Instructor Suggestions for Teamwork and Project Management, 4th Edition
Karl A. Smith – - http://www.ce.umn.edu/~smith
Outline
· Note to Instructors
· Overview of instructional strategies with emphasis on pedagogies of engagement (cooperative and problem-based cooperative learning)
· Informal Cooperative Learning Strategies
o Formulate-Share-Listen-Create (Think-Pair-Share)
o Thinking Aloud Pair Problem Solving (TAPPS)
o Bookends on a Class Session
· Formal Cooperative Learning Strategies
o Cooperative Problem-Based Learning
o Cooperative Jigsaw
· Cooperative Base Groups (Cohort Groups)
· Instructional materials and strategies for selected chapters
· References and other Resources
Note to Instructor
Thank you for considering or adopting the 4th Edition of Teamwork and Project Management for your students. The book is intended and designed to help build student’s knowledge, skills, and habits or mind or modes of thinking in the areas of teamwork and project management. The ways in which you design and implement learning activities and learning environments can significantly enhance student learning.
My advice to the reader is summarized in Chapter 1 on page 3 and his included below. Your job as instructor is to ensure that students learn and I’m confident that incorporating activity, reflection and collaboration will help.
The principal goal of this book is to provide you, the reader, guidance on how to engage in intelligent teamwork in engineering contexts that emphasize design and innovation. As we start this journey together, I offer you the following suggestions that will help you get the most from this book. The essence of the suggestions is reflected in the words activity, reflection, and collaboration. First, I encourage you to engage in the activities, especially the exercises, in the book, as they will help you connect with the material and its real-world applications. Second, periodically throughout the book I’ll ask you to stop and reflect. Take advantage of the opportunity. The goal is to give you a chance to describe to yourself what you already know and to get you to think. Then when you read on about the topic, you’ll have a basis for comparing and contrasting. Finally, I encourage you to collaborate with others. Working together is the norm in projects. Working together to learn the material in this book will make it easier, and very likely you’ll remember it longer.
Overview of instructional strategies with emphasis on pedagogies of engagement (cooperative and problem-based cooperative learning)
The suggested approach is essentially an engineering design approach (Streveler, Smith & Pilotte, 2012). That is, I recommend starting with requirements or specifications, emphasizes metrics, and then prepare prototypes that meet the requirements. I embrace Duderstadt’s (2008) argument that “faculty members of the twenty-first-century college or university will find it necessary to set aside their roles as teachers and instead become designers of learning experiences, processes, and environments.”
The idea of an engineering design approach to designing courses, often referred to as a backward-looking design process (Understanding by Design, Wiggins & McTighe, 2007) is to start by determining student learning outcomes; develop acceptable evidence, especially feedback and assessment; and then plan instruction. The approach has been and is being embraced by others, such as Felder and Brent’s (2003) effective course design (Figure 1) and Fink’s creating significant learning experiences, in which he adds emphasis on situational factors that influence the design (Fink, 2003), Figure 2.
Figure 1 Effective Course Design (Felder & Brent, 2003) Figure 2 Creating Significant Learning Experiences (Fink, 2007)
The first step in the Understanding by Design (UbD) model is identifying what it is you want students to know, to be able to do, and perhaps even to be as a result of the class session, learning module, course, or program. In engineering classes learning outcomes are typically framed as cognitive outcomes, or what we want the students to know. We encourage you to consider two additional dimensions of outcomes. What do we want students to be able to do? And who do we want to the students to be? In other words, what are the values and attitudes shared by members of the community that result from our designed learning experience? Wiggins and McTighe (1998) recommend identifying big ideas, topics or processes that (1) have enduring value beyond the classroom, (2) reside at the heart of the discipline, (3) require “uncoverage” through faculty guidance and insights. Finally, in planning for pedagogies of engagement (cooperative learning and problem-based learning), Wiggins and McTighe recommend considering to what extent the idea, topic, or process offers potential for engaging students.
The second step in the UbD model is determining acceptable evidence to decide whether or not, or to what extent, students have met the learning goals. The most important design aspect here is to use criterion-referenced grading system, that is, a mastery model (Bloom, et.al., 1981; Smith, 1996, 1998) such as a point system (i.e. >90% = A) or contract system instead of a norm referenced grading system (grading “on the curve”). Bloom, et al. (1981) made this point as follows:
If we are effective in our instruction, the distribution of achievement should be very different from the normal curve. In fact, we may even insist that our educational efforts have been unsuccessful to the extent that the distribution of achievement approximates the normal distribution (p. 52).
Determining acceptable evidence of achievement is often guided through the use of a taxonomy of student learning outcomes. Probably the most commonly used taxonomy in engineering programs in the United States is Bloom and Krathwohl (1956); however, for the cognitive domain I recommend Anderson and Krathwohl (2001). See Figure 3.
Figure 3 Revised Bloom Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
The third step in the backward design process is planning instruction. Since the focus in on teamwork and project management, I recommend focusing on pedagogies of engagement – cooperative learning, problem-based and project-based learning, inquiry guided learning – for learning outcomes that represent big ideas, are at the heart of the discipline, require uncoverage, and have potential for engaging students.
Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning (Johnson and Johnson, 1974; Smith, Johnson and Johnson, 1981; Johnson, Johnson and Smith, 1991). Carefully structured cooperative learning involves people working in teams to accomplish a common goal, under conditions that involve both positive interdependence (all members must cooperate to complete the task) and individual and group accountability (each member individually as well as all members collectively accountable for the work of the group). Research-based essential elements of cooperative learning are summarized in Figure 4 and the types of cooperative learning are summarized in Figure 5.
Figure 4. Basic Elements Of Cooperative Groups
Positive Interdependence
Team members perceive that they need each other in order to complete the group's task ("sink or swim together"). Instructors may structure positive interdependence by establishing mutual goals (maximize own and each other's productivity), joint rewards (if all group members achieve above the criteria, each will receive bonus points), shared resources (members have different expertise), and assigned roles (summarizer, encourager of participation, elaborator).
Individual Accountability
Assessing the quality and quantity of each member's contributions and giving the results to the group and the individual.
Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction
Team members promote each other's productivity by helping, sharing, and encouraging efforts to produce. Members explain, discuss, and teach what they know to teammates. Instructors structure teams so that members sit knee-to-knee and talk through each aspect of the tasks they are working to complete.
Teamwork (Interpersonal And Small Group) Skills
Groups cannot function effectively if members do not have and use the needed social skills. Instructors emphasize these skills as purposefully and precisely as job-performance skills. Collaborative skills include instructorship, decision-making, trust- building, communication, and conflict-management skills.
Group Processing
Groups need specific time to discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships among members. Instructors structure group processing by assigning such tasks as (a) list at least three member actions that helped the group be successful and (b) list one action that could be added to make the group even more successful tomorrow. Instructors also monitor the groups and give feedback on how well the groups are working together.
Figure 5. Types of Cooperative Learning
Informal Cooperative Learning Groups
Students work together in temporary, ad hoc groups that last for only one discussion or class period to achieve joint learning goals. Informal cooperative learning groups are used to focus student attention on the material to be learned, create an expectation set and mood conducive to learning, ensure students cognitively process the material being taught, and provide closure to an instructional session.
Formal Cooperative Learning Groups
Students work together for one or several class sessions to achieve shared learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments. Formal cooperative learning groups provide the foundation for all other cooperative learning procedures. They are structured through pre-instructional decisions, setting the task and the cooperative structure, monitoring the groups while they work and intervening to improve taskwork and teamwork, and evaluating student learning and processing group functioning.
Cooperative Base (Cohort) Groups
Long-term groups (lasting for at least one semester or year) with stable membership whose primary responsibility is to give each member the support, encouragement, and assistance he or she needs to progress academically and develop cognitively and socially in healthy ways.
Informal Cooperative Learning
Informal cooperative learning consists of having students work together to achieve a joint learning goal in temporary, ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1998, 2006). Informal cooperative learning groups also ensure that misconceptions, incorrect understanding, and gaps in understanding are identified and corrected, and learning experiences are personalized. Every 10 to 15 minutes, students should be asked to discuss/process what they are learning. Breaking up lectures with short cooperative processing times will give you slightly less lecture time, but will help counter what is proclaimed as the main problem of lectures: "The information passes from the notes of the professor to the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one." During lecturing and direct teaching the instructor ensures that students do the intellectual work of organizing material, explaining it, summarizing it, and integrating it into existing conceptual networks. The procedure for using informal cooperative learning consists of “focused discussions” before and after the lecture (bookends) and interspersing turn-to-your-partner discussions throughout the lecture.
1. Introductory Focused Discussion: Plan one or two questions that will help students organize in advance what they know about the topic to be presented and create an expectation set about what the lecture will cover. Assign students to pairs or triads. Explain (a) the task of answering the questions in a four-minute time period and (b) the positive goal interdependence of reaching consensus.
2. Turn-To-Your-Partner Discussions: Divide the lecture into 10 to 15 minute segments. This is about the length of time a motivated adult can concentrate on information being presented. After each segment, ask students to turn to the person next to them and work cooperatively in answering a question (specific enough so that students can answer it in about three minutes) that requires students to cognitively process the material just presented. The procedure is:
a. Each student formulates his or her answer.
b. Students share their answer with their partner.
c. Students listen carefully to their partner's answer.
d. The pairs create a new answer that is superior to each member's initial formulation by integrating the two answers, building on each other's thoughts, and synthesizing.
The question may require students to:
a. Summarize the material just presented / d. Solve a problemb. Give a reaction to the theory, concepts, or information presented / e. Relate material to past learning and integrate it into conceptual framework
c. Predict what is going to be presented next; hypothesize / f. Resolve conceptual conflict created by presentation
Ensure students are individually accountable for answering the question by randomly choosing two or three students to give 30 second summaries of their pair discussions. Repeat this sequence of lecture-segment and pair-discussion until the lecture is completed.
3. Closure Focused Discussion: Give a closure discussion task that requires students to summarize what they have learned from the lecture. The discussion should result in students integrating what they have just learned into existing conceptual frameworks, point students toward what the homework will cover or what will be presented in the next class session, and identifies questions they have about what was presented. This provides closure to the lecture.
Informal cooperative learning ensures students are actively involved in understanding what they are learning. It also provides time for instructors to gather their wits, reorganize notes, take a deep breath, and move around the class listening to what students are saying. Listening to student discussions can give instructors direction and insight into how well students understand the concepts and material being taught (who, unfortunately, may not have graduate degrees in the topic you are presenting).
Introductory Focused Discussion Pairs
Formulate-Share-Listen-Create
To prepare for the class session students may be required to complete a short initial focused discussion task. Plan your lecture around a series of questions that will help students organize in advance what they know about the topic to be presented and create an expectation set about what the lecture will cover. Write the questions on an overhead transparency or on the board.
Task: Answer the questions.
Cooperative: Create, with your partner, one answer for each question, using the following sequence:
1. Each student formulates his or her answer.
2. Students share their answer with their partner.
3. Students listen carefully to partner's answer.
4. Pairs create a new answer that is superior to each member's initial formulation through the process of association, building on each other's thoughts, and synthesizing.