Module 1 Activities

Module 1 Synchronous Session

These live sessions are not required but are intended as supplemental learning experiences that delve deeper into each lesson. If you choose not to attend a live session, you should watch the recording at your convenience.

All synchronous sessions will be recorded for later viewing. To view recordings, select Media Gallery in the navigation menu.

To join the synchronous session, select Zoom in the course navigation window, and select "Join" for this session. Details and support are available in the Zoom Video Conferencing module.

Agenda

This is an introductory session. Your Instructor will provide an overview of how the course is structured, team assignments and responsibilities, and all other assignments that are due throughout the course. Students will have the opportunity to ask any other questions they might have regarding the course content, assignments, grading, the Instructor's background, and so on.

Team Essay 1: Virtual Team Building

In this assignment, you may not use artificial intelligence (AI) for any purpose. See Key to AI Use for more information.

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This week your group will design and implement a team building exercise. This can be challenging for your first week (which is why you have until Tuesday midnight of week 2 to complete it). In overall terms this course is very reasonable in terms of workload, this just happens to be one of the more intense weeks. And the exercise is important in that it will prepare your team for ensuing group projects.

Two of the assigned readings (Aron, 1997 & “Practice 36 questions”) are a research study, and a synopsis of the same. You need not read the study in detail, primarily focus on the first part of the Appendix (i.e. not the ‘small talk’ condition). This describes an experiment on enhancing interpersonal closeness. You should either: 1) adapt this experiment as you deem best suited for a team building context, including any modifications/additions/deletions to the questions (how or how much or how little you modify is up to you), or 2) come up a team building exercise of your own choosing.*

Whichever option you choose, as you implement your exercise it should rest on two pillars: 1) Self-disclosure and 2) Safety. Self-disclosure means sharing something beyond the superficial – such as dreams, fears, goals, preferences, experiences, etc. Self-disclosure can strengthen relationships and build trust. Safety means that all members feel safe, and the group supports psychological safety. No one feels pressured to share, and any sharing is received with respect and acceptance by the group.

The main point: rather than just ‘getting to know one another', a good team building exercise structures interaction in a way that can speed up and deepen the ability of the group to break the ice, develop trust, and move forward as a team. As such, team building can take a group of relative strangers and help them form into a team rather quickly. Indeed team building can be thought of as a form of technology. While we stereotypically think of technology as a system of rules or procedures for transforming objects in the material world (like iron ore into steel), technology can also be thought of as acting upon humans. For example, psychotherapy is a technology; it’s a set of techniques and practices designed to help individuals optimize their potential. Mindfulness or meditative practices are also a technology – designed to help regulate and strengthen our attention. Indeed, Marine boot camp can be thought of as a form of technology. It is a set of routines and practices designed to take a disparate collection of individuals and mold them into a relatively homogeneous group with a shared sense of identity and norms.

If you take this assignment seriously, it will help your team on ensuing team-based assignments. Groups that bond well and develop trust perform better in the long run. (And while you should take this seriously, it’s also okay to have fun; Humor is an element known to be conducive to human bonding!)  This assignment also provides you with insight into the technology of team building, knowledge you can apply in your professional lives.

Don’t get bogged down in process. Spend some time in idea generation (brainstorming regarding your exercise). Then implement. Then write it up!

Deliverable: a 450- to 500-word essay describing the essence of your chosen exercise, how it went, what you feel were the results. Don’t get too bogged down in conveying all the details of your exercise. What is important is to provide a rich sense of the processes that unfolded in your group and how the exercise worked for your team. Be authentic; if you feel your exercise fell short, just say what happened. Write something that is interesting to read. Please explicitly comment on how your exercise rested on the pillars of disclosure and safety. And, per the 3^rd assigned reading (Frei, 2020), say whether (or to what extent) you feel your team developed trust, and why that might matter.

Your essay should be written out with good flow (i.e. no bullet points). Post in two places: 1) upload it here so your instructor can assign a grade, 2) post it in the Module 1 Discussion: Virtual Team Building (as a post not an attachment) so others can view your team’s process. Put # of words in parenthesis at end of document (references don’t count as words).

*If you choose option #1 you can ignore the 'manipulations' done in the study. The bottom line is to come up with three sets of questions, each set containing successively deeper or challenging questions, and that it is adapted for a team as opposed to a dyad.

Discussion Topic: Module 1 Discussion: Virtual Team Building

In addition to submitting your team essay as an Assignment, so that it can be graded, please have one member of each group post their group's Essay to this discussion forum (please copy and paste as a post that is viewable to everyone, not as an attachment). There is no individual discussion requirement this week. Having each team's essay posted here merely provides everyone with an opportunity to see what transpired within the other teams, how they approached the task, what teambuilding/trustbuilding technology they came up with, and so on. You are welcome to comment in response to any team's post, but there is no requirement to.