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  • 1.  Teamwork and collaboration skills development recommendations?

    Posted 03-14-2019 15:19

    Hello, all. 

    Do you have suggestions for exercises, simulations, or other experiences; videos; and/or readings that I might leverage to best help students develop teamwork and collaboration abilities? Suggestions for assessments to measure learning in these domains in an online context?  General advice or experiende to relay?  If so, please share!  

    Teamwork features in all of my courses, but doing it well doesn't come naturally to students.
    I am putting together a new skill development course to help them cultivate these essential abilities and would appreciate your suggestions about resources and assessments and any advice that you might have about how to make it successful.  The course will run in a largely self-paced, online format, but it will have a couple of synchronous online sessions built in, and there may be opportunities for small groups to meet virtually as part of it, as well. 


    With thanks,

    Anthony 



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    Dr. R. Anthony Turner
    Associate Professor of Management
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  • 2.  RE: Teamwork and collaboration skills development recommendations?

    Posted 03-15-2019 10:33
      |   view attached
    Hi Anthony two things for you

    MY NEGOTIATOR EXERCISE
    I came up with this partly as a course icebreaker but also as a team exercise. Get them to work in teams of 3 around a single connected computer. Have them play the online negotiator game at http://www.flonga.com/play/negotiator.htm. They generally have lots of fun, especially if you allow them time to play at least one or two completed rounds (+- 10-15 min). I then ask questions like:

    Focusing on the first scene, what did you learn (about the jumper, the process, the skills required, etc)?
    Consider your group dynamics:

    •What roles did people play?
    •How did the group make decisions? Consensus, consultation, dominant decider?
    •Did group dynamics change, and if so how?

    Separate away from each other: take a pen and paper

    Write down the strength(s) of your teammate(s) – what did they contribute?

    What aspects of their talent did you observe?

    If this was a simulation for a job, what would you tell that person?

     
    Class discussion
    •What would you look for in this type of negotiator?
    •Attributes?
    •Skills?
    •Background?
    •What else?
    •How would you spot those things? Select for them? Assess them?

    THE COMMUNICATION GAME
    see attached. It works really well, and they enjoy it. I use it sometimes for structure, but it emphasizes teamwork elements like communication too. I always point out to them how the 'optimal' team would have won: A tells B the aim of the game and asks for B to collect everyone's symbols, B writes to the back 3 asking for their symbols, they return to B, B gives to A, A collates. It almost never happens. Understanding your own role vis-a-vis other being a critical additional point

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    Gregory Lee
    Associate Professor
    U. of the Witwatersrand
    Johannesburg
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    Attachment(s)



  • 3.  RE: Teamwork and collaboration skills development recommendations?

    Posted 03-24-2019 16:58
    There are a lot of great team skill building activities at negotiationandteamresources.com.

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    Holly Schroth
    UC Berkeley
    Berkeley CA
    (510) 642-4550
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  • 4.  RE: Teamwork and collaboration skills development recommendations?

    Posted 03-15-2019 20:12
    Anthony,

    I suggest you take a look at HBP's "Leadership and Team Simulation - Everest V3."  Student price is $15.

    Learning Objectives
    To learn how to build, participate in, and lead effective teams, as well as to examine: 1. How teams can improve the way they make decisions, 2. How opposing interests and asymmetric information affect team dynamics, 3. How leaders shape team decision-making and performance in competitive and time-sensitive situations, 4. How teams and their leaders deal with tradeoffs between short-term task completion and longer-term team effectiveness, and 5. How cognitive biases impair decision making.

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    Robert Davison
    Assistant Professor
    University of Kansas
    Lawrence KS
    (785) 864-6937
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