"Teaching Teamwork Skills, Part 2,"
Vol. X. No. 5, March/April 1998

Lori Breslow

The underlying premise behind last issue's "Teach Talk," and the point that provides the underpinning for this column as well, is that we humans don't seem to come programmed with an inborn ability to work together productively and well. Some people, of course, are more adept at social interaction than others, and can use that intelligence to mobilize a group to accomplish a task at hand. But I have observed among my own students that even those who are the most outgoing and personable aren't necessarily well versed in the skills they need to function in a work-oriented team.

If we believe we have a responsibility to make sure our students leave MIT not only with analytical and technical skills, but with the so-called soft skills as well, then we have a responsibility to provide opportunities for the students to master those skills. (I do understand that there are those who would argue that teaching teamwork, for example, is not part of this institution's mandate, but that is not what we hear from potential employers or many of our own alumni, for that matter.) The bad news is that we can't fulfill that responsibility simply by putting students in groups and telling them to work together; the good news is that with attention to a few guidelines and best practices we can go a long way to helping students strengthen these basic abilities.

In the last "Teach Talk," I wrote about how to create student teams, provide training in teamwork skills within the classroom setting, coach the teaching staff to work with student groups, structure assignments, and give feedback. In this column, I want to discuss adopting the role of coach and guide, communicating the message that teamwork is important, asking students to reflect on how successfully their group is functioning, and establishing grading policies.

Finally, the accompanying sidebar describes a comprehensive program in teaching teamwork skills that has been developed in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

More Guidelines for Using Student Teams

Ensuring that the teamwork experience is a positive one that promotes learning means that instructors must pay attention to several crucial elements in organizing the course, in using class time, in creating assignments, in grading, and in structuring their roles in and their relationship to the class. Following are some guidelines on each of these elements:

Adopt the role of coach, guide, facilitator, and cheerleader. When student groups are working together in class (and, as I wrote in the last issue of "Teach Talk," providing class time for group work is extremely important) the instructor must move from being at the center of attention in the classroom (either as lecturer or as discussion leader) to being an adjunct to the action.

How much should you become involved with groups of students as they work together in class? That depends on the assignment the group is working on, the level of proficiency the students have demonstrated in teamwork, and your own teaching style. My tendency is to let student groups work together for a while (perhaps 15 minutes) and then to move among them. (I do warn the class beforehand that I'm going to be "eavesdropping" on their activities.) I find that students need help on everything from keeping on task, to problem solving, to decision making. They even need coaching in something as seemingly simple as getting to know one another. During the first semester I was involved with 2.002, I noticed when we first put the students together in their groups, they didn't introduce themselves to one another. So the second semester, before we let team members meet for the first time, I announced they had to tell one another their names!

It is also necessary to make yourself available to student groups outside of class for consultations and "counseling." Although mediating group conflicts can be challenging, students need a safety valve in case things begin to fall apart. Almost always the trouble revolves around some team members doing more than their fair share of the work. In most cases, the best course of action is to bring the students together, let each air his/her perspective, and help members of the group listen to one another. Sometimes, team members can draw up a contract explicitly stating what each member will do on assignments for the remainder of the semester. Some follow-up with team members to make sure problems are under control is advisable.

Communicate the message that improving teamwork skills is important. Students need to know that learning teamwork skills is a stated objective of the course; that working in teams isn't simply a way to complete assignments. This message should be written into the syllabus, explicitly stated sometime in the first couple of classes, and re-emphasized throughout the semester. One way to put some "teeth" into this policy is to include graded assignments on teamwork skills. For example, in 2.002 we gave out a "problem set" on teamwork, which was a series of short essays based on readings in teamwork that the students had to do.

Provide a mechanism for reflection on the group process. Students can also be asked to keep journals that focus on team dynamics and processes. (These should be collected and feedback given either in the form of grades or comments.)

More often than not, students don't know what to pay attention to if they're being asked to observe the process of team dynamics rather than to describe the task(s) the team is involved in. Entries in the journal--or discussions on teamwork if that is the mechanism you choose--shouldn't be about the work that is being done (e.g., what happened in the lab, what facts were discovered when doing research for the group paper), but instead should comment on how the team is functioning. Students can be given a list of criteria or questions that look at team interactions. Topics could include, for instance:

Communication patterns: Who talks the most? The least? How does the team ensure that all voices are heard? Do people interrupt one another? Does anyone mind interruptions? How is the agenda set for what topics are discussed? Can new topics be introduced in the course of the discussion?

Intercultural communication and diversity: If team members have different cultural backgrounds, do their backgrounds contribute to differences in their communication style? Have you needed to accommodate those differences? If so, how have you done that? If you need to be more sensitive to differences in the future, how will you accomplish that?

Task assignments: How does the team decide what needs to be done? Once tasks are identified, how are they divided up? How are deadlines determined? What happens if someone doesn't meet a deadline?

Leadership and other roles: How is a leader or facilitator of the team determined? [Note: Often students are either required or encouraged to rotate the role of facilitator among group members.] What other roles do you find team members playing?

Problem solving: How has the group gone about solving problems (both related to tasks and to the maintenance of the group)? What has been effective about the processes you have used? How can you improve on your ability to solve problems?

Decision making: How are decisions made in your group? By consensus? Through voting? What happens if a group member is unhappy or uncomfortable with a decision the group has made?

Conflict Resolution: Have you had a serious conflict in your group? Assuming you resolved it, how did you do so? If you haven't worked it out, how is it affecting your ability to get work done? What will you do to resolve the conflict?

The important point here is to get students to reflect on their behavior as a member of a team, to understand how they are or are not contributing to the operation of the group, and to think about how they can improve group interactions.

Set a clear standard about grading. Grading teamwork is a thorny issue. Should assignments be given one group grade? If not, how do you differentiate between the performance of group members? Should students have any input into the grades of fellow team members? If so, how much?

David Johnson, Roger Johnson, and Karl Smith, three of the leading authorities on collaborative learning, maintain that for groups to be successful, the team must have "positive interdependence": that is, they write, "students [must] believe that they sink or swim together." (Cooperative Learning, p. 16) Positive interdependence must be built into the tasks and assignments teams are asked to do, but then giving one group grade on one or more assignments is a way to reinforce the message.

On the other hand, the authors also make it clear that individual accountability, "which exists when the performance of each student is assessed," (p. 19) is an essential element of effective teamwork. Again, this requirement is met not only in grading policies, but in the assignments made. So students must show that they can work together, and they must demonstrate their mastery of the skills or materials they are being asked to learn. The ways assignments are graded needs to reflect both of these aspects of student performance.

There are mixed feelings on whether or not it is a good idea to solicit student opinion on individual member's efforts. Some instructors welcome the feedback and believe it is another way of providing a safety valve if the workload has become seriously unbalanced. Others feel that, at best, student feedback doesn't accurately reveal what has transpired in the group, and, at worst, can become a mechanism for venting negative feelings or revenge. Much of this can be avoided if assignments are structured so that students must rely on each other, if the instructor has the chance to actually watch groups in action, and if there are non-threatening opportunities for student teams to meet with the instructor.

There is no doubt that teaching teamwork can be labor intensive, but once policies are found that work and systems are put in place, it can be enormously advantageous. It provides students with a taste of how they will have to operate in the world of work; it begins to hone skills that are invaluable not only in their professional lives, but in their personal lives as well; it allows them to draw on the expertise not only of their teachers but of each other; and it gives them a sense of how they can continue to learn once they leave MIT.