Building Capacity to Teach Collaborative Skills at the University of Waterloo

Grant recipients

Kathryn Plaisance, Knowledge Integration

Scott Anderson, Centre for Teaching Excellence

(Project timeline: September 2019 - July 2020)

Description

  • This project has created a "community of practice" on collaboration at the University of Waterloo, and developed a comprehensive set of resources for students and instructors to further improve interdisciplinary collaboration at UW.
    • This stems from a recent survey that found the "ability to work well in a team" is the most sought after skill for new employees.

Project Goals

  • Identify existing activities and resources at UWaterloo around teaching students how to collaborate effectively 

  • Create a community of practice (CoP) where instructors and instructional designers can meet and share ideas and experiences that can help improve teaching in this area 

  • Find relevant external resources and share them with the CoP and others 

  • Create and disseminate new resources based on CoP activities

Findings

  • Survey findings point to five main problems that instructors have witnessed within student group work and collaboration:

    • Uneven contributions of work

    • Interpersonal conflict

    • Certain students dominating discussions

    • Difficulty in assessing group work fairly and efficiently

    • Communication issues

  • Instructors cited lack-of-time as the #1 reason for not incorporating best practices in their teaching.

    • To help with this, this project curated a set of resources for instructors to better implement best practices in their teaching.

Dissemination

  • Several in-person and online CoP events were ran for instructors and teaching staff to learn more about how to teach students to collaborate more effectively.

    • UW faculty and staff can join the Teams group, "UW Collaborates" to gain access to these materials and future event information.

  • Curated and created resources were used in INTEG 210: Making Collaboration Work, a university-wide course for all UW students.

Implications

  • Several members of the CoP have implemented concepts connected to this project in their teachings.

    • This project's applicant has been able to further extrapolate learning into other aspects of academic involvement as well.

References

  • American Management Association (2012), Critical Skills Survey [web]. URL retrieved from: https://playbook.amanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2012-Critical-Skills-Survey-pdf.pdf 

  • Beebe and Masterson (2014), Communicating in Small Groups: Principles and Practices. Pearson. 

  • Dennings, P.J. (2009). Resolving wicked problems through collaboration. Calhoun Institutional Archive of the Naval Postgraduate School, Dudley Knox Library.  

  • Harder, C., Jackson, G., & Lane, J. (2014). “Talent is not enough: Closing the skills gap.” Canada West Foundation. 

  • Laughlin, P., Hatch, E., Silver, J., and Boh, L. (2006). Groups perform better than the best individuals on letters-to-numbers problems: Effects of group size. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90 (4), 644-651. 

  • Lencioni, Patrick (2002), The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Jossey-Bass. 

  • National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2017). The Key Attributes Employers Seek on Students’ Resumes [web]. URL Retrieved from https://www.naceweb.org/about-us/press/2017/the-key-attributes-employers-seek-on-students-resumes/ 

  • Page, Scott (2019). The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy. Princeton University Press.  

  • Phillips, Katherine (2014). “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter.” Scientific American. 

  • University of Waterloo. (2018). Undergraduate Learning: Issue Paper (Waterloo Bridge to 2020). University of Waterloo. 

  • Wuchty, S., Jones, B., and Uzzi, B. (2007). “The Increasing Dominance of Teams in Knowledge Production.” Science 316, 1036-1039.

Additional Information
Category: