NUTSHELL NOTES

"Teaching tips in a nutshell" - The University of Colorado
at Denver's One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence

Office of Teaching Effectiveness
1250 14th St. Room 720
Denver, CO 80217-3364

Phone (303)556-4915
FAX (303)556-2678
Volume 2 Number 2

**The Student Management Team Approach to Class Improvement— "TQM" in the Classroom**

"Total Quality Management" (TQM) is a current buzzword (acronym) in management. Ideally, it is the successful application of the quality circle concept that Edwards Deming utilized so successfully to improve the quality of manufacturing in post-war Japan. In brief, the concept recognizes that every employee has valuable knowledge about how his or her particular job might be done better. When these ideas can be heard in a supportive environment so that the total organization is aware of the effects of the individual on the final product or service, and when a formal structure exists through which changes can actually be made as result of ideas and suggestions, the final product almost invariably improves. Further, morale at the workplace improves because employees feel empowered to improve their condition instead of feeling trapped in a situation where their suggestions are not valued.

Deming also was one of the first to recognize that quality cannot be "inspected in" by looking for flaws at the end of the process. Instead, final quality is possible only if attention is given to improvement throughout the process. Our "FCQ" procedures of evaluating the class at the final week and reporting the quality back to faculty is the perfect example of trying to "inspect in" quality at the final moments. As a means of bringing about improvement, it is doomed to failure. Often this inspection becomes the means through which faculty are embarrassed, punished and demoralized, but not helped.

The student management team develops quality through a different approach. Inherent in this approach is the concept of shared responsibility for success or failure of a class by students as well as faculty, and the empowerment of students and faculty to work together for change.

The student management team approach was begun by me in 1990 at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville through a grant from the U of WI System. When I left to take this position at CU-Denver, we had run 60 teams and surveyed over 240 student participants. Only one of those participants failed to list at least one improvement made as result of the teams' efforts. The student management team has proven to be one of the most positive ways to renew teachers by establishing dialogue between professors and students about teaching, and allowing a professor to work with his or her own students to meet the needs of the latter in ways that are continually creative. An outline of the attributes of student management teams follows.

Despite the current enthusiasm for "TQM," about half of all such quality circle efforts in industry fail, and for well-known reasons. To help team members avoid failures, this office provides A Handbook for Student Mangement Teams which provides instruction for faculty and student team members, as well as a brief "crash course" in quality circles. A copy of this handbook is being sent to the secretary of each department on the UCD campus, and you can examine it in your own department. About 160 colleges have purchased copies of this booklet since it was announced in Teaching Professor last March.

Any faculty member with an interest in forming a student management team should attend the Monday, March 8 presentation, Building Academic Community Through Student Management Teams, from 3:00 to 3:50 P. M. in suite 150 of the Dravo building. Feel free to bring a student or two along for this. Refreshments will be provided.

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