Where and How Teams are Used, Taught, and Assessed Across Core Courses in a Business Undergraduate Curriculum

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Shauna Jones, Beedie School of Business

Project team: Cassie Betman, research assistant, and Anirban Kar, Post-doctoral Fellow, Beedie School of Business

Timeframe: December 2017 to September 2019

Funding: $6000

Final report: View Shauna Jones' final report (PDF)

Description: The purpose of this investigation is to research where and how teams are used, taught, and assessed in the core courses of the Beedie School of Business undergraduate program. The core courses consist of 13 courses in the Undergraduate program for which that are 46 sections and an estimated 4, 220 students. From the results of the research investigation, I plan to make recommendations to the UCore and Undergraduate Curriculum Committees:

a) Where to reinforce early learning around teaming and collaboration throughout the curriculum so students build on skills from earlier courses

b) Where to measure teaming and collaboration in an upper level course for the purpose of our Assurance of Learning. Without a place to measure these traits Beedie is unable to state it as a Program Goal.

c) Determine if there is a need for all students participate in a course to develop their teaming and collaboration skills (currently, only our transfer students are required to take a course with its sole focus on teaming and collaboration. This encompasses almost 50% of our students).

Questions addressed:

• Which Canadian business schools have program goals and mandatory courses related to teamwork and working with others?
• What frameworks are being used to teach teams?
• What core courses in the Beedie undergraduate program use, teach and/or assess teams?
• How are teams or group work used in the core courses?
• What is the student experience of working in teams or groups in undergraduate courses?
• What do students believe might improve the student experience of working in teams or groups in undergraduate courses?

Knowledge sharing:

• We shared information regarding the use of peer evaluations in teams with the Academic Director for a “best practices” document he was preparing.
• The PI shared findings with the graduate students in the Certificate Program for Teaching and Learning

Keywords: Teamwork, collaboration, group work course design, curriculum development, undergraduate programs, high education