Use of Teams in Classes• Who?

• What?

• When?

• Where?

• Why?

• How?

Who and When?• All of us• In class• Out of class (sometimes)

– Effective/Successful Students Team Up• Lawyer movies – what do they do?

– May also be on other teams • I know you have a life, job, other classes.

– Will have scheduling problems• Team learning maximized effectiveness

Less time studying for exams.

Use of Teams• In industry / business:

– Management teams (Team Xerox, San Diego Zoo)– Continuous Quality Improvement teams (CQI)– Design/Build teams (Chrysler H-car, Boeing 777)

• In academe:– Cooperative learning

• Short-term groups• Long-term groups• Base groups

– Project-based courses• Single-discipline teams• Multi-disciplinary teams

– Design Courses• Technical multi-disciplinary teams• Cross-functional teams (marketing, engineering, law, etc.)

Why Use Teams ?

• For effective meetings• To work on homework• For test preparation• Effective Use of Lab Time

Teams are vital because all the following are divisible, optimizing, conjunctive tasks:

What Employers Want: A Summary

• Learning to Learn • Group Effectiveness: Interpersonal Skills,

Negotiation, and Teamwork• Listening and Oral Communication Skills• Competence in Reading, Writing, and Computation• Adaptability: Creative Thinking and Problem Solving• Personal Management: Self-Esteem, Goal Setting,

Motivation and Personal/Career Development• Organizational Effectiveness and Leadership

Why Use Teaming in the Classroom?

• Larger pool of ideas• Accomplish more in less time• Interaction between team

members encourages more & better learning

• Teaming skills are valuable in industry

(From the Student’s Perspective)

Why Teaming in the Classroom?• Helps weaker students by providing a resource

• Helps average students by exposing to more viewpoints

• Helps stronger students by allowing them an opportunity to teach and really learn

• Teaming really works– Chem. 100, Fall 2003: 1st Exam Average 82%– Chem. 100, Winter 2004: 1st Exam Average 94%– Same questions, W’04 slightly more difficult.

What is a team anyway?

• A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable– Small Number– Complementary Skills– Common Purpose & Performance Goals– Common Approach– Mutual Accountability

What do we do in teams?• Not just more problems that could be worked

individually– Cement knowledge by tackling problems where

we use & apply the concepts.

• Adjusts instructor to student ratio – From 1:48 to 1:4 or 1:12

• Team Working Goal:– To spend class time discussing the material – not

just finish up fast.

How do we form teams?• Not self selected• Academically heterogeneous• Women and other represented groups

in pairs [unless late in semester…]

• LCC Summer 2004: – Let’s self-select but with our schedules in

mind.

How do we grade teams?• Peer component of grade

– Identify & rate team on in-class exercises• Honest ratings allow instructor intervention/help.• Polite, high ratings don’t improve your grade.• Average rating should be 3, not 4 or 5.

• Individual accountability– Self: you’re still responsible for your learning.– Preparation required– Exams are still Individual Effort

Ten Common Teaming Problems• Floundering• Overbearing participants• Dominating participants• Reluctant participants• Unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts• Rush to accomplishment• Attribution• Discounts and "plops"• Wanderlust: digression and tangents• Feuding members

From Scholtes, Peter R., The Team Handbook, Joiner Associates (1988)

Team SkillsDevelopment

PerformanceImpact

WorkingGroup

Potential Team

Real Team

High-Performance Team

Pseudo -Team

Impact of Team Development

To Realize the Benefits of a Team CultureRequires a Change in ‘Classroom Behavior’

FROM TO

Directing Guiding

Competing Collaborating

Relying on Rules Relying on Guidelines

Lecturing Team Activities

Consistency/Sameness Diversity/Flexibility

Secrecy Openness/Sharing

Passive Active

Isolated Decisions Involvement of Others

Results Thinking Process Thinking

Benefits of Team Culture

National Training LaboratoriesBethel, Maine 1-800-777-5227

Dale, Edgar, Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching, third edition, Holt Rinehart, Winston, 1969.

Lecture

Reading

Audio-Visual

Demonstration

Discussion Group

Practice by Doing

Teach Others / Immediate Use

5%

10%

20%

30%

50%

75%

90%

Learning Pyramid

Average Retention Rate

Team Composition and Roles• It is essential that the right people be assigned to the team. • Each person should be selected based on his or her

knowledge and expertise. • In addition to selecting the appropriate people, there are also

key roles that are essential to the overall team's success. Key roles include: – meeting leader

– Facilitator

– team member

– Recorder

– Timekeeper

– encourager/gatekeeper

– devil’s advocate.

• Roles should rotate among team members.

Meeting LeaderThe team leader is the person who manages the team: calling and, if necessary, facilitating meetings, handling or assigning administrative details, orchestrating all team activities, and overseeing preparations for reports and presentations.

The team leader• Is the contact point for communication between the team and

the instructor• Coordinate and prepare agenda• Coordinate time,date and place of meeting• Make sure all necessary resources are available for the meeting• Keeper of Code of Cooperation• Monitor the decision making process• Coordinates process check

Facilitators are "outsiders" to the team, and maintain a neutral position. One of their most important jobs arising from this neutrality is to observe the team's progress, evaluating how the team functions, and use these observations to help the team improve its process (how members interact both inside and outside of meetings). The faculty member will perform this role in the classroom.

The facilitator: • Focuses on the team's process more than its product; is concern more

with how decisions are made than what decisions are reached• Evaluates team task and process performance• Continually develops personal skills in facilitating, group processes,

and planning. Learns a variety of techniques to control digressive, difficult, or dominating participants, to encourage reluctant participants, and to resolve conflict among participants. Learns when and how to employ these interventions and how to teach such skills to team members

• Performs traditional faculty functions

Facilitator-Faculty

Team MemberTeam members--typically three to four per team--are the rest of the people involved in the project. Team members are appointed by the faculty. The nature of the project dictates who they are: usually students with complementing abilities.

Team members:• Team members should consider their participation as a priority

responsibility, not an intrusion on their real jobs. • Are responsible for contributing as fully to the classroom activities,

sharing their knowledge and expertise, participating in all meetings and discussions, even on topics outside their areas.

• Carry out their assignments between meetings. The tasks will be selected and planned at the meetings.

• Should be open minded about others' ideas, share information, and contribute constructively to the team process.

• Should help each other understand the material.

RecorderThe recorder is the team member who is responsible for making sure that the process(es) being used by the group is documented. This includes writing down all the important points of a discussion and preparing the minutes of a meeting.

Time KeeperThe time keeper has the responsibility of keeping the team moving so that they finish the task at hand.

Encourager/ GatekeeperThe encourager/gatekeeper has the task of giving encouragement to all the other team members. When a team member makes a contribution, they can comment “good idea” or “nice thought”, etc. The encourager/gatekeeper also has the responsibility of maintaining a balanced level of participation for all the members. They will encourage the silent members and try to hold back the verbose, dominate members. A team functions when all members ideas and thoughts are heard; the encourager/gatekeeper helps ensure this.

Devil’s AdvocateThe devil’s advocate takes a position opposite to that held by the team to ensure that all sides of an issue are considered. This responsibility should be undertaken by all team members.

Other Important Roles

• Learn the essential elements of a functioning team

• Learn some important aspects of team building and team functioning

• Prepare and present a short, informative talk to a small group

• Work as a group to accomplish a task

Jigsaw Exercise Goals

• A Jigsaw is an active learning exercise in which:

– a general topic is divided into smaller, interrelated pieces (e.g., the puzzle is divided into pieces)

– each member of a team is assigned to read and become an expert on a different piece of the puzzle (e.g., one person is given the Team Building Issues puzzle piece, another the Team Composition & Roles piece, etc.)

– after each person has become an expert on their piece of the puzzle, they teach the other team members about that puzzle piece

– after each person has finished teaching, the puzzle has been reassembled and everyone in the team knows something important about every piece of the puzzle

Team Dynamics Jigsaw

Functioning as a successful team requires the integration of many different activities. If any piece of the puzzle is missing, the team is generally a group and not a team

Stages ofTeam Development

RecurringPhases

Good Team Members

Team BuildingIssues

Jigsaw Deployment Flow Chart

Jigsaw Instructions

AssignReading

Instructions for the Process Check and

Check for understanding

ExpertGroups

Workshop Facilitators Individual

SemesterTeams Time

Process Check

Read the Assigned Material

Expert GroupsPrepare a 5-Minute Tutorial

10 minutes

20 minutes

20 minutes

20 minutes

Deliver 5-Minute Tutorials to your team members.

Becoming An Expert

• Expert groups discuss the reading material and help one another to prepare a 5 minute tutorial to use in educating your semester team members later in the class

• In developing your tutorials try to:– develop a common, expert group tutorial

(same topics, same emphasis, etc.)

Educating Your Team• One at a time, each team member

will present his/her tutorial to the other members of the team

• The order of the tutorials will be expert 1 first, expert 2 second, expert 3 third, and expert 4 fourth

• If the tutorial finishes before five minutes are up do not go on; check for clarification and wait for the signal to proceed to the next tutorial

Form Teams!

“Adult students should be involved in the determination of the work groups. You will need to discuss with them the possible options and how the groups will be expected to work together. Students may want to vary the formation, as well as size, of the groups after considering the projects on which they will be working. Among the options are:

– students choose their own groups; – instructor assigns students to groups; – random assignment; or – assignment based upon similar interests or specific

criteria.”1

1 Cooperative Learning: A Classroom Guide, Arlene F. Sego

Team Seating ChartNorth Back of Room South Row

8 8 8 8 9 9 9

7 8 9

6 6 6 6 10 10 10 7 7 7

5 6 10 7

4 4 4 11 11 12 12 5 5

3 4 4 11 11 12 12 5 5

2 1 1 2 2 3 3

1 1 1 2 2 3 3

North Front of Room South

Team Exercise

• Each team spends:– 2 minutes introducing themselves (yes it’s fast)– 1 minute assigning tasks (Topics 1-4)– Now we break up: for expert work groups.

• Exper groups spend:– 5 minutes reading about their topic– 10 minutes planning what to say:

• In your notes, write down a title for your topics.• Making a short list of notes, underlining the slides?

– Watch the clock – you only get a total of 15 minutes!

• Teams reform and educate each other on their expert topics – 5 minutes per person.

• Fill out your active learning log.

Expert GroupsBack – left of room:

Topic 3

Back – right of room:

Topic 4

Front – left of room:

Topic 1

Front – right of room:

Topic 2

Or use tables outside – but don’t waste time…

Code of Cooperation

• Should be developed, adopted, improved or modified by all team members.

• Should always be visible to team members.

• Sets a norm for behavior (Code of Ethics for your team)

Adapted from the Boeing Airplane Group team Member Training Manual

1. EVERY member is responsible for the team's progress and success. 2. Attend all team meetings and be on time. 3. Come prepared. 4. Carry out assignments on schedule. 5. Listen to and show respect for the contributions of other members;

be an active listener. 6. CONSTRUCTIVELY criticize ideas , not persons. 7. Resolve conflicts constructively. 8. Pay attention, avoid disruptive behavior. 9. Avoid disruptive side conversations.10. Only one person speaks at a time.11. Everyone participates , no one dominates.12. Be succinct, avoid long anecdotes and examples.13. No rank in the room.14. Respect those not present.15. Ask questions when you do not understand.16. Attend to your personal comfort needs at any time but minimize team

disruption.17. HAVE FUN !!!18. ?

Code of Cooperation (Example)

1. Help each other be right, not wrong.

2. Look for ways to make new ideas work, not for reasons they won’t.

3. If in doubt, check it out! Don’t make negative assumptions

about each other.

4. Help each other win, and take pride in each other’s victories.

5. Speak positively about each other and about your organization at every opportunity.

6. Maintain a positive mental attitude no matter what the circumstances

7. Act with initiative and courage, as if it all depends on you.

8. Do everything with enthusiasm; it’s contagious.

9. Whatever you want; give it away.

10. Don’t lose faith.

11. Have fun!

Ten Commandments An Effective Code of

Cooperation

Ford Motor Company