Questrom Team Learning
Faculty Resources
Teamwork & Collaborative Learning
Project
Successful teams work diligently to produce high-quality project deliverables, consistently and on-time.
Using Teams in Your Course
The decision to use teams in any course is an important pedagogical decision. Team learning has been well established by researchers as an effective way to improve both learning and student motivation within a course. That said, when using teams as a significant component of a course, it is critical that faculty understand how to set student teams up for success. Below are some important ideas for you to consider as you design teamwork and collaboration into your course.
Why Use Teams?
The use of teams enables faculty to teach and assign more complex tasks, projects, and assignments that can deepen student learning. The benefits to students include higher grades, deeper comprehension of material, better interpersonal and teaming skills, and better preparation for the professional world.
Benefits
- Greater learning
- Increased engagement
- Professional skill development
- Leadership practice
Challenges
- Takes time and effort to excel
- Requires a focus on process
- Generates more conflicts than individual work
Framework for Successful Teams
3 Dimensions of Team Effectiveness: Project, Process, and People. All three are indispensable to a successful team.
Teamwork requires that students work interdependently to accomplish their goals. Successful teams not only deliver a top-quality project or product, they also build and maintain a strong, supportive, and equitable team process that guides how the work is done and ensures that all team members (people) are engaged and supported.
What to Consider When Using Teams
Once you have decided to use teams in your course, you need to think about how you will create the teams, what team assignments you will require, the role you will play in guiding teams, and finally how you will assess and grade performance.
Click the box below for specific information, suggestions, and tools to get started using teams in your courses.
Boston University Questrom School of Business
Rafik B. Hariri Building
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
Rafik B. Hariri Building
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215