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12ОБУЧЕНИЕ РАБОТЕ В КОМАНДЕ СТУДЕНТОВ IT-СПЕЦИАЛЬНОСТЕЙ
Малышева А.Д.
Северо-Восточный федеральный университет им. М.К. Аммосова
Якутск
TEACHING TEAMWORK SKILLS OF IT- STUDENTS
Malysheva A.D.
North-Eastern Federal University M.K. Ammosov
Yakutsk
АННОТАЦИЯ
В статье рассматриваются особенности формирования умения работать в команде студентов технических профилей. Описаны новые стандарты в высшем образовании России, новые требования работодателей к выпускникам университетов и проблемы, с которыми сталкиваются преподаватели сегодня. В статье анализируются характерные особенности коммуникации студентов технических профилей и этапы формирования команды.
ABSTRACT
The article deals with the features of developing teamwork skills of technical students. It considers the new standards in higher education of Russia, new requirements of employers to university graduates and challenges that teachers meet nowadays. The article analyzes the peculiarities of communication of technical students and the stages of team development.
Ключевые слова: студенты, формирование, коммуникация, команда, командные умения, высшее образование, метод.
Keywords: students, developing, communication, team, teamwork skills, higher education, technique.
Introduction
"teaching students to communicate with, listen to, and work well with one another isn't simply a matter ofputting them in groups..."
By Lori Breslow, MIT Nowadays many Russian higher educational institutions are going through changes due to the necessity of developing different professional skills of students. Teamwork skills are no longer the problem of employees, they should be developed in the university. This problem appeared with the complaints of employers about unsatisfactory communication and teamwork skills of IT departments graduates. Students usually have perfect theoretical knowledge but we cannot say so about their communication skills, especially making presentations, expressing their ideas clearly, giving arguments, feedback, self-reflection, cooperation, taking active part in discussions and teamwork [2]. As is known, majority of IT companies develop different projects, software and hardware that can be completed only by a team of highly qualified professionals. So, students should know not only computer sciences, e.g. how to write a code or develop software, but also know how to cooperate with other people during their work.
Currently many tertiary institutions have made significant changes in their curriculums in order to develop special professional skills. Educators use mul-tidisciplinary and communicative approaches, but students still show a little interest and ehthusiasm in learning process. It results in passive role in education process and bad marks in exams. Moreover, it leads to complaints of employers in the future. In this article,
we will consider some psychological features of IT students, their problems in communication and peculiarities of developing teamwork skills. We are interested in the development of team (team dynamics, types of members, problem solving, decision making etc.) and types of activities that can help students to learn and work effectively and comfortably together.
Recent research and publication analysis. Our research shows that this problem is actual in many countries, educators try to find most suitable ways of teaching, use different methods for development of students professional skills, study different techniques to increase the motivation of students. The research of
A. Estey from University of Victoria [2] shows how to use game design in teaching communication and teamwork, P.Sancho-Thomas, R. Fuentes-Fernandez,
B. Fernandez-Manjon in their article "Learning teamwork skills in university programing course" state the problems in developing teamwork skills and offer their way to increase students participation in learning process [3]. Developing of team teamwork skills and professional competences of students were studied by V.S. Okuneva, G.V. Lopatenkov and others.
There are some important areas that need to be improved in universities. University courses should provide not only technical knowledge of subjects but also special skills for real-life professional situations. They should develop different teaching approaches to increase students participation in learning process, train teachers, try to find out the best ways to increase self-studying of students and encourage them to take active role in classes.
Paper objectives. Objective of the article is to research team, teamwork skills, pedagogical problems in developing such skills and how to use English classes to develop teamwork skill.
Paper main body. As we mentioned before, today the development of software is the result of cooperation of one or more teams. Products became very complicated so it is impossible now to create them individually. Teamwork skills consist of both professional knowledge and personal skills. There are a lot of requirements to be a good team member. Authors distinguish some general skills. According to E.V. Bolgarina they are:
• Work in team dynamics;
• Be responsible to team goal and tasks;
• Be polite and tactful;
• Share the information and ideas and encourage others to do that;
• Be supportive and motivate team members to gain the best result;
• Avoid and smooth over conflicts;
• Follow team rules and accept its obligations;
• Work effectively in different social and professional situations;
• Take into account multicultural differences
[4].
So, it is evident that personal skills are much more important for teamwork rather than professional skills. We cannot simply put students in groups and give a task. Teaching teamwork skills means instruct students to communicate and negotiate, express their opinion and take an active part in the discussions. But there are certain problems with technical students. They are usually not very motivated to communicate, they prefer written tasks to oral forms. They are not very talkative, sometimes they have problems with avoiding conflicts, because they cannot fell and guess about partner's mind. They accustomed to work with computer not with people. So, we think the main task of educators is to try to create very comfortable climate during the classes to let students feel free to speak to each other. We think it is very important to follow the common stages in team development.
Stages of team development. The first stage of team development is forming. Within this stage future team members introduce themselves, become familiar with their strong and weak points, choose the best way of communication and team leader. The next stage is discussing. It is the most complicated stage, because team members begin to express their opinions and feelings that can be absolutely opposite to others opinions. The necessary skill at this stage is to be patient and polite to others. The distinctive feature of this stage as of the previous one is searching the best way of cooperation rather than doing the project. Therefore, there is not much progress in the work itself. The next stage making friendly relationship means that members learn to avoid conflicts. Working climate become more friendly and all their effort aimed to project, not to interpersonal relationship. We can see the real result and progress of the team. Completing
the task is the final stage in team development, team members understand their roles and functions. Team members trust each other and can express their ideas openly. It is this stage when we can brainstorm and have the most considerable results [5]. The team development is almost completed. So what teaching techniques are most suitable for this purpose?
As we mentioned before, the most serious problems of technical, e.g. IT, students, are low levels of motivation and communication [6]. One more problem of technical students in Russia is low level of English. They do not have English exam in their entrance procedure, and, to be honest, English is not their favorite subject at school, so studying English at the University is very challenging for them. That is why we think that the good idea is to combine their professional subjects and English in order to increase their motivation in learning language. We use computer and programming terms during our classes, create real-life situations and try to solve real problems that can occur in the field of programming.
According to new Russian federal standards in higher education, we need to develop not only English skills but also some professional skills, such as speaking skills, ability to make oral presentations, communication skills, problem solving and teamwork. So, we can use English classes to reach that goal. It is important to use different tasks during each stage of team development. The main goal of first stage is communication. We can use great variety of ice-breaking games to let students introduce themselves to each other. It is not necessary to make them cooperate during this stage, but we should try to use group games rather than individual. Our task in the second stage is to create friendly climate in the class. It is worth mentioning that there are usually students with different English language levels in one group: beginners, pre-intermediates, intermediates and advanced. And we must try to create the most effective teams with such kinds of students. We think it is better to put students with different levels in one team to make work more effective. In this case, advanced students will help others to translate unknown words into English, to make oral presentations of their common work. It can help students increase self-confidence and decrease anxiety about their poor English. We can use simple team-building games in this stage. For example, we can use quite simple but effective "Classification" game, when students are put in groups of three or five people and given the task to "classify" their team (think about the name, find out some common habits, interests and hobbies, create a logo of the team and make the oral presentation). Students like the creative atmosphere of the game and the thing that you haven't to use all your English language knowledge, just be creative. If you cannot speak, you can draw a logo, if you cannot make oral presentation you can think of the name of your team. Anyway, your talent is important, not your English. This technique is similar to general concept of teamwork. Team members do not do the same thing, at least they do not have the same professions, they are different but they must interact and have mutual assistance in order to fulfill the task.
But at the same time they must be interchangeable. At the Completing the task stage our priorities change, the result is becoming more important. At this stage all our achievements on creating an effective team should help us to reach our goal and complete the project. The main requirements for members are: expressing ideas clearly, discussing, suggesting constructive ideas, responding to others, collaboration, being po-
Conclusion. The survey showed that most of sophomores feel themselves as a part of a team, and freshmen are not sure about that. We think the reason is better interpersonal relations in teams. Students who spent more time to make friendly climate in their groups are more likely to be a good team members. So, it is of utmost importance to develop students teamwork skills from the very beginning. And use communicative and problem solving tasks in English classes. There is an increased emphasis in higher education on developing students professional and personal skills that will help them to succeed professionally. Teaching teamwork skills means not only organizing students work in teams, but teach them how to cooperate with each other effectively. But like any skill, teamwork skills need some general knowledge of such practices, as consensus building, problem solving, analizing the situation, understanding partners, decision making, etc. Teachers must think about how to organize teams, create appropriate assignments, arrange class time and choose the most suitable form of teamwork assessment.
References
1. Breslow L. Teaching Teamwork Skills. In Massachusetts Institute of Technology Faculty News-
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lite, trying to avoid conflicts and completing the task on time and accurately.
After all developing stages we made a survey with freshmen and sophomores on team relationship using questionnaire "Are you a team member?". The survey included question about working with others, contribution, time-management, quality of work, conflict.
letter Teach Talk Columns. Retrieved April 16, 2007, from http://web. mit.edu/tll/tll-library/teach-
talk/teamwork-1. html#top
2. Estey Anthony V. Teaching teamwork and communication skills by using a studio-based learning model in a multidisciplinary course on game design: a thesis for the degree of master of science. University of Victoria, 2008. p. 10-11.
3. Sancho-Thomas P., Fuentes-Fernandez R., Fernandez-Manjon B. "Learning teamwork skills in university programing course"// Computers & Education. No.53. 2009. p. 518.
4. Bolgarina E.V. Formirovanie kompetencii komandnoi raboty v protsesse obucheniya programmi-rovaniyu// Novye informatsionnye technologii v obra-zovanii: materialy VIII Mezd.nauch.prakt. conferencii. 10-13 marta, 2015.
5. Lopatenkov G.V. Formirovanie u studentov umeniya rabotat v komande v protsesse podgotovki bankovskikh spetsialistov: diss. cand. ped. nauk: spets. 13.00.01 "Obshaya pedagogika". - Kazan, 1999. - 25 s.
6. Okuneva V.S. The model of formation of competence of students to work in a team in professional education// Digital scientific magazine «Modern problems of science and education». No. 5, 2013.
Table 1
Results of questionnaire "Are you a team member?"
Freshmen (75 people total) Sophomores (70 people total)
Yes I'm not sure No Yes I'm not sure No
Working with others (polite, helpful, express ideas) 35 25 15 62 3 5
Contribution to team work (suggest and discuss ideas) 20 35 20 45 10 15
Time-management (complete work on time) 40 10 20 68 0 2
Quality of work (the work was done properly) 44 15 16 60 6 4
Conflict (avoid or mitigate conflicts) 42 20 13 50 15 5
