Interviewing and Business Communication.

The experiential learning in CMM 322 was two fold. First, the students interviewed with business professionals to prepare them for real job interviews. Secondly, they worked with organizations in the Dayton area for the entire semester to create surveys to help the organizations uncover needs or ways to improve. Toomb has done both of these experiential learning activities for the last two fall semesters. In the coming years she wants  to add a third aspect of experiential learning to this course. She would like to invite Mary Starvaggi, who is a business etiquette consultant to come to campus and give the students business etiquette advantage training to help prepare them for the "real" world. 

Toomb's activity enabled active, hands-on, self-guided learning in several ways. The students were taped during the interviews in the Fiore Talarico Sales Center. 8-10 business executives with decades of business experience came to conduct these interviews. Watching the film allowed the students to see both their verbal and nonverbal skills while answering questions. With the organizations, they were randomly paired in groups of four at the beginning of the semester and they determined goals the organization would like them to accomplish. Utilizing these goals and communicating with the organization at least once a week, the students wrote surveys, administer them and tabulate the results. The final in this class was a group presentation to the organization regarding the results they found and how the accomplished the goals set in early September. 

Students reflected on what they learned throughout the semester by writing an evaluation of what they learned and how they planned to utilize some of the tips in their business lives. This experiential learning activity helped to advance some of UD's institutional learning goals by offering students practical wisdom as well as critical evaluation of our times. Professional etiquette gives them the wisdom to be more prepared in their careers upon graduation.