Cover Sheet

Project Part 1 Overview of the Effective and Efficient Online Course Team

Overview of the Effective and Efficient Online Course Team
Advantages of collaborative online teams
• Promotes critical thinking skills.
• Promotes creative thinking through social communication and sharing of ideas.
• Requires active student involvement in the learning process. Students increase preparation and practice working with one another.
• Provides courage for people to ask questions without being monopolized by one group member. Easier than face to face for some.
• Creates a more personal environment than in large groups.
• Provides a social support system for students. You never know when a question needs to be answered.
• Builds diversity understanding among people. Allows all races to come together.
• Develops team skills used on the job and life
• Easy to keep track of deadlines with more time to work on a project.
• You can access the online information from anywhere.
• Things can be completed quicker.
• Documents can be stored in a central location for anyone to access it.
• Easy way to improve the positive relationships among the members.
• Easier to stay on task.
Effective and Efficient Teams:
• Clear goal, result-driven, unified commitment, kids who worked well together, and outside support.
• Attempts to clarify any problems among the group and clarify an issue.
• Very committed.
• Having a common defined goal that is clear and elevating
• A results driven and efficient system or method of organizing how a team will work together
• Having competent team members that know what they are doing and how to do their job
• Having the attitude of being unified and all committed
• Creating a positive environment and working together to achieve the goal
• Creating high standards that the team can follow and would be more likely to succeed
• Having outside support and recognition to gather information and materials for the needed job
• Having an effective leader
• Having experience in the current problem needed to be solved
• The abilities to solve problems easily
• Openness
• Supportiveness
• Action oriented
• Positive personal style
• Clarifying the teams expectations
• Timelines and deadlines are verbalized and met by all members

Characteristics of Effective/Efficient Teams Members
• Unified commitment: Every team member must be dedicated in order for the team to reach its set goals. Team members should feel dedicated to the team and the task to be achieved.
• Standards: If high standards are set, the team is more likely to succeed.
• Leadership: Every good team needs an effective leader even though the team shares the responsibility of leadership.
• External support: Help from outside the team is needed to acquire the information and material for the project/task.
• Clear/realistic goals: Goals set within and for the team have to be obtainable or the team just ends up being frustrated with one another. Realistic goals are more likely to be reached.
• Action oriented: Each team member should be ready and willing to take the actions necessary to obtain the goal. Procrastination and lack of motivation can reduce team.
• Competent team members: It is important for each member to know what the assignment is and how to complete the assignment.

COACHING TIPS FOR PARTICIPATING ON EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT TEAMS.

• Communication: Is the primary key in and effective and efficient teams. Communication can builds team’s performance, skills, creativity, and success. We can communicate in several different ways by phone, e-mail, video conference, face-to-face, faxes, and letters.
• Commitment: The depth of the commitment of team members to work together effectively to accomplish the goals of the teams is a critical factor in team success. The combination of a strong, positive commitment to self and to a set of principles serves as a foundation to effectively maintain the remaining for commitments. These commitments are to: customers, results, employees, and the group organization.
• Coordination: Organizing our activities, responsibilities, and structures to ensure that the resources of our organizations meet the pursuit of our final objective.
• Cooperation: to have and efficient and effective team you need teamwork and cooperation. Everyone in the team should encourage each member to contribute ideas, be a good listener, allow everyone in the group to contribute their talents and skill, be open and receptive to new ideas, share thoughts, and distribute the work evenly among team members.
• Manage conflicts effectively: If members of the group are not getting along, discuss the issue in a calm, rational manner. The less drama involved when working in a group, the better.
• Actively seek out opportunities to help out other group members that may be struggling. The best teams are the type where members are willing to assist one another.
• Follow through on individual tasks. Each member needs to do what he or she says they will in order for a team to be effective. Nobody wants to have to pick up someone else’s slack. The extra slack will just hinder the overall outcome of the group.
• Develop group goals. It is much easier to accomplish a task when everyone knows what they are working towards.
• Plan for deadlines in advance. Nobody wants to be scrambling to complete tasks last minute. Last minute work has less thought involved and more rushing; therefore, the quality of work is decreased.
• Develop and conform to group norms. Things tend to run much more smoothly when there are ground rules in place. Some of these include: o How to follow up to ensure that each member is doing his or her assigned work o How will conflict be managed? o How will major decisions be made? o Each team member will follow through on individual assignments o Each team member will be prepared for every meeting