ExCEEd Community Exchange

Greetings! It's a week into classes here at Florida Gulf Coast University and I'm full swing into team projects in both my junior and senior level courses. Effective teams and engagement of all team members is always a challenge (or at least has always been one for me) but seems to have additional complexities in the virtual environment. My question to the group is this:

What have you used to ensure or assess team engagement in the past (either in person or virtual teams), and what (if anything) do you plan to do differently if you are in a virtual environment this academic year?

I have a couple of things I've tried, as well as some that I'm thinking about, and would love to have feedback on these or others I may not have included. My experiences / thoughts include.

• Peer evaluations (qualitative based on established set of criteria, open ended questions, other?)
• Peer ratings (scales for various items or just overall, requirement to average to neutral or not?, impact on grade?)
• Team contracts (expectations, guidelines if expectations not met, how enforced?)
• Progress reports (regular basis - how often?, summary of meetings, status of project, comparison to goals, plans for future)
• Instructor check-ins (mandatory or optional?, everyone or majority of group?, how often?)
• Intermittent assignments (scaffolding a larger project with a series of smaller assignments either separate or as % completion)
• Recording / posting meetings (how much of the meeting? video or audio?)
• What haven't I considered?

One of my biggest concerns is with my juniors - who may not know many, if any, of their classmates. How do I help them establish effective team interactions in a virtual environment? I was shocked to get feedback from my seniors over the summer who mentioned the limited group interactions they had due to social distancing expectations ... and these were students who already knew each other well.

I look forward to hearing thoughts from everyone. Whether you've already started classes or are still in the planning stages, I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy.

Regards,
Tanya






------------------------------
Tanya Kunberger Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Professor and Chair
Florida Gulf Coast University
Fort Myers FL
------------------------------

Tanya
it sounds like you are already doing great things.  I have just one suggestion and it comes from something my students starting doing organically and then I helped expand the idea.   Have the teams create zoom rooms or google hangout spaces where they intentionally go to do their individual work on the project at a time agreed upon by the team.  A lot of my groups used these to help hold themselves accountable and not feel like they were working alone.  Sometimes these were official discussion times for group planning but other times they would literally all just log in and work.  If they got stuck they would ask each other questions.   Maybe you could tell them they need to share the planned times with you so you can drop by.  If you occasionally can drop in early in the term and they see that you do, they will form a habit of doing it?

We have a physical computing/work space we call the civil lab where list of students meet to work. Our sophomores created a zoom civil lab room and shared the zoom info with all the sophomores and they would all drop in to work on assignments and projects.  They shared the info with the first years to so they could Help keep them connected.

------------------------------
Tonya Nilsson P.E.,M.ASCE
Senior Lecturer
San Jose CA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-24-2020 01:40 PM
From: Tanya Kunberger
Subject: Ensuring and Assessing Team Engagement in a Virtual Environment

Greetings! It's a week into classes here at Florida Gulf Coast University and I'm full swing into team projects in both my junior and senior level courses. Effective teams and engagement of all team members is always a challenge (or at least has always been one for me) but seems to have additional complexities in the virtual environment. My question to the group is this:

What have you used to ensure or assess team engagement in the past (either in person or virtual teams), and what (if anything) do you plan to do differently if you are in a virtual environment this academic year?

I have a couple of things I've tried, as well as some that I'm thinking about, and would love to have feedback on these or others I may not have included. My experiences / thoughts include.

• Peer evaluations (qualitative based on established set of criteria, open ended questions, other?)
• Peer ratings (scales for various items or just overall, requirement to average to neutral or not?, impact on grade?)
• Team contracts (expectations, guidelines if expectations not met, how enforced?)
• Progress reports (regular basis - how often?, summary of meetings, status of project, comparison to goals, plans for future)
• Instructor check-ins (mandatory or optional?, everyone or majority of group?, how often?)
• Intermittent assignments (scaffolding a larger project with a series of smaller assignments either separate or as % completion)
• Recording / posting meetings (how much of the meeting? video or audio?)
• What haven't I considered?

One of my biggest concerns is with my juniors - who may not know many, if any, of their classmates. How do I help them establish effective team interactions in a virtual environment? I was shocked to get feedback from my seniors over the summer who mentioned the limited group interactions they had due to social distancing expectations ... and these were students who already knew each other well.

I look forward to hearing thoughts from everyone. Whether you've already started classes or are still in the planning stages, I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy.

Regards,
Tanya






------------------------------
Tanya Kunberger Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Professor and Chair
Florida Gulf Coast University
Fort Myers FL
------------------------------

Tonya,

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll definitely mention this to my students. Here at FGCU we have a student lounge as well as a computer lab and "nooks" at the end of each floor for studying. We built the building specifically keeping in mind space for students to congregate and interact - and in the past I've often stopped to chat with groups working in the various locations. These interactions (both between the students themselves as well as the students and I) are what I haven't figured out how to replicate, and what I worry is negatively impacting (or at least not positively supporting) my students' development of meaningful teamwork and engagement skills.

Essentially I want engineers who all play nice in the sandbox, not those who take their toys and go home. (Yes, I had to include a geotech reference :)) The class I'm developing for my juniors is focused on engineering systems where we're talking about unintended consequences of technological development. I feel like I'm in a living laboratory - trying to overcome the lack of teaming and collaborative interactions (the unintended consequence) cause by implementing social distancing (a critical health safety precaution). Saying it now, maybe I outsource the solution to my students and see what ideas they have ...

Tanya

------------------------------
Tanya Kunberger Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Professor and Chair
Florida Gulf Coast University
Fort Myers FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-25-2020 01:06 AM
From: Tonya Nilsson
Subject: Ensuring and Assessing Team Engagement in a Virtual Environment

Tanya
it sounds like you are already doing great things.  I have just one suggestion and it comes from something my students starting doing organically and then I helped expand the idea.   Have the teams create zoom rooms or google hangout spaces where they intentionally go to do their individual work on the project at a time agreed upon by the team.  A lot of my groups used these to help hold themselves accountable and not feel like they were working alone.  Sometimes these were official discussion times for group planning but other times they would literally all just log in and work.  If they got stuck they would ask each other questions.   Maybe you could tell them they need to share the planned times with you so you can drop by.  If you occasionally can drop in early in the term and they see that you do, they will form a habit of doing it?

We have a physical computing/work space we call the civil lab where list of students meet to work. Our sophomores created a zoom civil lab room and shared the zoom info with all the sophomores and they would all drop in to work on assignments and projects.  They shared the info with the first years to so they could Help keep them connected.

------------------------------
Tonya Nilsson P.E.,M.ASCE
Senior Lecturer
San Jose CA

Original Message:
Sent: 08-24-2020 01:40 PM
From: Tanya Kunberger
Subject: Ensuring and Assessing Team Engagement in a Virtual Environment

Greetings! It's a week into classes here at Florida Gulf Coast University and I'm full swing into team projects in both my junior and senior level courses. Effective teams and engagement of all team members is always a challenge (or at least has always been one for me) but seems to have additional complexities in the virtual environment. My question to the group is this:

What have you used to ensure or assess team engagement in the past (either in person or virtual teams), and what (if anything) do you plan to do differently if you are in a virtual environment this academic year?

I have a couple of things I've tried, as well as some that I'm thinking about, and would love to have feedback on these or others I may not have included. My experiences / thoughts include.

• Peer evaluations (qualitative based on established set of criteria, open ended questions, other?)
• Peer ratings (scales for various items or just overall, requirement to average to neutral or not?, impact on grade?)
• Team contracts (expectations, guidelines if expectations not met, how enforced?)
• Progress reports (regular basis - how often?, summary of meetings, status of project, comparison to goals, plans for future)
• Instructor check-ins (mandatory or optional?, everyone or majority of group?, how often?)
• Intermittent assignments (scaffolding a larger project with a series of smaller assignments either separate or as % completion)
• Recording / posting meetings (how much of the meeting? video or audio?)
• What haven't I considered?

One of my biggest concerns is with my juniors - who may not know many, if any, of their classmates. How do I help them establish effective team interactions in a virtual environment? I was shocked to get feedback from my seniors over the summer who mentioned the limited group interactions they had due to social distancing expectations ... and these were students who already knew each other well.

I look forward to hearing thoughts from everyone. Whether you've already started classes or are still in the planning stages, I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy.

Regards,
Tanya






------------------------------
Tanya Kunberger Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Professor and Chair
Florida Gulf Coast University
Fort Myers FL
------------------------------