Interview a person who identifies him/herself as coming from a different cultural, religious, ethnic, racial or class background than you. Base your interview questions on that person’s educational and personal experiences while growing up. Then write a 2-3 page typed, double-spaced report with a brief discussion of the different group you interacted with. A thorough discussion of how the person differs from you (for instance, the values, beliefs, communication behaviors, assumptions, etc.). A brief description of your experience and a discussion of what you have learned from the interview.  Make sure to also answer the following questions:

1. How did the background and/or identity of my interview subject play a part in his/her educational experience?
2. How did the background and/or identity of my interview subject play a part in his/her personal experience growing up to be who they are today?
3. What information did you learn about the individual that surprised me the most?

When choosing your subject, remember that the object of this assignment is to discuss difference between individuals. The point here is to understand how a person’s identity played a part in his or her education and personal experience growing up. 

THE INTERVIEW: Issues of culture, religion, ethnicity, race, and class contribute to the multiple experiences that individuals encounter while attending school and while growing up. During your interview, try to identify the ways in which your interview subject has had educational experiences that were different from your own because of his/her background or identity. For example, you may interview a student who identifies themselves as coming from the working class, and who was tracked into lower tracked classes. Or you may interview a person who identifies as a member of a certain religion or denomination, or who comes from a different racial or ethnic background than you. Questions which focus on how this student experienced school and what their childhood was like should be the key elements of the interview. You may also need to gather information that helps support why you consider this person to be different than you. Remember that the central objective of this exercise is to identify difference and to understand how that difference affects one’s schooling and childhood. 

For this discussion, you will practice analyzing processes to identify functional requirements for a system to improve a process.

Some students may still have difficulty identifying processes; be sure to refer to the Week 3 readings that describe various processes and review the Week 3 discussion. Keep in mind that a process is a set of specified steps to accomplish a task.

This week’s discussion topic focuses on functional requirements that need to be clearly written so that the people who are developing the system or evaluating a system for use can discern whether the functional requirements are met or not.

The functional requirements statement:

• Is a complete sentence, with a subject (system) and predicate (intended result, action, or condition)
• Identifies only one requirement; does not include the words “and,” “also,” “with,” and “or.”
• For functional requirements, state what tasks the system will support or perform
• Includes a measure or metric that can be used to determine whether the functional requirement is met (time or quantity), where appropriate
• Is stated in positive terms and uses “must” (not “may” or “should”); e.g., “the system must XXXX” not “the system must not xxx”
• Avoids the use of terms that cannot be defined and measured, such as “approximately,” “robust,” “user friendly,” etc.
• Must be testable; that is, there must be some way to test the system to determine whether the requirement is met

1. Drawing from your own experience, select a process used at your place of work or in your interaction with an organization that you would like to see improved. Explain why you picked that process.

2. Imagine that a system is to be implemented (or an existing system improved) to make that process better and write five (5) functional requirements for the system to perform. Each requirement is one sentence in length and addresses one thing the system must do. Here we are interested in functional requirements – the activities the system must perform to support the identified process. Use the information above to create your functional requirements statements.

Example of a process is Marketing Process. You can use this or another example.

An important part of any change project is how the change is communicated to the organization, to the change agents, to the line workers, to the customers, and to the public. Along with media relations issues, communicating change (especially in a publicly traded company) can involve multiple legal and regulatory aspects as well as personnel and management concerns. Perhaps the single most difficult piece of handling Kotter’s “establish a sense of urgency” is that too many inexperienced or immature change agents read this to mean “panic the troops.” Never do this.

This project piece will have three parts.

PART 1: (GRID) The main part of this project component will ask you to pick one of the company’s change plans and develop a communication plan for the company. This plan should be submitted by using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and setting out the stakeholders, the timeline of the communication plan, the method/form of communication, the rationale for why you chose this method of communication, the purpose of the communication, and identifying who will do the communicating. HRM587CommPlanGridforWeek7.xlsx Download HRM587CommPlanGridforWeek7.xlsx

PART 2: (HYPOTHETICAL) As the Change Manager, select one of the communication pieces (text or oral) that you would have used that is listed in your communication plan, and write the communication in a Microsoft Word document. Be sure to review the chapter 7 information and the examples of communication plans and types for more assistance on this section of the project. If you use any form of communication from templates you find online or in a textbook, be sure to cite your source.

PART 3: (FACT) Locate and attach the ORIGINAL press/media release of the crisis/event/situation/problem/issue of your course project company. (OPINION-BASED) Write a 1-2 page paper analyzing any media, news, or other communications that explained the change going on in the organization. Explain in your paper how the company handled communicating the change to its stakeholders.

THE RESEARCH QUESTION FOR MY ASSIGNMENT IS: How can virtual learning affect higher education?

STEP 2:   What specific points does the article make that will assist you in writing a paper that addresses your research question?  [Please write at least two complete sentences.]

STEP 3: Using the general evaluation criteria described in Week 3, explain how the article you selected meets the qualities that are important in the Evaluate stage of information literacy. The qualities to consider include quality, accuracy, relevance, bias, reputation of the author(s), and credibility of the information resources.  You may not be able to comment on each quality, but please share your overall assessment of the value of the article using the criteria described in Week 3.   [Please write 2 – 3 complete sentences for your selected article.]  

STEP 4:  Point to an example in your article in which the author(s) do one of the following:

refer to another work to give legitimacy to their own point;

refer to another work to build upon the ideas of others; or

refer to another work to challenge its argument.

Explain in two sentences how this reference to another’s work contributes to your confidence in the value of the article and helps you to form your own ideas about the facts.  

STEP 5: In this final step, demonstrate your ability to capture the essence of your chosen article and how it illuminates important points about your topic. 

For your final requirement, write a three-paragraph essay that is structured like this:

In the first paragraph, introduce your topic and your research question. Briefly summarize the main point of the article. 

In the second paragraph, describe how the article informed your research.  

In the third paragraph, state what you’d still want to learn. Explain how you might alter your search strategy to get to the information you are missing.  Provide a conclusion about your progress.  

1. Each Group chooses one famous hurricane: Galveston 1900, Andrew 1992,
Typhoon Tip 1979, Katrina 2005, Typhoon Haiyan 2013, or Patricia 2015.
2. Do some research together and discuss with your group.
3. Prepare a short report (2 – 3 pages) about a famous hurricane. We will talk
about the hurricanes in class. You choose the program to use: for example
Word, Power Point, or other program
4. Turn this in as your Lab Report.
? Your Report should include these details: photos of the storm (hurricane)
(3 pts), category of the storm (1 pt), maximum wind speed (1 pt), lowest
pressure at the center of the storm (1 pt), diagram or description of the
path the hurricane took (2 pts), description of storm damage and impact on
people (3 pts), other interesting details (3 pts), sources used (2 pts).
? Grading: Included all storm details (16 pts), report is well organized (4 pts).
? Note: It doesn’t have to be fancy! Just organize the information about the
hurricane on a few pages in a clear format. You may use sentences or bullet
points for the text.