Teaching Freshman Students To Assess Team Performance

This paper describes an approach to teaching teaming that has been used in a freshman engineering design course for the past three years. The approach includes three components. First, provide students with a variety of teaming experiences. Second, teach students some basics of team functioning. Finally, establish a culture in which self-assessment and evaluation of others is expected. The paper briefly describes the use of the following class activities: 1) a survey designed to establish a baseline of team functioning for each individual, 2) jigsaw exercises related to team roles, stages of team development and typical team problems, 3) a team-readiness self-assessment essay, and 4) periodic team assessment reports. Through these activities each student demonstrates the ability to evaluate teaming skills.