Schools of business aim to help students develop employer-valued skills, which include communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and application of learning. This can be achieved through team assignments and community-based learning. Such approaches help students apply the concepts they are learning, collaborate with others, develop managerial skills, and solve real-life workplace issues. Teamwork is commonly thought to be enhanced when students establish a team charter outlining their goals, norms, and processes. Research on the value of team charters in business education, however, is limited. This study examined the role of team charters on student perceptions of working well together. Data was collected and analyzed from a mid-term team evaluation and a final team charter assessment. Findings indicated that perceived value of team charters differs across the year in school and tends to be higher for less experienced students. The provision of a structured project roadmap clarified team member roles, responsibilities, personal accountability, and team vision.
Tag: Collaboration
Engaging Conversationally: A Method of Engaging Students in Their Learning and Examining Instruction
Under the principles of the scholarship of teaching and learning and action research this study sought to examine how an instructor created and facilitated engagement in his students. The research was primarily undertaken to further define the middle range theory of mutual engagement. Theoretical sampling was used to analyze approximately 100 pieces of data that included instructor notes, teaching observations, feedback from conference presentations, student assessments, and end of semester student evaluations. Engaging conversationally (EC) emerged as the phenomenon that described the instructor’s engagement in the learning process. EC was an ongoing cyclical pattern of inquiry that included preparing, reflecting and modeling. Interconnected in the pattern of inquiry were personality traits, counselor education, and teaching philosophy.
The Growth of Higher Educators for Social Justice: Collaborative Professional Development in Higher Education
In this article, we investigate what happened when, contrary to the typical isolation of faculty in higher education, a group of higher educators from various disciplines in a graduate school of education met regularly to discuss issues related to our teaching and social justice. More specifically, we explored the following research question: How does collaboration among higher educators from various disciplines shape their beliefs and practices of teaching for social justice? Over three years of collaboration and conversation, not only did we expand our own knowledge and understandings of notions of social justice, but we began to take important steps towards increasing our social justice actions in our teaching. This article explores our efforts to create a self-directed professional development group of higher educators and provides suggestions for similarly interested higher educators.
Teaching & Learning for International Students in a ‘Learning Community’: Creating, Sharing and Building Knowledge
This article considers the culture of learning communities for effective teaching. A learning community is defined here as an environment where learners are brought together to share information, to learn from each other, and to create new knowledge. The individual student develops her/his own learning by building on learning from others. In a learning community approach to teaching, educators can ensure that students gain workplace skills such as collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving. In this case study, it is shown how an active learning community, introduced into a blended teaching environment (face-to-face and virtual), effectively supported international undergraduates in the building of knowledge and workplace skills.
Benefits of Collaborating Finance Research in Business Schools
Collaboration in business research provides outcomes and results that are more efficient than those due to individual efforts. The integration of diverse environments and disciplines often generates creative ideas. Collaboration increases the quality of research and effectiveness of discoveries, and promotes the dissemination of knowledge. Cases of collaborative finance research in the business schools are illustrated in this study. The findings include many significant benefits in knowledge stimulation, education advancement, community connections, and other rewarding results. Benefits of collaborative research outweigh the challenges and contribute to faculty development, student education, and advancements in the field of business.
A Study of the Effectiveness of Blackboard Collaborate for Conducting Synchronous Courses at Multiple Locations
This paper discusses the effectiveness of the videoconferencing software Blackboard Collaborate for carrying out instruction at college level to students attending classes synchronously at multiple locations. The paper describes the motivation for this study, a brief literature review on the subject, the methodology used, and the results obtained. The main conclusion of this study is the confirmation that synchronous instruction, in general, and Blackboard Collaborate, in particular, is an effective environment for tuition of students at a distance. Based on this study, several recommendations to be used in synchronous education are provided.
Leading the Charge for SoTL – Embracing Collaboration
The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) enables colleges and universities to assess student learning and measure the outcomes by engaging in meaningful research, and to disseminate this research. The objective of this paper is to give a snapshot of and assess the current thinking behind this scholarship by presenting examples of SoTL, and to provide insights into the measurement of SoTL research by faculty members. By presenting a carefully crafted research agenda in SoTL, colleges and universities can disseminate this research as a means of providing useful assessments of student learning and measurements of relevant outcomes.
“I Hate Group Work!”: Addressing Students’ Concerns About Small-Group Learning
This article identifies the strategies used by architecture professors and their undergraduate students to mitigate common issues that students raise about group work. Based on participant-observation, interviews with students and faculty, and analysis of instructional materials and student work, this IRB-approved ethnographic case study complicates the separation of collaborative, cooperative, and problem-based learning into distinct pedagogical models. Rather than viewing students’ concerns as a form of resistance that can be avoided with the right approach to small-group learning, this article explores how the hybrid model operating in design studio pedagogy confronts the problems inherent in any form of group work.
Teaching Small Group Communication: A Do Good Project
This paper focuses on the parameters of a semester-long project called the “Do Good” project, geared towards developing small group communication skills in undergraduate students. This project highlights participation in a social engagement project that allows students to bridge concepts learned in small group communication lectures (e.g., team dynamics, project management, conflict resolution, decision making, leadership) with community outreach. Included are an overview of the project, and examples for how each component both challenges students’ ability to communicate in groups and provides motivation that foster students’ ability to link in-class knowledge with practical, real world application.
Convincing Students That Their Groupmates’ Success Can Increase, Not Diminish, Their Own Success
Both theory and research support the use of group activities to aid student learning. However, some students are reluctant to learn with peers for fear that the peers will gain more. The article attempts to address this fear. This article provides educators with explanations to give their students as to why, even in norm referenced assessment environments, by helping their groupmates, students are positively, not negatively, impacting their own success on assessments. The article opens with a review of assessment options: norm referenced, criterion referenced and ipsative. Next, Social Interdependence Theory is explained for the insights it might offer as to how students view their peers’ success. The article’s third section summarises some of the research on peer learning, in particular research on what forms of peer interaction might best promote learning. Finally, the article examines three contexts in which norm referencing is applied – standardised exams, class grades and class ranking – and concludes that the chances are small of groupmates’ success diminishing the success of students who have helped their groupmates. This conclusion is reached based, first, on mathematical calculations and, most importantly, on the research based premise that when students provide elaborated help to groupmates, the helpers are likely to boost their own scores.