Warm-up Activity

In this activity, students will need to work as a team, in a group of 4. The aim of the activity is for students to recognize the most effective team approach for the task, and for their teammate who will be carrying out the task. They may choose to work in parallel (multi-disciplinary), or to make a shared plan and work on different tasks (inter-disciplinary), or to work in collaboration throughout the process (trans-disciplinary). Any of these approaches may be successful, but the team should be responsive to each other.

Instructor information for an online environment: This tutorial involves students in a group of 4. Three students will give instructions to the fourth group member who will be asked to complete an activity in a certain amount of time (2-3 days). The person who will complete the task should not see the discussion taking place between her teammates, or the instructions that were given to the three teammates.

Instructions for 3 Teammates

Please tell your teammate how to draw this picture, using text-based instructions. without using the word “owl”, or showing her/him/them the picture. Between the three of you, you may decide how to give directions to your teammate.

Download the (PowerPoint Document) Collaborative Team Instructions

Example of an owl using text based instructions, such as underlines, quotation marks, characters, etc.

,_____,
(O v O)
(_vvv (_\
“    “  \\

Discussion Questions

How did you work as a team?
Did some people give more instructions than others, lead more than others?
Did anyone take over?
Did anyone sit back and let others do the work?
How did you feel about these roles? For those who were creating the drawing, what worked well for you?
What happens when different people take different roles? How does it impact you, in your capacity to participate?
Was your role based on your personality or did the group dynamic impact your participation?
Were you able to succeed? Why or why not?

Follow-up Questions

Have you had experiences with multiple leaders?
From your experiences have you seen different types of leadership?
What worked well and what did not work well in the shared leadership roles?
What did you learn about teams, and how do you think it might apply in your role as a resource consultant?
How do you think team dynamics, affect families when they are working with multiple professionals?