Teams have become the default work structure in organizations; thus, in work settings that emphasize teamwork, employees must have knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) to communicate and coordinate with their colleagues. Yet, teamwork skills are rarely "taught" in engineering curricula; in fact, compared to business representatives, university educators have been found to underestimate the value of teamwork KSAs. Instead, students are expected to develop teamwork and leadership skills via a sink-or-swim approach where they are assigned group work and left to perform as they can. Often, these poor teamwork experiences combined with the lack of training and opportunities for guided reflection lead to students disliking working in groups, impacting not just the cognitive but also the affective domain of learning. In response to this identified weakness, a committee of representatives from the Faculty of Engineering and other support units at the University of Waterloo is developing a series of six workshops intended to be delivered to engineering students in all disciplines in their first three years of study. The first three workshops will provide an introduction to team-forming and building, team communication, and conflict management. The last three workshops will provide reinforcement and opportunities for application in the same areas and in multidisciplinary settings.
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