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Hi folks
My discussion is Teamwork.
Teamwork is a very complicated issue and I am going to limit it to the way in which we set up teams for our online teaching.
Consider the following:
§ How do we decide upon the number of members and the skills required? And do we stick by our decisions or vary them dependent upon circumstances?
§ What are essential skills for teamwork to make the team work well together?
§ If you are in charge of the team how do you manage it?
Here are my first thoughts about the matter.
§ Number of members. I feel that a team must consist of at least three members, and twenty is too many. If you have too many people in the team it becomes impossible to manage. What are the skills required? It depends upon what you are trying to do. In our case we are trying to organise and run an online course, so we require skills concerned with designing the course, creating the course, delivering the course, and evaluating the results. It may be helpful to have people with ability to see things through the eyes of the student and others to see things through the eyes of the course provider. Some teams do not require a team leader, but in our case I feel it is important to have one otherwise as the problems inevitably arise they will not be dealt with adequately. I am sure that no matter what decisions we take originally, in practice they may have to be adjusted because of the force of circumstances (e.g. hardware not working, software being unavailable – I think many of us have met these problems already).
§ Essential skills. I feel there are a number of these (e.g. listening, persuading) but I think the most important is participating. Everyone must contribute regularly to the project or it will not work. I think we have seen this in this course.
§ Managing the Team. I feel it is important to allow people free reign over what they do. It is no good having your best teacher designing the course, when what they want to do is deliver it. The first meeting must reach decisions regarding the work and then the leader must ensure that everyone knows what decisions have been made. As the team completes work, the team leader must keep everyone informed (and thus motivated), and decisions must be made about the next step. I feel that much of this decision making can be done remotely, but occasionally the team must meet – people tend to ignore emails, telephone calls, and typed memos.
OK folks, do you agree or disagree and what are your thoughts about teamwork?
Pam

Thanks for posting this Pam. Does anyone have any practical experience of team teaching I wonder?
Les

I have some experience of team teaching but it was a few years ago when I had been teaching for a year..
I was in a team of 2 (not much of a team) which consisted of myself and the head of faculty. The subject we taught was A level IT (first year). This was taught for the Fenton Sixth Form Centre who also had classes within our college.
Originally, we both did a theory and a practical lecture each. But after consulting with the students and each other we decided that I was better at the practicals and my colleague was better at delivering the theory.
Generally speaking it went very well - we worked to the framework supplied by the A level board. We did communicate pretty regularly but as my colleague was the head of faculty he was not always available for a chat to discuss issues.
That year the students performed well...
However, the following year the head of faculty could not continue with his commitment to the subject. So, I remained as the practical tutor and a tutor from the Fenton Sixth Form Centre took over to teach the theory.
This was a complete reversal! The students complained about the other tutor and asked if they could have the head of faculty back. I could not get in touch with the tutor so there was no real communication going on about students. The students became more and more disheartened and relying on their own study plus their grades from my side of the module to get them to university.
The students did not do as well as they would of done with their 'original' team though one student did get straight A's in all his A levels.
It goes back to what Pam said - you give each task to the person best for the job. If you do this and keep tabs on what has been covered and how each student is doing things should go well.
Phil James

I agree with your comments Pam - I have more experience of project teams than teaching teams nonetheless :
§ How do we decide upon the number of members and the skills required? And do we stick by our decisions or vary them dependent upon circumstances?
Most important to determine the skillset required to meet the objective first I think. The skills of potential team members would than have to be matched. Having a small core team with the wherewithall to draft in specialised skills might be a model that would work well.
§ What are essential skills for teamwork to make the team work well together?
The skills needed are less important than the attitude that’s required. Teams work well where there is mutual respect & no egos.
§ If you are in charge of the team how do you manage it?
Ideally I think it’s important to put a team together that has some experience and all have something to gain from being part of a team. Clear objectives and timescales for the team are critical with some flexibility built in of course – but it’s so easy for targets & deadlines to drift if things are not well defined. This would ideally be done by the team, but I think it’s important for a team leader to summarise and clarify roles & responsibilities and then supervise and support the team activities.
Joan Walker
Curriculum Development Officer
JISC RSC Scotland S&W

Hi
Three words being desirables
'inclusion'= parity and equal treatment of opportunity for all in the team.
'sharing'= keeping every one 'in the know' in regard to individual working roles within the team.
'delegation'= being able to release responsibility to others in the team
Les

I like the idea of Les’s three words
'inclusion'= parity and equal treatment of opportunity for all in the team.
'sharing'= keeping every one 'in the know' in regard to individual working roles within the team.
'delegation'= being able to release responsibility to others in the team
I can think of three other important words.
Participation – everyone must participate regularly, Phil’s story makes this clear. In his second year, the other teacher did not participate, and seemed to teach independently. We must be aware of the other members of the team at all times. When I first began teaching I spent many hours producing each hourly lesson, and so only had one lesson ready at a time. One of my colleagues would teach whatever he wanted to, regardless of the syllabus. This left me in the unenviable position of having to teach students the same work as they had done a day or two before. If Colin had joined with me to organise the syllabus this would not have happened.
Listening. Team members can participate as much as they like, but if they do not listen to discussions they make no real contribution. It is essential to hear everything said by other members of the team, and listening is a very real skill.
Understanding. So we have participated and listened, but have we understood. Has someone made sure that everyone knows what has been agreed. I am currently a member of a small team at College, and I sent everyone an email reminding them what each person had agreed to do. However, I feel that (although I was not the team leader) someone should have followed this up to ensure that all the required tasks were carried out.
Pam

Just to add some thoughts on the three initial questions:
§ How do we decide upon the number of members and the skills required? And do we stick by our decisions or vary them dependent upon circumstances?
There has been some research on numbers in teams - I think it was said that 8 is a good number for on-line collaboration and 12 is the optimum for face-to-face facilitation. I will see if I can find where these numbers come from - perhaps others may know? I certainly accept the point that there is a minimum number needed for meaningful collaboration and a maximum beyond which the whole thing becomes unwieldy.
When I was on on LeTTOL, only myself and one other person were participating in the discussions and since we seemed to agree with each other on almost everything it was impossible to carry on and we were eventually merged with another group to form a set of about 8 in which most people were 'active'.
§ What are essential skills for teamwork to make the team work well together?
I think synergy - the sum of the knowledge and contributions of those taking part needs to be worth more than that of the people taken individually. Team personalities is also important, and the blend of learning styles in the group. Perhaps teams ought to be selected rather than randomly put together for on-line courses. So should we all do learning styles questionnaires and Belbin-type team roles tests before being allocated to a group? or is this totally impractical for small courses?
§ If you are in charge of the team how do you manage it?
Perhaps you aim to act as facilitator rather than manager. You need to keep up with the discussions and help when they go off course, and summarise main points at appropriate times.
Sue

Hi Pam
Re: your below
>One of my colleagues would
>teach whatever he wanted to,
>regardless of the syllabus.
>This left me in the unenviable
>position of having to teach
>students the same work as they
>had done a day or two before.
I think most of us must have experienced this sort of situation at least once in the classroom, but I think it happens more often than one might think.
Here's where I have to confess that I myself am really very uncomfortable with shared team teaching (by this - I mean two tutors teaching a class at once). Partly because of the problem you highlight. I do have to do it occasionally, but am always wary, tending to double-check and double-check again for possible problems. Trying to making sure I am covered if things go awry.
I never look forward to sharing a session with another tutor.
With tight schedules and all being busy people - it is often difficult to find the time to consult with other members of one's teaching team. Arranging team meetings can be an organisational 'nightmare' for team leaders.
Les

Synergy.
This is a word which I have often heard used, but never before understood. However, I decided to look it up after Sue's mention and found Dictionary.com defines synergy as "The interaction of two or more agents ... so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects."
I agree that this is important Sue, and I also agree that teams should be selected rather than randomly put together. Can we discuss "Working with Others" perhaps starting with how the team comes together?
I have to admit that the team I have for my current Level One course, has come together because the people who are teaching this level have combined to share the work out. In other words the team is randomly contrived in theory. However, I believe that some selection has been involved because my line manager has chosen which people will teach this course, and we all work from the same location and can meet face to face.
Likewise, at the beginning of the year we had a similar set of people teaching the Level Two course which is the basis for my ITOL course. However, during September, two of these courses were cancelled and I lost two members of the team. This left me with a very small team of two plus another two who work at different locations, so we never meet. How can we work together without meeting? I have included two more of my colleagues who hope to teach the course next year and so are willing to take part.
As the online part of the course is my responsibility I feel responsible for the entire team. So having "selected" the team members for their ability with Powerpoint (2 people), with teaching (3 people), with commitment (all of us), with the Internet (only me) and with learning theory (2 people) how do I control (or manage) them?
I will make suggestions about this in the beginning of the week after next as I am on holiday after today until next weekend.
Pam