| Team Work: Conducting Meetings - Facilitating a Meeting |
Your students probably do not have the necessary cooperative skills to function successfully as members of a group or team when they enter your seminar, according to Johnson, Johnson and Smith. (1991) This means it is necessary to spend some time teaching them the skills they need. One way to do this is to provide students with methods for running meetings and making decisions. Methods provide a structure in which students can practice communication techniques and interactive behaviors. While the methods may seem awkward at first eventually they will become more and more natural, until the method becomes the group's behavioral norm.
The ability to effectively facilitate a meeting is also becoming a very marketable skill as companies move from hierarchical management systems to team oriented management systems. While the teams in your seminar may not always require a formal meeting method during their group meetings, the skills they practice by using the following method are valuable.
A group of individuals does not automatically become a unified team when they are assigned to a project. A group of individuals must constantly work on refining their processes and behaviors as they figure out how to become a team. Each group will work out their behaviors norms differently and move through the stages of team development at a different pace.
Help students recognize early in the quarter that the most effective teams spend time "working" on their team as well as working on the project they have been assigned. This is a new concept for many students. Let students know that reflecting on their own behavior and the behaviors of their teammates is as important as reflectig on the quality of the of their assignment.
A group evaluation form that asks students reflective questions can be used as a tool to help students to be more aware of the kinds of behaviors and attitudes that may effect a team's productivity. Groups can use an evaluation form to track the teams growth and development by completeing the form at the beginning, middle and end of the quarter.
II. The Method
The following method of leading meetings includes a description of group roles, decision making processes and a method for leading a group through process observations and closure. I have developed this page so that you can teach the entire lesson in about an hour. The first part of the lesson involves a brief lecture reviewing group roles and the four principles of a successful meeting. The second portion outlines an activity which provides an opportinity for teams to practice the roles and stages of consensus.
III. Group Roles
Meetings only need to have three defined roles, facilitator, recorder and group members to be effective. These can be rotated at each time the group meets or stay the same.
The following are descriptions of Facilitator, Recorder and Group Member roles:
Recorder:
Group Members:
Room Arrangements:
IV. Principles of a Successful Meeting
1. Shared Responsibility - everyone in the meeting should play an active role in making the meeting a success.
2. Collaborative Attitude - It is the mind-set that guides individuals to act in a cooperative manner. It is the realization that it is important to take time to get everyone on board - going slow to go fast.
3. Strategic Thinking - The process of selecting an appropriate course of action, during a meeting. By asking the following questions and building on small agreements groups navigate their way to a successful outcome.
Groups ask themselves:
4. Facilitation Methods - the group is familiar with behaviors and actions that help build understanding and agreement.
V. Groups Brainstorm Expectations and Agreements
If the groups have already done Expectations and Agreements in their small groups, move on to the activity section of this page. If they have not go back, discuss Expectations and Agreements and have groups brainstorm these first, then move on to the activity section.
All groups should appoint a Facilitator and a Recorder at this point and have several sheets of newsprint and markers to use during this activity.
Instructors may want to relieve the Facilitator at this point and continue to lead the feedback process yourself or let the Facilitators solicit individual feedback. Process observations give group members the opportunity to give individual feedback about what went well and what they would do differently next time.You may need to remind students that feed back is an opportunity for the group to identify behaviors that added to or detracted from the teams ability to function. It is not an opportunity to attack individual team members. During the first process observation, help model feedback statements and ensure that feedback focuses on observations and not inferences. For additional information see sections 9, 10, 11, and 12 in the section "Using Teams in the Classroom".
The Experiential Learning Cycle
The process by which we reflect on an experience and come to conclusions based on that experience is called closure or debriefing. This is when much of the learning takes place.
This process involves asking questions which allow members of the group to think through an experience from beginning to end. It is another way of helping students make observations about group processes and helping them apply what they have learned to new situations.
Stage 1. The Experience; the meeting, seminar, group activity
Stage 2. Describe
In this stage participants share their personal insights and reactions of the experience.
Sample questions:
Stage 3. Interpret
After the participants share their ideas and reactions. It is important to help individuals see and evaluate trends and dynamics that they may be emerging in the group.
Stage 4. Generalize
In this stage the group determines whether what went on during the experience was unique or if it happens often in many different situations. Participants are asked to focus on other situations in their lives that are similar to the activity. The task is to identify similarities and state principles that can apply to other situations. Generalizing helps participants transfer their personal learning from the experience to the rest of the world.
Stage 5. Apply
Participants decide on a course of action for the future.
Helping students through observations, reflections, connections and applications can be applied to many different learning situations. Be creative with the questions you ask. This is the time when the instructor gets to see the learning that took place during the activity.
Reference:
Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., and Smith, K. (1991) Active
learning :cooperation in the college classroom. Edina, Minnesota:
Interaction Book Company.
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