Increasingly, instructors across colleges of agriculture incorporate group or team projects into their courses. There are many reasons such projects are utilized, including that they provide an experiential learning opportunity to develop students’ teamwork and interpersonal skills.

This workshop is sponsored by the Experiential Learning Committee and will be presented by a diverse team of faculty and graduate students with experience teaching and researching teamwork and leadership. The purpose of this workshop is to enhance participants’ ability to design effective teamwork assignments and integrate purposeful teamwork instruction in their courses. Moreover, we will provide resources including sample assignment descriptions, peer-to-peer evaluation approaches, teamwork skills assessments, and team contract templates. At the conclusion of this workshop, participants should be able to, (1) Distinguish between group work and teamwork, (2) Explain potential learning outcomes associated with group/team projects, (3) Describe ways to evaluate teamwork, and (4) Apply strategies to intentionally teach teamwork and interpersonal skills through team projects.

Using examples of team and group projects from across a variety of agriculture sub-disciplines, we will showcase a range of scopes and purposes. We will share multiple assignment descriptions, rubrics, and templates participants can use or modify to develop their own team project assignments. We will explore strategies to evaluate teamwork skill development, including individual and team assessments as well as peer evaluation. Participants will work in teams to analyze and evaluate various group and team project approaches they could implement in their course(s). Additionally, we will teach specific strategies to support and facilitate student groups through conflict management. Participants will engage in role-play and small-group discussion using scenarios drawn from real experiences. Finally, our team will highlight opportunities to integrate teamwork instruction into technical courses, helping participants identify potential lessons they could include in their specific courses.