With the increasing use of
social networking, instant messaging and online communication students are
becoming connected to more and more people. I do feel positive about the
increase of this type of communication and the growth of the internet as a
learning tool. However, students seem to be interacting face to face with their
peers less often, and some key communication and teamwork skill are being left
behind and not taught effectively. Despite the growth of online communication,
direct communication will always be important and necessary. Those people with
these communication skills will be at an advantage as opposed to those who can't
quite get along with their peers.
There are many group work tasks you can give to teach teamwork to students and
allow them to practice their positive and productive communication with each
other. There are projects students can work on in teams, jobs students can
complete together and a huge range of games students can play that involve
productive teamwork skills to be successful.
To teach teamwork to students however you also need to highlight to them the
importance of teamwork and also what skills they will need to communicate
effectively and work well in a team. Here are some vital skills you can
highlight and discuss with your students.
Listening:The most important is that students need to listen, first of all so
that other students can speak without being interrupted and secondly so that all
students know what is being discussed and where the conversation is heading. A
simple way of assisting the students with this is to give the group a toy or
object, only one person can speak at a time and it is the person holding the
object. I use a fluffy animal but it can be anything, I've had groups of
students who have just used a particular pencil.
Speaking:Of course people do need to speak in groups, to give their own ideas
and give feedback to other people's ideas. Lots of students have no trouble
talking to their friends but to work effectively in a group students have to
learn how to talk effectively to the whole group. When speaking, students need
to express their ideas clearly and get to the point so that they are easily
understood. People can tune out if someone is talking for too long about one
thing or jumping from one idea to another and younger children have a shorter
attention span than adults.
Confidence:Not so much a skill as much as a state of mind but I believe it's a
state of mind students can practice and learn. To participate in teamwork
students need confidence, they need to express their ideas confidently and
accept other students' negative feedback without being too offended to continue.
Building a students confidence can be a long elusive process but the more group
work your student partake in and the more they learn how to listen and speak
effectively their confidence towards working in teams will improve.
There are many other skills you can discuss to teach teamwork to students
including respect, leadership and assignment of roles and responsibilities. You
can go into these in more detail with your students when the fundamentals of
listening, speaking and confidence have been discussed and practiced.
An excellent way of introducing students to teamwork and to help them practice
their abilities is through classroom games, either team games or individual
games that require them to interact with each other. Games are a great engaging
way for students to practice communication and teamwork.