Teaching Teams about Teamwork: Preparation, Practice, and Performance Review

 Summary:

            This article begins by discussing the importance of teaching teams about teamwork before they are put into a group. Students need to be provided with the tools to have effective team skills. Often teachers will throw groups together and expect them to grow teamwork skills on their own. This typically results in conflict and failure. This article discusses the preparation, practice, and performance review to ensure their students are having a productive team.

        

    This article is broken down into three different sections:

1.     Preparing Students for Teamwork – If instructors are not offering collaboration skills or team building practices, they cannot expect their students to thrive or be surprised when the team performs poorly on group assignments. In the article, Snyder gives an analogy between sports teams and business teams. A coach does not choose a team of random players, throw them on the field and expect them to perform great. Besides practicing the sport, the teams must do a series of team building exercises to help them grow as one and learn how each other plays. The same goes for business teams. They need to learn how to communicate with each other and how to effectively get through the forming, norming, storming and performing stages.

2.   
  Practicing Successful Team Collaboration – Instructors should be dedicating time to give their students a safe place to practice their communication skills. A few of the activities the article has listed for students to practice are:

-        Focus attention on the purpose of the project: Assign students to small groups. Allow them to brainstorm and role-play how to get the group refocused if it goes off topic.

-        Encourage participation and positive collaboration: Ensure students are comfortable sharing their thoughts with their teammates. Encourage participation and collaboration.

-        Establish a timeline: Show students how to create a timeline for work, meetings, deadlines, etc. Teach them how to delegate and prioritize work.

Students are more likely to apply their team skills in real groups if they have had an opportunity to practice them instead of just learning about them.

3.     Reviewing Performance and Revising – Instructors can provide students with feedback to help them review their group work and learn from mistakes to prevent them in the future. Allowing the students to do a self-reflection is also important as it may help them improve their collaborative skills. If the students are comfortable, ask them to share their reflections to learn from one another and give their perspective of the teamwork.

My Opinion:

            In my communications class last term, we were given lots tips on how to be a productive team by our instructor. Not only did she teach, but she was very involved with each group and how we worked together. If there were any conflicts, she gave a tips and tricks to solve the problem before she stepped in herself. We also had role-play meeting. She picked students from the classroom to be the president, vice-president, timekeeper, and secretary. We learned how to have an effective meeting before we had to do one on our own time.

Article Link: 

Snyder, L. G. (2009, March). Teaching Teams about Teamwork: Preparation, Practice, and Performance Review . Ebscohost . https://web-s-ebscohost-com.athena.rrc.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=cab7a492-c522-41de-95e3-52a25aa1d69d%40redis

TEACHING TEAMS ABOUT TEAMWORK: PREPARATION, PRACTICE, AND PERFORMANCE REVIE...: EBSCOhost (rrc.ca)