This time we had to discuss on scenario 2 – Preserving Our Heritage on page 219 and 220. We were required to find the problem and also generate the alternative solutions for the problem. Ms. Suma did discuss with us about this creative problem solving assignment.
Next, Ms. Suma went through about minutes of meeting with us, which we have to complete for the group project on work life balance industry project, and this accounted a total of 10% of the overall assessment of this module. She asked us to go to www/library to find out ways of keeping minutes of meetings. Ms. Suma further explained the important points in preparing a minute of meeting to us, which include how to set an agenda, purpose of keeping minutes of meeting, the roles and responsibilities of meeting participants, the meaning of quorum and voting rights (how will the team operate it) and, formal construct for the recording of minutes (how to write them).
After the break, Ms. Suma wanted us to make business card and submit it on the next lesson. We were required to produce five copies of business cards which to be given one for Ms. Suma and one each for our team members. The essential information that need to be included on the business card are full name, mobile phone number, ECU email address, other email address and home address. Before the lesson end, Ms. Suma distributed three sets of handouts about the work life balance project, skill assessment and conducting effective team meetings. She also went through with us on the conducting effective team meetings handout before she dismissed the class.
1:02 AM
Today’s lesson was about problem solving, which consist of four steps – 1. Define the problem, 2. Generate alternative solutions, 3. Evaluate and select an alternative, 4. Implement and follow up on the solution. Different steps of problem solving have different characteristics.
In the first step – defining the problem, it includes differentiate fact from opinion, state the problem explicitly and, determine whose problem it is and who resolves the problem. The second step – generate alternative solutions, includes specify both short-term and long-term alternatives that are consistent with goals and specify alternative that solve the problem. Third step – evaluate and select an alternative, includes evaluate relative to goals, evaluate main effects and side effects and, state the selected alternative explicitly. For the last step – implement and follow up on the solution, it includes implement at the proper time and in the right sequence, provide opportunities for feedback, establish an ongoing monitoring system and evaluate the success of the solution.
After that, Ms. Suma told us to read and understand scenario 1 on page 219 which was about moving up in the rankings. We were then told to find the best alternative in order to solve the problem given in the article. Next, we had class activity again. This activity called the Straw Game. We were told to form a group of six. The rule of this game was every member of the group were required to use only one finger to support a straw which we need to bring it slowly from the chest level to the ground (finger needs to touch on the floor), and then have to bring it up again. Whosoever finger did not touch on the straw or the straw drops half way, the group had to redo the whole process again. And luckily, our group managed to finish it up in a very short time.
After the break, we had another activity again. It was a jigsaw puzzle game, which Ms. Suma gave every group a package which contains pieces of paper form puzzle which we need to solve and figure out on it. Our group was the last one to compete because ours was the hardest one among other groups and it was a pyramid. After that, Ms. Suma told us it wasn’t complete yet because we still need to combine with other groups’ pyramid to form into a big pyramid. From both of the activities that we had today, we’ve learn about teamwork among each other.
6:12 PM
On the beginning of the lesson, we were asked to do a 18 questions about “Giving Voice to Values”, which I think was a little bit difficult to me because it not only consisted of multiple choice questions, but also consisted of those short answer questions, which made me a bit lazy to think about those answers. But finally I managed to complete it also. After all of u had finished doing with all the questions, Ms. Suma went through some of the interesting and important questions with us.
After that, she wanted us to read the case of Lisa Baxter on Developing a Voice. We had to understand the story line and the situation and difficulties that faced by Baxter because we are required to write a script based on the three situations which stated on the article and have to hand in two weeks later. The article was actually about Baxter, who faced several sexual harassment by different male colleague when the time she’s still young and junior in her company and she rebuffed on their approach. The worst thing was she never voice out and speaks clearly about their attitudes and behavior to her.
Ms. Suma did discussed and explained to us about Lisa’s situation and how she going to solve the problems. Some of them gave good suggestions on how Baxter going to solve her problem. Ms. Suma also told us that we need to show a development of Baxter’s voice when we write the script. Now, I understand and clear on how to do on the script after Ms. Suma have explained everything to us.
2:51 AM