Creating Student Teams (QAA 3,7)

Objective:

To be able to explore key skills, attributes and roles required to create an effective team for a particular task
To articulate and analyse the skills and experience of individuals in order to match key criteria
To assess opportunities and take decisions which meet priorities, within a specific time frame
To exercise judgement in assessing a wide variety of options
To communicate decisions effectively, using strong interpersonal skills

Overview:

This activity is effectively a way of creating new student teams for a particular task, but by focusing upon skills, experience and expertise to undertake specific roles within a group. This task is designed to encourage the students to understand the skills and roles needed within effective teams to undertake a particular task. This technique can be used for any group work where the students will be undertaking a sustained activity which benefits from particular team roles or competences.

Students are asked to consider their own strengths and consider how best to articulate them (CV or advert) and then consider a task and how best they might support the activity (matching skills to the task/jobs). Teams need to be created from the student group to address the challenge they have been set.

This works particularly well with new groups as it also creates opportunities for networking and new bonds, but can also be usefully deployed to stop students working within friendship groups.

Activity:

Students need to understand the activity that they will be undertaking (task; length; scope; numbers in a group; roles to undertake etc) so that they can consider their own skills/expertise within a context, however the first element of this task is to assess their own suitability for particular activities within this task.

Self Analysis

This activity can draw upon previous CV work or application process (or create LINKEDIN profiles) to create a formal assessment and showcase of their experience and expertise.

This can be a formalised process which requires the creation of professional promotional materials (CV or poster see QAA7CreatingaPoster ) or a review process which asks them to indicate 3 key things relevant to the task, or suggest the following 3 elements to be highlighted

1 competence, technique or ‘knowledge set’ developed academically prior to this course
1 attribute of their approach to group work (leadership; interpersonal skills)
Personal interest, capability, attribute from outside education (relevant experience as a customer or user; evidence of personal interest; indication of approach to the task).

Creating the Group – Identifying the Needs

Having then been issued the task, students need time to further consider their own weakness and identify what they need to ensure they create an effective team. This reflection can be undertaken confidentially as students consider their own limitations currently and then isolate the support/network that they need to work effectively.

Creating the Group – Matching Up

Matching up the students to create their new team can be undertaken in two different styles.

Networking showcase
Students can be provided with time to network to create their own team by talking to new and unknown colleagues and asking about their “3 attributes” or CV and trying to create a match for the task. As students meet others, they build up their team and then progress around the room as a group, seeking others which fit the remaining match for their new team.
Interviewing
You can identify a group of team leaders or CEOs or HR managers (either as individuals or as a small mini team) which will be interviewing and assessing others to join their team. This can be a randomly allocated or those that have identified themselves as leaders can be given the opportunity to undertake this role. This activity is best done by allocating the team leaders to different rooms and asking them to indicate their offer (or unique selling point USP) to encourage others to join them. They will then attract the wider group to visit their room for a short dynamic interview where they match up job roles, as observed by others, who may be attracted to this team, or select to visit another room.

Skill Development:

It is important that the self-analysis (CV writing; LinkedIn profiles) draws upon educational background but also prior knowledge, previous experiences, hobbies and interests so that all the students have elements to showcase. This reflective process at the start is key to an effective match and for effective consideration of the roles.

Once the teams are matched it is important to encourage them to share a reflection about the process and create their ground rules for working together.

This document can be revisited at the end of the process and the whole matching/team working experience be explored through reflection. It is important that the groups debrief about their learning on team work, skill development and their emotions. It can be important to acknowledge that they experienced concern, fear, nerves, or excitement in meeting new people/addressing a complex task or working with new team members. Recognition of emotions is key in building confidence which allows the learners to repeat skills in new environments.

Resources:

Primarily the preparation includes the task itself but also considering the skills needed to undertake the roles inherent within task. It is important that you indicate soft skills, prior knowledge, suitable background etc that will allow all students to indicate their suitability. You may wish to write short job descriptions, or indicate the roles and the skills that are required across the task, so that the students can match their team to the “whole task”, rather than find a perfect match to a job. If you need help identifying these soft skills, then the QAA documentation for your programme can be a guide as can colleagues within Careers.

Your Careers Service can provide support (and may provide content or materials) to help the students articulate their skills as a CV.

You may wish to create a showcase element to this task where students ‘advertise’ their skills or abilities in order to get recruited which may benefit from a range of materials/scissors/pens/posters being available for them to work with.

References:

AGCAS materials
https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/as/employability/careers/documents/public/agcas-cvs-letters.pdf

Careers support examples (CV)
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/specialistsupport/researchers/agcas_cvexamples

LINKEDIN provide support for students:
https://university.linkedin.com/linkedin-for-students
https://university.linkedin.com/content/dam/university/global/en_US/site/pdf/TipSheet_BuildingaGreatProfile.pdf