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1. Cooperative Learning and Co-Regulation: Exploring Students' Teamwork Strategies in Higher Education

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10342908  

   Aggrawal, Sakhi; Cristancho, Jorge A; Patel, Devang A; Magana, Alejandra J (October 2023, IEEE)

   This research paper investigates the effectiveness of cooperative learning and co-regulation strategies in promoting teamwork and enhancing students' performance in higher education. The study was conducted in an in-person intermediate-level information system design course with 152 students divided into 31 teams. The students utilized the Scrum framework to manage a semester-long project with three milestones. Retrospective data were collected at the end of each milestone, and the first milestone data were analyzed in this study. Through a thematic analysis of retrospective data collected after the first milestone, the study examines students' planning, monitoring, and reflection strategies. The findings reveal that students demonstrated adaptive planning, equitable contribution, and task allocation based on individual strengths and preferences. In terms of monitoring, students adopted a proactive approach, displayed relational competence, and utilized both synchronous and asynchronous communication channels. Regarding reflection, students valued effective planning and execution but struggled with time management. They developed concrete improvement strategies for the next milestone, emphasizing realistic deadlines, improved communication, and a better understanding of team members' strengths. This research contributes to the understanding of cooperative learning and co-regulation in promoting effective teamwork in higher education. The findings have implications for pedagogical practices and suggest the importance of integrating cooperative learning and co-regulation strategies in team-based learning environments. Future research can further explore the application of these strategies in different educational contexts and investigate their long-term effects on students' performance and engagement. 

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2. Operationalizing team commitment in a project-based learning environment

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962577  

   Jaiswal, Aparajita; Karabiyik, Tugba; Thomas, Paul; Magana, Alejandra J. (October 2022, Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   Commitment is a multi-dimensional construct that has been extensively researched in the context of organizations. Organizational and professional commitment have been positively associated with technical performance, client service, attention to detail, and degree of involvement with one’s job. However, there is a relative dearth of research in terms of team commitment, especially in educational settings. Teamwork is considered a 21stcentury skill and higher education institutions are focusing on helping students to develop teamwork skills by applied projects in the coursework. But studies have demonstrated that creating a team is not enough to help students build teamwork skills. Literature supports the use of team contracts to bolster commitment, among team members. However, the relationship between team contracts and team commitment has not been formally operationalized.This research category study presents a mixed-methods approach towards characterizing and operationalizing team commitment exhibited by students enrolled in a sophomore-level systems analysis and design course by analyzing team contracts and team retrospective reflections. The course covers concepts pertaining to information systems development and includes a semester-long team project where the students work together in four or five member teams to develop the project deliverables. The students have prior software development experiences through an introductory systems development course as well as multiple programming courses. The data for this study was collected through the team contracts signed by students belonging to one of the 23 teams of this course. The study aims to answer the following research question: How can team commitment be characterized in a sophomore-level system analysis and design course among the student teams?A rubric was developed to quantify the team commitment levels of students based on their responses on the team contracts. Students were classified as high or low commitment based on the rubric scores. The emergent themes of high and low commitment teams were also presented. The results indicated that the high commitment teams were focused on setting goals, effective communication, and having mechanisms in place for timely feedback and improvement. On the other hand, low commitment teams did not articulate the goals of the project, they demonstrated a lack of dedication for attending team meetings regularly, working as a team, and had a lack of proper coordination while working together. 

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3. A Reflection on Action Approach to Teamwork Facilitation

   Jaiswal, A.; Patel, D.; Zhu, Y.; Lee, J.; & Magana, A.J. (January 2022, ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   Working in teams has been recognized as an essential 21st-century skill. Introducing teamwork in the undergraduate classroom is crucial as it allows the students to work with individuals with diverse skillsets and learn from one another. It is important to note that just creating a team and allowing the students to work does not foster teamwork skills. Inculcating teamwork skills requires a consciousness on the part of the instructor and the teaching assistants. Pedagogies such as cooperative learning have been recognized as effective in helping students develop teamwork skills. We introduced a joint reflection on action approach to developing teamwork skills among novice students as part of a sophomore-level systems analysis and design course. In this evidence-based practice paper, we report on students’ reflections regarding their perceptions of teamwork. This study approaches the following research questions: What are students' reflections about the role of communication while working in teams in a cooperative project-based learning environment? The guiding pedagogical framework for this course is cooperative learning. The course requires the students to work in teams in a semester-long software development project. To elicit reflection on action about their teamwork experience. Specifically, we exposed students to concrete experiences as part of their teamwork interactions, which became the basis for observations and reflections. For this, the semester-long project was complemented with one reflection-on-action activity. In the activity, students were asked to watch a video of secrets of successful teamwork and were asked to reflect on their perceptions about the role of communication within teams. The students’ reflections on the activity were analyzed using qualitative inductive thematic analysis to understand the students’ perceptions regarding teamwork and communication within teams. 

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4. A Reflection on Action Approach to Teamwork Facilitation

   Jaiswal, A.; Patel, D.; Zhu, Y.; Lee, J.; Magana, A.J. (January 2022, Proceedings ASEE annual conference)

   Working in teams has been recognized as an essential 21st-century skill. Introducing teamwork in the undergraduate classroom is crucial as it allows the students to work with individuals with diverse skillsets and learn from one another. It is important to note that just creating a team and allowing the students to work does not foster teamwork skills. Inculcating teamwork skills requires a consciousness on the part of the instructor and the teaching assistants. Pedagogies such as cooperative learning have been recognized as effective in helping students develop teamwork skills. We introduced a joint reflection on action approach to developing teamwork skills among novice students as part of a sophomore-level systems analysis and design course. In this evidence-based practice paper, we report on students’ reflections regarding their perceptions of teamwork. This study approaches the following research questions: What are students' reflections about the role of communication while working in teams in a cooperative project-based learning environment? The guiding pedagogical framework for this course is cooperative learning. The course requires the students to work in teams in a semester-long software development project. To elicit reflection on action about their teamwork experience. Specifically, we exposed students to concrete experiences as part of their teamwork interactions, which became the basis for observations and reflections. For this, the semester-long project was complemented with one reflection-on-action activity. In the activity, students were asked to watch a video of secrets of successful teamwork and were asked to reflect on their perceptions about the role of communication within teams. The students’ reflections on the activity were analyzed using qualitative inductive thematic analysis to understand the students’ perceptions regarding teamwork and communication within teams. 

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5. Impact of Student/Team Characteristics on Design Project Outcomes in Senior Design Courses

   Godbole, Hrushikesh; DeBartolo, Elizabeth; Takai, Shun; Esterman, Marcos (June 2023, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Ability to effectively work in teams is one of the desired outcomes of engineering and engineering technology programs. Unfortunately, working in teams is still challenging for many students. Rather than contributing to team projects, some students resort to social loafing. Social loafing tends to destroy both teamwork performance and individual learning, especially in solving ill-structured problems, such as design. Furthermore, a bad experience on a past team is a significant concern as it could generate negative feelings toward future team projects. Formation of collaborative teams is a critical first step in team-project-based design courses as team composition directly affects not only teamwork processes and outcomes, but also teamwork skills and experience. This NSF-IUSE sponsored project aims to enhance students’ teamwork experiences and teamwork learning through 1) understanding how to form better student design teams and 2) identifying exercises that will effectively improve team member collaboration. We do this by comparing student characteristics and design task characteristics with the quality of the design team outcome, and examining the resulting correlations. Student characteristics cover six categories: 1) background information, 2) work structure preferences, 3) personality, 4) ability, 5) motivation, and 6) attitude. Task characteristics and design team outcomes are characterized using the Creative Product Semantic Scale. In this article, we present correlations between student/team characteristics and design project outcome, and correlations between task characteristics and design project outcome for 2020-2021 senior design teams at two institutions. For both institutions, we will present correlations between individual student characteristics and team outcome. For one institution, we will also present correlation between team-level characteristics and team outcomes. 

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