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Session 1239

Employing the “Partnering” Concept With Students Teams

Robert Martinazzi University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

ABSTRACT

In industry, team performance significantly impacts both the internal and external stakeholders. Consequently, teams must develop the ability to communicate effectively especially with other “partnering” teams working on the same project.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a model of a “partnership” or “partnering” experience for student teams in an academic setting. The model involves two teams becoming functionally interdependent upon each other in order to learn new course material. Each “partner” team receives separate instruction on different segments of course material. After the individual team instruction occurs each “partner” team is required to prepare and present, as a team, an instructional period on the material they learned to their other “partner” team.

The responsibility and accountability of each team for both learning and teaching culminates when testing occurs on the new course material. “Partner” teams are tested on what was taught to them by their other “partner” team and not on what they learned firsthand from the course instructor. Both “partner” teams receive the identical test score earned by each “partner” from their portion of the examination.

INTRODUCTION

One of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of teaching involves developing a learning environment which stimulates and motivates students to learn. Research indicates learning is greatly enhanced when students play an active part in the learning process. Employing student learning teams and having them experience a “partnering” model greatly expands the active participation of students on teams.

The model has student teams accepting direct responsibility for learning and teaching specific sections of a course. Shifting the team’s role to “partner” and “teacher” creates a paradigm shift which heightens both individual and team awareness and opens them up to new levels of understanding and comprehension of course material. The interdependent nature of the model provides student teams with a unique experience similar to industry .

BACKGROUND

Teaching and lecturing are not necessarily synonymous. While it can be effective for certain kinds of learning, research shows that lecturing is not the best method for meeting higher (1) cognitive objectives of education. New methods of increasing the effectiveness of the classroom experience usually focus on some form of interactive learning. A recent paper surveying current teaching practices in Engineering Economics revealed that 57.1% of those

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Martinazzi, R. (1997, June), Employing The "Partnering" Concept With Students Teams Paper presented at 1997 Annual Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 10.18260/1-2--6531