Erica,
Here are a couple of quick ideas for you from my experience teaching I/O a
year ago. I am not at my office where my files are and I cannot recall all
the exercises I did, but I'll share what I can recall.
The first day of class students formed small groups (4-6 members) in which
they constructed a "fantasy" organization and then applied lecture/text
material within their organization throughout the semester. At the end of
the first class meeting they were to provide me with the type of organization
(e.g., regionnal brewery, nonprofit child abuse prevention council), the name
for their company (Appalachian Brewery, Citizens for the Prevention of Child
Abuse), the job titles of the employees (e.g., brew master, administrative
assistant). Students were told the company was to employ at least 25 people
and that it could be profit or nonprofit. My classes met for 1-1/2 hours a
day, and the fantasy organizations were given about 30 minutes to complete
assignments. For example, students wrote a job description for the brew
master, developed a performance appraisal instrument for the brew master
position, developed a training program for brew master, applied different
motivational theories to their organization (I usually wrote one case study,
and adapted aspects of the case study for each fantasy organization.)
As you are already into this semester and beginning the O part, you
could have students still form organizations and have them write a mission
statement for their organization, and develop O activities for in-class or
out-of-class application to their organization.
The fantasy organization idea was from Wann, D. L. (1994) Developing
fantasy organizations in industrial/organizational psychology courses.
_Teaching of Psychology, 21_, 177-179.
Other activities: Students developed a stress interview/questionnaire
from the Critical Incidents Technique job analysis, then paired up and
interviewed each other on the student's current or past job, wrote a summary
of the interview in which the types of incidents which elicited stress were
identified and described, and made recommendations for restructuring the job
situation to be less stressful. I believe most I/O texts have an example of
the Critical Incidents Technique.
Using case studies, students appled lecture/text concepts in small
groups. Case studies can be found in I/O texts, organizational Psyc texts,
or can be developed.
I also had students analyze the communication structures in their
current workplace, and make suggestions for improving the communication
structures; analyze their own motivation at work and in their courses using
different motivational theories; administered in class Fiedler's Least
Preferred Coworker Scale so students could determine their leadership style;
write a personal mission statement for their education.
Some ideas for resources: Paul Muchinksky's text (_Psychology applied
to work_) and Michael Aamodt's text (_Applied industrial/organizational
psychology_) both had good instructors guides and student workbooks that I
borrowed activities from. For example, Muchinsky had a job analysis project
that I adapted for use in my class.
I hope this helps get you started on some ideas.
Good luck!
Marty
Marty Brown, Ph.D.
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
