Enhancing Team Dynamics in an Online Learning Environment

The corporate world considers the ability of employees to work well within a team environment as a critical factor in success and expects potential employees to gain experience of team work during their university education. Although team projects have been well-incorporated into the traditional curriculum in higher education, the advent of online learning has created challenges in ensuring effective team dynamics. This research presents a case study implementing an online team learning approach designed to create a positive learning environment at St. Petersburg College. In the original online environment, both staff and students encountered a variety of concerns and ineffective team dynamics. These issues were addressed by the course team using a variety of formalized rocedures, best practices and team documents. This led to improved student interactions, better quality of assignments, as well as lecturers spending less time on team management issues

BUILDING EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL LEARNING TEAMS THROUGH ENHANCED TEAM PROCESSES

Information and communication technologies have changed the way how people live, learn and conduct the business activities. The utilization of virtual teams to support cooperative learning becomes a leading topic in distance education. Previous research reveals that the practices of collaborative learning through team interactions enrich students’ learning experiences and prepare them to embrace the real-world problems in the team-based activities. Aligned with the philosophy of learning community, virtual learning teams have reported enhanced student-to-student engagement, raised motivation, higher student satisfaction, greater retention rates, and better academic performance with improved critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication capabilities. In this article, not only challenges are identified, but also strategies to create and facilitate productive virtual learning teams are recommended. These proposed strategies are instrumental in cultivating virtual teams and can be beneficial to instructional designers or instructors who might either integrate the team component into the curriculum or facilitate virtual teams in the online classrooms

How peer assessment could be interactive and effective

In practical courses, students consider teachers’ assessment of various skills to be baseless and unfair. Unfortunately, due to a lack of equipment, only a few students take part in practical skills performance, while the rest of the students remain passive in learning and assessment. In this paper we suggest an original design to use peer assessment as an interactive strategy and examine its efficiency to improve students’ individual skills, teamwork skills and practical performance in an educational technology course. In the study reported on here, a quasi-experimental design was used, which included a sample of 73 female students divided into experimental and control groups. The treatment tools were provided to the experimental group while the assessment tools were applied to both groups before and after the intervention. Data analysis revealed that an interactive peer assessment strategy was effective in improving individual skills, teamwork skills and practical performance. We recommend that this suggested strategy is used widely in practical courses. Keywords: individual skills; interactive peer assessment strategy; peer tutoring; practical performance; teamwork skill

Communication in global entrepreneurial virtual teams: a systematic literature review

Objective of the Study: Global virtual team has become a commonplace in organizational structure and been widely used in entrepreneurial teams, such as born globals. Communication is recognized as a critical factor and challenge in GVT, nevertheless, researchers have merely touched the field of communication in global entrepreneurial virtual team. This study aimed to fill this research gap and found out what can global entrepreneurial teams do to achieve effective communication. Methodology and the Theoretical Framework: As very little literature existed about entrepreneurial GVT communication, this study conducted a systematic literature review on GVT communication in general and applied the synthesized findings to entrepreneurial team literature. Findings and Conclusions: The research showed that while communication plays a vital role in GVT functioning, it also specifically plays as a team performance factor, a human resource practice, a leadership practice, a trust building factor, a team member's boundary management strategy, an information delivery tool, a knowledge sharing channel and a team process facilitator. Factors that affect communication in entrepreneurial GVT include leadership, culture, technology, trust, language, communication behavior, communication channel, communication frequency/timing, training, interpersonal relations, interaction, task interdependence, communication wastes identification, degree of virtuality, coordination and awareness. Some factors depend on each other and communication is always a value that plays between these variables. To achieve effective communication in entrepreneurial GVT, the practitioners should address effective leadership practices

The determinants of trust in the boardroom

Using a behavioural perspective, this chapter presents further knowledge on the conditions in the boardroom that facilitate or hinder the presence of trust. Building on previous studies, a model explaining the hypothesised relationships between trust and its determinants (cognitive conflict, communication efficacy, the perception of board members’ competence, affective conflict, and familiarity), with the moderating effects of board meeting frequency and board tenure, was developed. Based on a survey of UK companies, it was found that the perception of board members’ competence and familiarity are positively related to trust, whereas affective conflict is negatively related to trust. The implication of this finding for board practice is that boards of directors should engage in activities such as training and development that increase directors’ perception of each other’s competencies and why affective conflict should be managed in the boardroom

Ethics and Online Dispute Resolution: From Evolution to Revolution

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Determinants of Board processes: Trust in the Boardroom

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYAs a response to recent calls for further insights into the factors that trigger board processes, this research investigated the determinants of trust in the boardroom. Following a review of existing literature on boards, a model explicating the hypothesised relationships between trust and its determinants (cognitive conflict, communication efficacy, the perception of board members’ competence, affective conflict, and familiarity), and the moderating effects of board meeting frequency and board tenure, was developed. This model was tested using responses from 97 UK companies. There were two significant findings: the perception of board members’ competence was positively related to trust, whereas affective conflict was negatively related to trust. Previous research has suggested that trust is an important determinant of board effectiveness, and this study contributes to the further understanding of what conditions in the boardroom facilitate or hinder the presence of trust. Thus, this research presents further knowledge on board processes and how they relate to each other. In terms of implications for practice, the research showed why boards of directors should engage in activities such as training and development that increase directors’ perception of each others’ competencies and why emotional conflict in the boardroom should be managed

Communication behaviors and trust in collaborative online teams

This study investigates preservice teachers' trust levels and collaborative communication behaviors namely leadership, feedback, social interaction, enthusiasm, task and technical uncertainties, and task-oriented interactions in online learning environment. A case study design involving qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis was employed. The sample consisted of 32 (24 female, 8 male) 3rd year foreign language education students who enrolled in the "Instructional Technology and Material Development" course at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. The participants were involved in a four-month online project in the 'Learning to Teach with Technology Studio' (LTTS) course at Indiana University in the US to create a technology supported project-based learning unit for foreign language learners. At the end of the fourteen-week period, the participants filled out the online Group Trust Questionnaire consisting eight five-point Likert-type items and two open-ended questions. To identify the participants' online interactions, online discussion archives of the groups were analyzed. The findings showed that the groups with different trust levels showed different communication behaviors throughout the study, and midpoint of the group life was found critical moment for increasing or decreasing pattern of communication behaviors