Team Work Overview

About the Group Work

You will have the opportunity to work closely with in a group of two types of course activities: (1) The Life Cycle Assessment Project and (2) leading summary discussions of assigned Case Studies during the Live Sessions.

You will be assigned to a group project where you’ll collaborate with a team to put into practice the topics we’ll be covering throughout this course. There will be a cumulative team project presentation and final report due at the end of this course.

Collaborating with Group Members

There are several collaborative tools available for your group to use while collaborating. There are two main things to consider when working with others:

  1. How and when are you going to communicate as a group?
  2. What role and/or responsibilities will each team member play?

discussion_black.pngCommunication

Asynchronous

Canvas Groups

Within Groups, you can:

  • View the group list
  • Start a discussion
  • Send a message
  • Create group collaborations
    • Canvas features a Collaborations section on the left-side navigation tab where you can access Google Docs related to this course. This option requires that all of your group members have a Gmail account. To learn more, read this Canvas support article: What are Collaborations?

To access groups, click on People in the near-left navigation tab, then click on the "Groups" tab.

Microsoft OneDrive

As an OU student, you have access to the Office 365 suite of products. One of those products is Microsoft OneDrive, which allows you to co-author documents in real-time.

To access OneDrive, go to onedrive.com and sign in using your OU email address and OU password.

Synchronous

Microsoft Teams

Another product that OU students have access to with Office 365 is Microsoft Teams, a synchronous/asynchronous communication platform. Teams offers workspace and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration. Here are some of the features:

  • Chat: includes group chats and file sharing
  • Teams: allows the user to set up a team for classes
  • Channels: allows the user to set up a channel within a team (similar to Slack)
  • Calling: including instant messaging, video conferencing, phone-in options, meeting link connection
  • Meetings: including Outlook integration, broadcasting live events, attendance reports

You may find the following tutorials helpful:

Zoom and MyMedia Kaltura

OU students have access to a pro Zoom account, which allows you to communicate in real-time.

To access Zoom, visit oklahoma.zoom.us and sign in using your OU email and password.

Recording Zoom Meetings: Recording your meeting may be helpful to refer to the discussion later or share with a group member who could not attend. To record your meeting, check the Zoom settings in your account. You should record your video "to the cloud." This will send the recording of your meeting to MyMedia Kaltura, a video repository similar to YouTube. Before you make your first recording, you will need to log into mymedia.ou.edu. Use your OU email and password to log in. Once you log in, your Zoom recordings should go here by default. Note that it may take some time for a recording to transfer from Zoom to MyMedia.

Sharing MyMedia Recordings: After you have recorded your meeting, log in to mymedia.ou.edu to share the recording. Click on your name at the top of the page and select "My Media" from the dropdown list. You should see the recording of your meeting in the list of videos. Click on the particular video that you would like to share. For others to access the recording, you will need to publish the recording as "unlisted." Under the transcript of your meeting, find the "Actions" tab and click on the downward arrow to get the dropdown list. Select "publish" and then change the setting from "private" to "unlisted." Make sure that you click save at the bottom of the page. Now go to the "share" tab beneath the video and copy the link to the media page.

Other Synchronous Options

If your group is more familiar with FaceTime, Slack, Discord, or Skype, you can use one of those options instead. 

no-hand_black.pngDealing with the Free-loader Problem

Since part of your grade is linked to group work, the potential for "free-loading" does exist. If it does arise, the following steps must be taken:

  • Groups must directly and openly confront instances of such behavior as early as possible. Ideally, once confronted, the behavior will cease and no further steps are required.
  • If early group efforts to confront the problem fail, team members must let me know as soon as possible that a problem exists. I will schedule a meeting with all group members to discuss the problem and its causes. Hopefully, the behavior will then cease and no further steps are required. This meeting must take place early in the term.

Remember, there is little I can do if groups delay letting me know about a problem with only one or two weeks left in the course.

What I can and will do is adjust the individual's participation score to account for the individual contributions (or a lack thereof) to a group’s efforts.

 

reflection_black.pngPeer Evaluation

I will collect peer evaluations for assessment of individuals’ contributions to group work at the end of the course. I will then calculate an overall peer evaluation for each group member and adjust these overall scores such that extreme scores (positive and negative) are dampened. Only the adjusted peer evaluation score will be factored into your overall course participation grade.

You will be asked to evaluate your group members in their overall contribution and team citizenship. I will take your peer evaluations into consideration when calculating your final participation score. The evaluations will not change the team's project grade, but may result in upward or downward adjustment in the individual student's overall participation grade.