This article was originally published on November 2014 as part of a 91探花Provost report on trends and issues in public higher education.
Erin Hill: Teaching Teamwork Explicitly
Erin Hill
Director, Quantitative Skills Center, and Lecturer, School of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, 91探花Bothell
Undergraduate students often complain about working in teams and many claim to hate group projects. However, well-structured group work can improve student engagement, deepen learning, and help students build essential skills for their professional and personal lives.1 Because workplaces are increasingly collaborative, employers look for candidates with a demonstrated ability to work well in diverse teams.2,3 Teamwork skills also help graduates become successful leaders and collaborators in their communities. Although students are often asked to work in groups, few have been taught how to do so effectively. 91探花faculty, such as Erin Hill, are trying to change this pattern. They explicitly teach teamwork skills in class. In doing so, they help students develop skills essential both in college and after graduation. In addition to the strategies profiled below, teamwork techniques used by Hill are described in a 鈥溾�� video, available on the 2y2d Initiative website.
Exercises that help students comprehend physics are also improving their ability to work in groups. Erin Hill was motivated to redesign her physics class after seeing the success of peer-tutoring in the Quantitative Skills Center, where she is the director. She saw potential to engage all of her students, not just the top ten percent, by having students tackle physics problems in groups. Hill was also motivated by a growing body of research indicating that active learning can also increase student comprehension of course material.
Her hopes have been realized. More students are correctly answering in-class questions about physics concepts and students report that they find the group work useful. 鈥淭hey also seem more invested,鈥� says Hill. 鈥淭he few times that class ended before we were able to have a full discussion of the question students were tackling in their groups, there was a collective sound of disappointment from the class.鈥� Here are her principles for in-class group learning:
Randomize group assignments and responsibilities with playing cards: At the beginning of each class, students draw a card from a deck of playing cards to learn their group and role assignments, which change each class session. The number on the card assigns a group and the suit assigns one of four roles:
鈥淭o reinforce that students should be working in their groups I have a second deck of identical playing cards I use to cold-call on the students,鈥� says Hill. 鈥淚t鈥檚 nice and randomized. If I draw the three of diamonds, I ask who has the three of diamonds, call on that person and ask, 鈥榃hat has your group been talking about? What did you come up with for this problem or question?鈥欌��
Capture collaborative work on white boards: Each group has a table-top whiteboard for sketching out its solutions to problems. Hill blends this low-tech approach with high-tech tools, taking photographs of solutions with her tablet so they can be projected on a large screen, allowing her to make side-by-side comparisons of student work, to overlay her own annotations over student work, and to have students explain their work and reasoning to the class.
Resources: To develop these techniques, Hill worked with her colleague Robin Angotti, Associate Professor of Education, 91探花Bothell, and drew ideas from: Elizabeth Cohen and Rachel Lotan, Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom, 3rd ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2014).
1Kyllonen, Patrick C. 鈥淪oft Skills for the Workplace.鈥� Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, November-December 2013. .
2Atman, Cynthia J., Sheri D. Sheppard, Jennifer Turns, Robin S. Adams, Lorraine N. Fleming, Reed Stevens, Ruth A. Streveler, Karl A. Smith, Ronald L. Miller, Larry J. Leifer, Ken Yasuhara, and Dennis Lund. Enabling Engineering Student Success: The Final Report for the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education. San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2010. .
3National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Job Outlook 2013. Bethlehem, PA: NACE, November 2012. .
Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.
91探花Bothell Career Services and School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences: Helping students prepare for what’s next
Faculty on 91探花campuses are partnering with career center professionals to help students link their educational experiences to their professional ambitions, and to develop leadership skills they will need in the workplace. Together, they are making explicit the link between coursework and professionally-relevant competencies so students are aware of their own abilities and can articulate them to employers or graduate admissions committees. Career services programs at the 91探花are even finding ways to partner with interested departments to build practice of professional skills into the curriculum. Students value the practice they gain in professional skills such as networking and the opportunity to integrate their academic and professional development.
Graduating seniors are often told they should develop an elevator speech, a 30-second talk about their experience, goals, and skills that they can adapt on a moment鈥檚 notice should they happen to meet a potential mentor or employer. In 91探花Bothell鈥檚 Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (IAS) capstone courses this 鈥渟hould鈥� is transformed into a 鈥渉ow to.鈥� 鈥淪tudents practice giving an elevator speech so they’re prepared to explain their education and to tell a persuasive story about their abilities鈥攐ne they can back up with specific examples and evidence鈥攊n an off-the-cuff situation,鈥� says IAS Dean Bruce Burgett.
Photo by Marc Studer, Media Producer, Production Services, Information Technologies, UW聽Bothell.
The elevator speech exercise is just part of a focus on career and life strategy that begins freshman year, the result of student feedback requesting more help in developing professional skills. The program initially focuses on reflection to help students get a grasp of their strengths and knowledge with more sophisticated career preparation added during students鈥� junior and senior years.
By the time seniors reach the elevator-speech activity, they have already participated in community-based learning or an internship, created an ePortfolio of their experiences both in and out of class, and drafted an application to either graduate school or an employer. For groups considering similar activities, the IAS team offers this advice:
Realize that students come with different assumptions about networking: 鈥淪tudents come to this activity with different assumptions about whether, how, and with whom they should network. There are cultural and class issues at play, too,鈥� says Associate Professor Wadiya Udell, one of a team of IAS faculty who work on the program鈥檚 capstone. 鈥淚n the elevator speech activity students learn that it鈥檚 okay to approach people, and they learn the right way to do that without coming on too strong or clamming up. Most importantly, they learn they need to prepare and not expect these opportunities to just happen.鈥�
Explain what an elevator speech entails and how it links back to 91探花education: Students review the application to a job or graduate school that they drafted earlier in the program and consider who might review it, perhaps an HR professional at Amazon, a graduate admissions committee, or a real person they know. They then role-play encountering this individual in person, introducing themselves, and making the case for why they鈥檙e a good candidate. They鈥檙e told they have less than a minute to complete these three steps:
Kim Wilson and David Parker Brown of 91探花Bothell Career Services lead students through the activity, in which students spend 30 minutes preparing their elevator speech and then deliver it three times to peers who provide feedback. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 give them much lead time because we don鈥檛 want them to sound rehearsed. In addition, they need to learn to think quickly and be flexible because they can鈥檛 give the same pitch to everyone,鈥� says Wilson.
At the discretion of the faculty involved, students sometimes practice their elevator speech in an actual elevator. 鈥淭he building is three stories tall, so the students have about 45 seconds to make a convincing claim about their education. It鈥檚 a tight time frame, but it鈥檚 also realistic and forces the creation of a focused narrative,鈥� says Burgett.
Photo by Marc Studer, Media Producer, Production Services, Information Technologies, 91探花Bothell.
Let students push through nerves to build confidence: 鈥淭he students have no idea how difficult it is, and the first time they give their speech it鈥檚 terrible,鈥� says Udell. After feedback and several tries, students build confidence and begin to get the hang of presenting themselves effectively.
Activities like this can make a real difference in a student鈥檚 life: 鈥淪tudent feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,鈥� says Wilson. One former student who worked as a barista pictured a regular customer, an attorney, when he practiced his elevator speech about pursuing a career in law. When he had an opportunity to speak to the customer, his practice kicked in and he landed an internship at the customer鈥檚 law firm.
Partnering with career counselors helps faculty support students: 鈥淩esearchers often aren鈥檛 the best networkers,鈥� admits Udell. 鈥淲orking with Career Services makes it much easier to help students learn these skills.”
Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.
