Developing effective team players with good interpersonal skills

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Developing effective team players with good
interpersonal skills
Andrew J Johnstone Engineering Education
Conference Tuesday 25th July 2006
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Agenda

• Group projects
• Preparatory learning for students
• Gathering and giving feedback
• Outcomes and conclusions

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Group projects - overview

• Enable students to
• Practise application of taught material
• Develop team working and interpersonal skills
• 20 of MSc degree, lasts 3 months
• Typical group size 10-15, from many countries
• Sponsored by companies, and important to them
• Range of projects in Manufacturing Department

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Group projects - management

• Initial meeting sponsor, faculty, students
• Two phases presentations and reports at end of
  both
• Faculty observe, students lead
• Roles of Leader/Deputy Leader rotate each week
  all students take both roles
• Formal weekly meetings with minutes
• Formal feedback given at end of each phase

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Preparatory learning for students
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Needs of team (Adair)
Individual needs
Group needs
Task needs
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Roles in team (Belbin)

• Plant
• Shaper
• Resource-investigator
• Monitor evaluator
• Team worker
• Implementer
• Completer finisher
• Co-ordinator
• Specialist

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Developing skills

• Managing meetings
• Communicating
• Listening
• Assessing others and giving feedback
• Applying reflective practice (Kolb)

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Gathering and giving feedback
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Data gathering faculty
A excellent, B good, C OK, D weak, 0 no
input, X absent Example of comments on
individuals Very good at saying OK or great
idea, but appears to say much more than he
does. Sometimes asks questions in an apologetic
way.
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Data gathering - students

• On selves
• Pen picture
• Own grade
• On rest of group
• Ranking
• Strengths, Areas for Improvement (AFIs)
• Value as a team member

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Students on students feedback
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Structure of feedback sessions

• Student talks about their experiences
  successes, difficulties, learning
• Feedback from faculty and other students
  presented and discussed to assess validity of
  comments
• Approaches to developing AFIs explored
• Student asked for feedback on support/direction
  provided by faculty

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Outcomes and conclusions
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Outcomes

• Performance of students invariably improves
  significantly during second phase of projects
• Sponsors happy with deliverables
• Heavy workload on faculty
• Positive feedback regularly received from alumni
• Opportunities to improve development process

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Conclusions

• Good teamworking and interpersonal skills can be
  developed by
• Understanding team needs and roles
• Learning and developing basic skills
• Receiving feedback on performance
• More time and research needed to maximise
  development of students