Amara Atif presented at the FFYE Forum Facilitating Teamwork: Attending to the socio-emotional aspects of effective collaboration. Below she shares a related case study from one of her postgraduate subjects in FEIT.
Some like to say that TEAM stands for ‘Together, Everyone Achieves More’: team members can work together, bring in their strengths, empathise with each other and accomplish outcomes. An ability to work in teams is also one of the essential capabilities valued by employers.
As teachers, we sometimes assume our students know how to work in a team and may unintentionally neglect to provide rules and activities that help students develop their interpersonal capabilities to work effectively in teams. In the subjects I teach, including studios, I use practices and activities that help students develop teamwork and related skills, such as effective communication, respect, active listening, honesty, conflict management, and relationship-building.
A postgraduate teamwork case study
The example here comes from one of my first-year postgraduate subjects, Enabling Enterprise Information Systems. In re-designing the assessment, I paid explicit attention to the FEIT graduate attribute and SLO below:
- Graduate attribute: ‘Collaborative and Communicative: FEIT graduates work as an effective member or leader of diverse teams, communicating effectively and operating autonomously within cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural contexts in the workplace’
- Subject Learning Outcome: ‘Justify use of effective teamwork and communication skills during the execution of innovation driven problems/case studies’.
Below are some practices and activities I use to prepare students for teamwork and develop their teamwork skills. I have used them successfully in the online offerings of some subjects as well as hybrid mode during Autumn 2022.
Understanding attitudes early on
This is a highly collaborative subject so in order to understand my students’ perspectives from the outset, we write a story together on teamwork. Using a Padlet wall embedded into Canvas, students contribute a sentence or two about their understanding of teamwork, challenges and/or strategies to overcome the challenges in teamwork. This activity helps to surface students’ attitude about teamwork and what help and resources I need to provide. It also helps students to decide on the ground rules when teams are formed.
Forming successful groups in larger cohorts
Group formation in medium to large subjects can be challenging if not organised properly. Practices that have worked for me and my students include the following:
- Ice-breaker activities in the first few weeks (week 1-4) to help students get to know each other
- Clear instructions on group formation, including where to form a group (self-sign up or discussion forum post on Canvas), group size, due date by which groups should be formed, and so on
- Finalising groups by the Census date, which really helps with smooth group formation in medium-large classes. This is especially important in my traditional subjects (not studios), where the group project is usually 30% of the work
Ground rules and group processes
Once the groups are formed, students are strongly encouraged to:
- Watch the self-help resources (videos) on group work provided by HELPS together as a group and individually document the lessons learned in online discussions
- As a group, discuss and decide on ground rules for group work, and maintain work and process logs using a team charter and meeting records.
I provide students with sample templates and tools and provide advice on how to manage group meetings.
Staying on track with weekly check-ins and check-outs
I do not leave my students on their own for group work and keep checking on them on weekly basis. The examples below are from the online offering of a subject where the virtual class was in Microsoft Teams, and I used check-in/check-out questions as discussion threads:
One student replied to this Check-Out prompt by noting, “Each student is clear on what their work is for the week and isn’t afraid to communicate with one another to clarify any misunderstandings”.
These check-ins help me to identify struggling groups so that timely help can be provided. Early interventions help students to solve teamwork problems such as communication delays, disagreements, and low engagement.
Assessing group work
In a traditional subject, where the group work is group assessed as a summative task, I usually ask students to submit an accurate and detailed description of each member’s diverse contributions to the project. This helps them to reflect on their group experience. In studios, where the group work is both individually and group assessed, other activities include peer feedback, group reflective commentaries, and digital portfolios. This helps students to understand why they have achieved a specific group/individual mark and view the marking process as fair and transparent.
What the students say
Some student comments from the end of the semester student feedback survey are shared below, in response to the question: ‘What did you particularly like in this subject?’:
There were many good things about this subject! I liked that it was different from other subjects – being more discussion oriented, and more critical thinking, rather than technical. I also really enjoyed the social aspect of this class. We were encouraged to meet new people, and in class we would often work in groups on tables, discussing and bouncing ideas off peers. I met a bunch of people I want to keep working with on projects and keep hanging out with as friends in this class. This is very different to other IT classes I have studied this semester, so it was a good change.
I liked the hands-on activities and group work involvement.
I liked how this subject has allowed us to be creative even in a group environment.
The subject was overall very interesting and helped me learn a lot of new things. I enjoyed working on the assignments very much as they all involved selecting topics of our choices and the variety of options was vast and the topic of assignments were all very relatable which made the process of working on the assignment (individually as well as in a group) fun and helped enhance the learning process.
In summary, teamwork is a challenge not only for students but for teachers as well. However, when used appropriately and organised thoughtfully, it can be a greatest learning experience for our students.
If your current approach designing group assignments, preparing students for group work or monitoring groups needs to be refreshed, feel free to try out the practices and activities featured in this post!
I love this approach.