Resources for Team Projects

Make it relevant to the course:

• Indicate the purpose for the team project. Why is it important that this project is done with teams?

Make it real:

• Indicate how team work is important/authentic in the work of the course discipline.
• Provide some context from your experience in the discipline on the value of working in teams.
• Provide some evidence about the value of collaboration skills

Show your enthusiasm:

• Indicate your support for the team project.
• Indicate how the project is structured and support that you will provide to make the team project a success. Discuss the role of conflict on teams and how diverse teams lead to more innovative products.

Make expectations clear:

• Indicate what aspects of the project will be team authored/produced and those that are expected to be individual contributions.
• Discuss academic integrity in context of the structure of the project. Indicate how professionals in your field work as teams and share authorship.

Highlight student options to control the team work:

• Research indicates that students are more motivated when they have some control over their work.
• Indicate where in the team project students have options to move the project forward and make choices on the outcome. Indicate how/if the progression of the work is linked to due dates.
• Examples: ASTR220 introduces the value of active learning (including ability to work with others) on first day of class

ASTR220

GEMSTONE: GEMS102, GEMS202, GEMS296, GEMS297, GEMS396, GEMS397, GEMS496, GEMS497

Carillon Community Seminar (UNIV100)

 Team Work in Carillon Community Project

Team Formation Survey Carillon Communities

Team Formation Survey_ASTR220

Crossing the Line & Speed Dating (CTL&SD)

• Instructor Guide o CTL&SD Student Profile
• CTL&SD Slide Deck

Examples:

• Team Building- Gemstone
• Ice Breaker- Gemstone
• Get to know each other- Gemstone
• Strengths Identifier- Carillon

Examples:

• Team Contract ANSC275
• Team Contract ASTR220
• Team Contract EDSP220
• Team Contract Carillon Communities

Debrief Guide from AIE

I Like, I Wish

• Instructor Guide
• Powerpoint Slides
• Team Reflection

 Giving and receiving feedback:

How to give your team feedback (Harvard Business Review, 2014)

WikiBooks suggestions for feedback in teams

Nine rules for giving effective feedback to your team members (DailyNation)

 Conflict management:

Resolving team conflict (MindTools)

Resolving Conflicts on the Team (forDummies)

Additional resources available online:

 Team charters are similar to team contracts, though they often include more details than team contracts do and are used by businesses.

Life Cycle Engineering

References on Teamwork and Collaboration

Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E. N., Vallone, R. D., & Bator, R. J. (1997). The experimental generation of interpersonal closeness: A procedure and some preliminary findings.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363-377. ; The article presents a practical methodology for creating closeness in an experimental context. The results indicate that the importance of “task type” in developing closeness. The contents of the tasks – whether they required self-disclosure and other intimacy-associated behaviors - made a considerable difference

Aggarwal, P & O’Brien, C. L. 2008. Social loafing on group projects. Journal of Marketing Education, DOI 10.1177/0273475308322283.

Barkley, E.F., Cross, K.P., & Major, C.H. (2005). Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ; It is a detailed handbook for faculty to implement collaborative learning in class. First, it walks you through the stages of collaborative learning, from orienting students, forming groups, structuring the learning task, facilitating student collaboration to grading and evaluating. Last section of the book lists the techniques of collaborative learning such as techniques for discussion, reciprocal teaching, problem solving, using graphic information organizers, and focusing on writing.

Barsade, S. G., & Knight, A. P. (2015). Group affect. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2(1), 21-46. companion video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmVlaEz6UoQ) ; The article begins by defining group affect and examining four major types of collective affective constructs: (a) convergence in group affect; (b) affective diversity, that is, divergence in group affect; (c) emotional culture; and (d) group affect as a dynamic process that changes over time. We describe the nomological network of group affect, examining both its group-level antecedents and group-level consequences. Antecedents include group leadership, group member attributes, and interactions between and relationships among group members. Consequences of group affect include attitudes about the group and group-level cooperation and conflict, creativity, decision making, and performance.

Cabrera, A. F., Crissman, J. L., Bernal, E. M., Nora, A., Terenzini, P. T., & Pascarella, E. T. (2002). Collaborative learning: Its impact on college students' development and diversity. Journal of College Student Development, 43(1), 20-34. ; The article examines the following three issues: (a) gender and ethnic differences in terms of preferences towards collaborative learning, (b) effects of collaborative learning on student outcomes, and (c) determinants of openness to diversity. Results showed that exposure to collaborative learning practices influenced positively each of the outcomes understudy. CATME (Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness) tools can be found at http://info.catme.org/ and the login to use the site is athttps://www.catme.org/

Cestone, C. M., Levine, R. E., & Lane, D. R. (2008). Peer assessment and evaluation in team‐based learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2008(116), 69-78. ; This chapter discusses the merits of peer assessment and evaluation; the instructional guidelines, issues, and considerations for their use in the TBL classroom, and a brief description of peer assessment methods and information on how to access forms.

Chapman, K. J., & Van Auken, S. 2001. Creative positive group project experiences. Journal of Marketing Education, 23(2), 117-127. Cockrell, K. S., Caplow, J. A. H., & Donaldson, J. F. (2000). A context for learning: Collaborative groups in the problem-based learning environment. The Review of Higher Education, 23(3),347-363. ; Collaborative groups are a core element of the PBL strategy, and research has indicated that collaborative groups have been associated with higher levels of student achievement and critical reasoning than didactic approaches. Consequently, they provide an important context for understanding students’ perspectives of their learning. The findings of this study indicate that students have a feeling of ownership of knowledge when they acquire it through a collaborative learning approach.

Davis, B. G. (1993). Collaborative learning: Group work and study teams. Tools for teaching, 1, 147-158.

Wright, R., & Boggs, J. (2002). Learning cell biology as a team: a project-based approach to upperdivision cell biology. Cell Biology Education, 1(4),145-S27. ; The article presents suggestions that are designed to help instructors set up formal learning groups and study teams. First it starts off by listing the overarching strategies that need to be taken into consideration such as “planning each stage of group work,” “explaining the objectives, guidance, evaluation of the group work,” and “keeping a written contract.” Then, the article follows through and details the common stages of collaborative learning from designing to evaluating group work.

Eddy, S. L., Brownell, S. E., Thummaphan, P., Lan, M. C., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2015). Caution, student experience may vary: social identities impact a student’s experience in peer discussions. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14(4), ar45. ; The study focuses on the role a student prefers to assume during peer discussions, and how this preferred role may vary given a student’s social identities. The results indicate that self-reported preferred roles in peer discussions can be predicted by student gender, race/ethnicity, and nationality. In addition, the study explores and confirms three hypothesized barriers explaining participation difference in the classroom. These barriers are 1) students are excluded from the discussion by actions of their groupmates; 2) students are anxious about participating in peer discussion; and 3) students do not see value in peer discussions. Disagreeable Teens Fail To Understand Their Blind Spots, Research Reveals -npr ; Disagreeable teens tend to grow up into disagreeable adults. A 10-year study finds that disagreeable teens often have no awareness that their behavior is harming their relationships. Diverse Teams Feel Less Comfortable-and That’s Why They Perform Better – Harvard BusinessReview (https://hbr.org/2016/09/diverse-teams-feel-less-comfortable-and-thats-why-they-perform-better) ; In numerous studies, diversity — both inherent (e.g., race, gender) and acquired (experience, cultural background) — is associated with business success. Working in homogenous teams feels it is easier and more fluid — but easy is not helpful in terms of performance. Working on diverse teams on the other hand produces better outcomes precisely because it’s harder. Confronting opinions you disagree with might not seem like the quickest path to getting things done, but working in groups can be like studying (or exercising): no pain, no gain. However, it is critical to note that simply making a team more diverse is not necessarily enough to see the benefits. Diverse teams must find ways to work together productively, and often the best ways of working may seem counterintuitive.

Engberg, M. E. (2004). Improving intergroup relations in higher education: A critical examination ofthe influence of educational interventions on racial bias.Review of Educational Research, 74(4),473-524. ; This study examines the influence of various educational interventions in higher education on students’ racial bias. The author reviews studies in four principle domains: multicultural courses, diversity workshops and training, peer-based interventions, and service-based interventions. He pays particular attention to the varied approaches, measures, and research designs used to assess the effectiveness of interventions. He concludes with specific recommendations for improving the quality of intervention studies, suggests a conceptual model for explaining student change, and points out gaps in the extant knowledge base.

Goodsell, A. S. (1992). Collaborative learning: A sourcebook for higher education. NCTLA ; This sourcebook contains nine papers on various aspects of collaborative learning for students with emphasis on college level instruction (though some material relevant to secondary elementary education is also included). Contributors address what collaborative learning is, how it is implemented, how to assess it, and where it is used. In Assigning Group Work to Students, Designing the Group Comes First – The Chronicle of Higher Education ; Research shows that if groups and assignments are structured hastily, they can be counterproductive. For instance, students in underrepresented groups, like women in engineering, might experience marginalization when working in teams. And there’s the "lone-wolf phenomenon," in which one student goes off and does the group’s assignment alone, while the other students learn little.

Johnson, D. W. (1991). Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity. ASHEERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, 1991. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports, George Washington University, One Dupont Circle, Suite 630, Washington, DC20036-1183. ; This monograph explores the current use in higher education of cooperative learning. The opening section sets out to define cooperative learning, and to look at the history of the technique, its basic elements, types of cooperative learning groups, and implications for faculty functioning and the educational institution overall. The next section discusses the five basic elements of cooperative learning: (1) positive interdependence; (2) face-toface promotive interaction; (3) individual accountability and personal responsibility; (4) frequent use of interpersonal and small group social skills; and (5) frequent, regular group processing of current functioning. The following section reviews the research validating the effectiveness of cooperative learning in college classrooms including research on social interdependence, patterns of interaction, and learning outcomes. The next three sections focus on the instructor's role in using formal cooperative learning groups, informal cooperative learning groups, and cooperative base group. The next section examines cooperation among faculty. A concluding section describes two typical cooperative learning class sessions and speculates on the impact this method will have in the future. Lawrence, S. M. (1998). Unveiling positions of privilege: A hands-on approach to understanding racism. Teaching of Psychology, 25(3), 198–200. ; In this article, I describe a classroom exercise used to assist White undergraduates in recognizing their racial privilege and the effects of institutional racism. While working in collaborative groups to construct mobiles, students unknowingly assume roles and behaviors analogous to those held by members of dominant and nondominant racial and social-class groups in the larger society. Students' written reflections at the conclusion of the class session provide evidence of the activity's effectiveness in helping students gain new insights about the privileged positions they hold in society and the ways those positions influence their perceptions of others.

Marbach-Ad, G., Rietschel, C., & Thompson, K. V. (2016). Validation and Application of the Survey of Teaching Beliefs and Practices for Undergraduates (STEP-U): Identifying Factors Associated with Valuing Important Workplace Skills among Biology Students. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 15(4),ar59. ; This article reveals results from survey of over 1300 biology students at UMD. Students rated "working in groups" as one of the least valuable skills learned in undergraduate education. This contrasts with the high value placed upon team skills by employers. Pfaff, E. & Huddleston, P. 2003. Does it matter if I hate teamwork? Journal of Marketing Education, 25(1), 37-45.

Pluut, H., & Curşeu, P. L. (2013). The role of diversity of life experiences in fostering collaborative creativity in demographically diverse student groups. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 9,16-23. ; This paper examines the role of demographic diversity (gender and nationality) on collaborative creativity. A self-report questionnaire is used to evaluate students’ life experiences in terms of diverse mindsets (diversity in interests, likes, and attitudes) and intergroup contact (interaction with dissimilar others), and a research report analysis reveals groups’ collaborative creativity. The results show that diverse mindsets moderate the effect of gender diversity on collaborative creativity in such a way that groups whose members are more broadly oriented in terms of interests, likes, and attitudes benefit more from this form of demographic diversity as compared with groups whose members are less broadly oriented. No support is found for the moderating role of intergroup contact for the effect of demographic diversity on collaborative creativity. The results presented in this paper suggest that diversity of life experiences is a moderator worthwhile considering in the group diversity