Special Feature

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Embracing Student Learning Teams

by Edward J. Schoen, Rowan University

The purpose of this article is to share my experience in assembling and using student learning teams in my Legal Environment of Business classes during academic year 2009-2010. Having served as a business school dean for 18 consecutive years, nine years at King's College and nine years at Rowan University, my present institution, I was relieved to resign as dean and happily looked forward to returning to the classroom.

While I have always deeply enjoyed teaching, I approached my new role with no small amount of trepidation. Four principal concerns surfaced. First, my primary teaching assignment would be Legal Environment of Business, a one-semester, three-credit, content-heavy course. In my prior teaching life, I taught Business Law I and II, which consisted of two three-credit courses, one in the Fall and one in the Spring. Hence I would be responsible for coverage of more course materials in a shorter time frame and needed to maximize the utility of time spent in the classroom. Second, my prior teaching experience taught me that students preferred and learned more from an applied approach than an information approach; i.e., they grasped the materials better by applying the legal principles to factual situations than by merely reading the course materials. Third, I dreaded the thought of unprepared students' silence and blank expressions when randomly called upon in class to address a case or case problem, and I wanted to find a way to assign responsibility for assignments to specific students in advance. Finally, I worried about how much students might have changed since I taught on a full-time basis some eighteen years earlier and whether I would be able to relate effectively with the tail end of the Millennials and the arrival of Generation Z students.

As things turned out, the fourth concern never materialized, and I enjoyed my interactions with my students over the past year even more than ever. The first three concerns, however, needed a solution that would maximize the utility of class time, employ an applied approach to the subject matter, and directly assign responsibility to students for specified course materials, thereby dividing the work and permitting students to learn from each other. My solution was random assignment of students to seven learning teams, each team being charged with responsibility to prepare identified cases and case problems in advance of class, to work together in preparing those assignments and studying for exams, and to prepare answers to course examinations. (See special note at end of article.)

As I embarked on my learning team adventure, I focused on five factors that would hopefully contribute to its success: (1) clarifying the responsibilities of team members and simultaneously accommodating the various, competing demands on students' time; (2) facilitating communication among team members; (3) minimizing students' frustration when they believe other team members are not carrying their load; (4) maximizing the amount of classroom time spent on applying the legal principles; and (5) ascertaining students' views on the effectiveness of student learning teams.

Clarifying Team Member Responsibilities
I addressed the first factor by developing a "Team Assignments and Responsibilities" document that outlined and established deadlines for the tasks to be completed by student teams, described the responsibilities of team members, mandated and described the role of team coordinator, and contained a checklist of responsibilities to be allocated. Using this document, I gave the teams one week to post to their Blackboard private team discussion board the identity of the team coordinator and the completed team agreement in which they specified which students have responsibility for the assigned cases and case problems and how they anticipated dividing the work of preparing for and completing examinations. This exercise also gave me the opportunity to emphasize the importance of student teams in covering and mastering the course materials by dividing the work and learning from each other throughout the semester on clearly assigned cases and case problems.

Facilitating Team Member Communications
I addressed the second factor by providing in advance of the first class the names and e-mail addresses of all students assigned to each team and encouraging them to share preferred contact information and by using Blackboard tools to facilitate communication among team members. I created a private board for each team on which team members discussed proposed answers to assignments and exams and posted their team evaluations. Likewise, I created lesson folders for each chapter covered in the course, and each lesson folder contained a link to the chapter outline and separate discussion boards for each of the assigned cases and case problems for which student teams were required to post their suggested answers.

Failure of Team Members to Carry Their Load
I addressed the third factor by stressing the need for clarity in the delegation of responsibilities and deadlines for completing work. If those items were clearly spelled out in the agreement, team members could send a warning to a team member that he or she failed to fulfill an identified responsibility, give that student a specified time-frame to correct the situation, and fire the team member if the problem were not corrected. I explained that I would not intervene in team member disputes unless those steps were taken. I also developed a simple team evaluation form which each student was required to complete and post at the end of the fourth week of the course, at the halfway point of the course, and at the end of the course which would alert me to unresolved team interaction difficulties. This permitted me to monitor whether team members were encountering difficulties throughout the course. While teams occasionally encountered difficulties in coordinating their work, they managed to work through the issues without any firings and without my intervention.

Maximizing Use of Classroom Time
I addressed the fourth factor by creating detailed outlines of each of the assigned chapters, posting those outlines to Blackboard, and encouraging students to access those outlines on their laptop computers during class or to bring hardcopies of the outlines to class. The availability of the outlines facilitated student note taking during class, and permitted the students to focus on the cases and case problems prepared and presented by student teams in the class. Student teams were also required to post their responses to the assigned cases and case problems to the public discussion board for review by other teams in the course. Posting the chapter outlines facilitated the review of theoretical course materials during class, and permitted me to focus on resolving the assigned cases and case problems in class, thereby emphasizing the applied nature of the course.

During the semester, each student team prepared answers to questions related to 20 assigned cases and case problems, thereby better guaranteeing student preparation and informed responses to case discussions during class. Students were required to post their answers to Blackboard by 11:00 pm on the day before the assigned case or case problem was reviewed in class. I established seven teams with three to five student members in each of my two sections of the course. Hence, approximately 140 cases and case problems were reviewed by students in each section during the course. The questions related to the assigned cases and case problems are embedded in outlines I prepared for each chapter of the textbook. Ten percent of the student grade was based on the timely submission of answers to the assigned cases and case problems. I did not grade the submissions, but gave full credit if the students' answers were posted on time.

I also decided to use three take-home examinations in the course to free up additional classroom time and to permit members of the student team to work together to learn the course materials. Because I planned to break the materials into five blocks, each followed by an examination, this gave me an additional three class meetings. I administered the two remaining examinations in the classroom, one in the first half of the course and the other during the final exam period after the end of classes. Because I believe in the benefits of learning teams but also wanted to gain insight into student learning on an individual basis, the division of three take-home examinations and two in-class examinations provides a nice balance.

Around 70 percent of the students fared as well or slightly better in the individual exams as they did in exams prepared by the learning team, about 30 percent did not. In my prior work as a teacher of business law, I followed the practice of providing the students with copies of the examination case problems one week in advance of the test, so that students could get together and talk about the cases, and the examination was not an exercise in speed reading. But I did not give them the questions in advance of the exam. Doing so in the take-home examinations was initially worrisome, but the exam results demonstrated no real advantage accrued from having the questions ahead of time. In the Fall 2009 semester, using a 4.00 GPA scale, one section earned a final overall GPA of 2.73 and the other section, 3.16. In the Spring 2010 semester, one section earned a final overall GPA of 3.13 and the other, 2.94.

Students' Perception of Learning Team Effectiveness
I addressed the fifth factor by employing interim and final student evaluations of various course components, one of which addressed the effectiveness of the student learning teams. I administered these surveys at midsemester and in conjunction with the final course evaluations administered university-wide in the final two weeks of class. Both surveys asked the students whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement "The team-based approach to case/case problem assignments and preparation for examinations enhances my learning of the course materials," using the following scale: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree.

The student responses for the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 semesters demonstrate that most of the students either agree or strongly agree that the use of student learning teams enhanced their learning of the course materials, as follows:

Conclusion
Based on my experience over the past academic year, I will continue to use student learning teams in my Legal Environment of Business classes. In my judgment, student learning teams helped me maximize the utility of class time, employ an applied approach to the subject matter, specifically identify student responsibility for materials covered in the classroom, and directly contribute to student success in mastering the course materials. Hopefully this article will encourage and assist other faculty members to give it a try.

Special Note
I randomly assigned students to teams, because I wanted the students to work with individuals they had not met before and discovered there is some consensus that professor-selected teams are more successful. See Randall S. Hansen, "Benefits and problems with student teams: suggestions for improving team projects," Journal of Education for Business, September/October 2006, p. 13. ("Two main team selection methods are commonly used: professor-selected and student-selected. Limited evidence suggests that professor-selected groups are seldom used possibly because of the perception that student-selected groups perform better than do professor-selected teams. However, [other research suggests] that student preferences are not necessarily the most important criterion for successful group work, that instructor assigned teams lead to more stability in membership, and that stability enhances each team's ability to perform effectively. Contrary to earlier researchers, [one researcher concluded] that student teams should be formed by the instructor, and that students are more likely to have a positive learning experience when groups are selected by the professor. The worst method of team selection is random selection, where students often choose people from their social network of friends. Professor-selected teams also more closely match the workplace, in which supervisors place workers in teams rather than allowing them to self-select."). In contrast, there is little consensus on group composition based on ability. See Junko Shimazoe and Howard Aldrich, "Group work can be gratifying: understanding and overcoming resistance to cooperative learning," College Teaching, 2010, p. 54 ("Findings about group composition in research on Cooperative Learning are mixed regarding whether to form heterogeneous or homogeneous groups. [Some research suggests] that groups composed via mixed criteria, instead of ability only, are better at promoting students' achievements. A meta-analysis of twelve studies suggested that low-ability students benefited in heterogeneous ability groups, whereas medium-ability students benefited in homogeneous groups, but ability groupings did not matter for high-ability students. [Other research suggests] that whether homogeneous, heterogeneous, or mixed-ability groupings are beneficial to gifted, high-ability students remains controversial, because some of the studies have been methodologically unsound. [Other research suggests] that the Cooperative Learning's principal benefit to high achievers is that it frequently puts them into a teaching role, leading to a deeper conceptual understanding of the material than would otherwise be possible. ")

Endnotes
1. Shimazoe supra note 1 at 54 ("Assigning roles to group members is a way to encourage students to cooperate, and a clear division of labor is an effective way to prevent free-rider problem.)

2. Edward Kapp, "Improving student teamwork in a collaborative project-based course," College Teaching, Summer 2009, p. 140 ("[E]ach team created a contract for team membership. These contracts consisted of five to seven objective, measurable, individual behaviors that the team members agreed were important to team performance and to which they were willing to commit themselves. These individual behaviors were derived through consensus of the team members. Examples included attending all scheduled team meetings, informing team members of lateness to team meetings, and completing assignments on schedule. Contracts for team membership were rendered in writing, signed by all members of the team, and delivered to the instructor at the beginning of the next class period. The instructor retained the original contract and returned copies for each team member.")

3. Hansen supra note 1 at 13 ("Researchers have found that attitudes toward the value of teamwork and relevance to real-world situations are positively related to attitudes toward teamwork and team effectiveness. When introducing student team projects, faculty should emphasize the importance and value of learning teamwork and leadership skills.")

4. Shimazoe supra note 1 at 55 ("When students themselves cannot handle free riders or domineering members, instructors have to encourage them to contact missing members, discuss problems, and propose solutions. When groups cannot function due to animosity among students or uncooperative members, instructors can "fire" students or dissolve group as necessary, but it is not a good idea to make this option available to students at the beginning of group work. Otherwise, students may not feel motivated to put in the effort required to deal with difficult group members.")

5. Hansen supra note 1 at 14 ("Several researchers have multiple points of feedback about group performance, more so for team members than for the faculty. By completing interim reports, all members of the team can see their contributions (or lack thereof) to date.") Two authors recommend the use of early, midterm and final assessment of group work, but employ a more complex instrument to do so. See Charles Walker and Thomas Angelo, A collective effort classroom assessment technique: promoting high performance in student teams, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Fall 1998, p. 104-106.

6. Shimazoe supra note 1at 55 ("We recommend that peer review and evaluation be used mainly to monitor group processes and help group members themselves work better together, rather than to grade groups. Indeed, instructors should avoid conflating an assessment of a group's processes with an evaluation of their task outcomes. Otherwise, a group might cease working on process problems themselves and simply wait for an instructor to intervene.")

7. Id. at 54 ("Cooperative learning advocates agree that groups should be kept relatively small. Some recommend three to four, saying it is better for students' achievement whereas others recommend three to five. Based on our own experience, we believe the ceiling on group size should be four, given that the chance of shirking/social loafing among group members will exponentially increase with group size.")

8. John E. Steinbrink and Robert M. Jones, "Cooperative test-review teams improve student achievement," Clearing House, May/June 1993, p. 310. ("Cooperative test-review teams are most effective after instructional activities are completed and before students are tested. When students at any grade level realize that they can improve their test scores and report-card grades, they actively cooperate in completing test-review team tasks. Our experience demonstrates that by participating in cooperative test-review teams, lower- and average-achieving students will improve their test scores significantly. Higher-achieving students will maintain their achievement levels while developing a sense of social responsibility and desirable leadership skills.")

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