Lynn Wocell
California State University, East Bay
July 29, 2007
The Despair
I know that this email should have come sooner being that the team project is due on Tuesday. I have been paired up to work with [name omitted] on the project. For the past week or so I have been finding it very hard to get in touch with him… I just wanted to email you and get your advice on what I should do. I am also concerned because in the syllabus it says that all team members will receive the same grade for the work.
Even before I finished reading the first sentence of an email from one of my students, my instincts told me that it had to do with the team project component of the course that I am currently teaching. The course is a 3-credit six week accelerated online course, Art Appreciation. It is an online course offering at northwest New Jersey’s Centenary College. I had the benefit of developing the course with some guidance from the department head of the online program. The course was one of the first to run in the online course offerings at Centenary College. Our college specifies that there must be a team element in our courses and I have been using this specific team project for over two years. So why do we need team projects if they cause so much despair?
Why do we need team projects?
Team issues may arise on an average of approximately one out of three classes that run. The team element in my course needs to be reviewed. While I have placed assignment focus on active learning through research, critical thinking, and a final project, there are areas that would benefit from redesign.
A project-based teamwork approach allows students to gradually develop problem-solving, self-learning, and collaborative skills. Through a project-based teamwork approach, students are encouraged to develop a habit of self-learning and to share information and exchange ideas. This type of approach enables students to apply learning, enhance their effectiveness in communication, and to develop creativity, entrepreneurship, and sense of commitment, which is what the community at large expects of education in the 21st century. Undergraduates benefit most from this project-based teamwork approach, because it allows them to take an active and practical role in learning (Ngai, 2007).
A team project that almost works
The team project in my Art Appreciation course is a progressive assignment that takes shape over four weeks of the course with the goal of creating a virtual museum. First, I assign students to teams from day one of the course, requiring that they have a web address, main page, and mission statement in place by the end of the first week of class. In the second week they are building web pages and content for the permanent virtual museum collection based on a particular theme in art. The third week’s assignment is development of a special virtual exhibit, again with a specific theme of individual preference. Lastly, in the fourth week, students build virtual museum pages that incorporate their own creative works into gallery. The projects are submitted to the discussion board with a reflective paper and other teams post critical reviews of the projects. A final project rubric is also available to help with clarity of criteria, self reflection and peer assessment.
Many elements of this project have been working; however, the component that seems to put my students in despair is the ability to establish and sustain communication with other members of their team. Evidence of this is shown through the ‘panic’ student emails stating that teammates have disappeared, just like the example quoted at the beginning of this article. I need to look at establishing a means of monitoring student progress carefully through the four week team project. Components that are already working well include reflective writing, self/peer assessments, and assignment assessment rubrics but there are still some missing elements.
Elements of a team project that are missing
When I began the search to see what elements might be missing from the almost effective team project, I came across an article by Bruce Curry (2001). His article was entitled, Collaborative, Connected and Experiential Learning: Reflections of an Online Learner. Curry prepared this article after a successful collaborative online team learning conference at the Annual Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference. It is suggested by Curry that instructors provide guidance for students on how to work effectively in collaborative teams. The social aspects of successful teams should be explicitly taught and not assumed (Curry, 2001). I concur with him that an instructor should prepare their students for teamwork.
This is what I have done thus far: I give instructions on the Announcement page in Blackboard, our content delivery system, regarding how the teams should introduce themselves and get connected with their team members. The addition of a check-in assignment would establish that they have done within a few days and will be part of my revision. Secondly, I will also require that the team provide me with a team charter. This will be part of their first team assignment, which will establish team goals, chart how they will divide the tasks of the project, establish communication with each other, and resolve conflicts that may arise.
The charter would eliminate disparities, which might arise from needs for team member commitment and progression of team outcome (“pass” vs. “A”). Competing demands are no different in the working world where resolution usually rests with open communication of goals and expectations, and then with working around each individual’s peculiar demands and interests. Status reporting and regular discussions of process and feedback appear to be catalysts for this type of sharing, and for getting the important issues addressed on a timely basis (Hurst & Thomas 2004).
The requirements for Curry’s (2001) project assignments include written team submissions each week, which enable the instructor to give directed feedback and guide the learners through the course and progression of the project. After thinking about how this would enhance the communications between instructor and learner, I feel it is a change that could be managed without altering the essence of the assignment.
In conclusion, team projects are a vital essential in online learning. The online instructor has a responsibility to provide not only a challenging project, but clearly stated project requirements. In my upcoming course I will include; team building guidelines to facilitate and help learners to establish team relationships, assignment of team charter to accompany first week team assignment, weekly checkpoint assignments to help guide and monitor learner progress and give regular feedback, reflective writing opportunities for the learner to embrace the learning experience, and clear assessment criteria.
References
Bruce, C. (2001). Collaborative, Connected, and Experiential Learning: Reflections of an Online Learner. In: Proceedings of the Annual Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference (6th, Murfreesboro, TN, April 8-10, 2001); Retrieved July 27, 2007, from http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed01/2.pdf
Hurst, D. C., & Thomas, J. (2004). Developing team Skills and accomplishing team projects online. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Ed.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning (pp. 195-239). Athabasca, Canada: Athabasca University.
Ngai, E. W.T. (2007). Learning in introductory e-commerce: A project-based teamwork approach Computers & Education, 48 (1), 17-29.