1. The team engagement practices that were both used by my team and useful to the project were:
Every other day we would have stand up meetings. We also wrote reports to one another, reviews on each persons preformance.
Before the split my team tried everything: Discord, Trello, Jira, weekly meetings, Daily standups, … but we could not get engagement up. Eventually, the group was spit into smaller groups and engagement stopped being an issue. Since the team was only three big, we stuck to just having a discord group chat. In a real world team, this would not scale up.
Having a stand up meeting on alternative days during the weekdays was crucial as we could communicate Progress to our team members and provide information on any blockers we were having.
Frequent meetings; Good communication through discord; Tracking/assigning tasks throughout the project.
Our team promised weekly demos of smaller, complete tasks to our client, and that was huge in ensuring we made consistent progress throughout the semester. Even if demos were short or featured smaller parts of the project, having meaningful demos each week pushed us to make the incremental progress we needed to be successful. Another really helpful practice was meeting in person. Even if it were just to work on our parts separately, meeting in person was really helpful in taking care of tasks quickly and keeping our motivation up while working through tasks (we could easily ask questions and take breaks while we were all together).
Having an effective form of communication, which was discord, to talk to each other about the project And other parts outside of the project (such as meeting locations, times, etc.)
Splitting up the tasks for each part of the project into subsections that each of us could work on, Specifically parts that we were specialized in.
Having multiple weekly standup types of meetings where we discussed what we had done already as well as what we wanted to accomplish in the meeting (and future meetings). We also attempted to use a jira board to keep track of tasks during the course of the semester but that got shut down by atlassian for some reason. If a team has access to software like jira that mimics an agile development pipeline it can be very useful experience.
My team got together almost every day in person at Iribe, which is where the majority of our work was done.
Having tasks sheets and daily updates of what was done or added to the project were very helpful.
By getting food with one another during in person meetings it helped with keeping a good enviroment. Also having consistent communication through discord helped in having everyone readily available to talk about certain things at just about any time. We had preconfigured our times available in our charter so we knew what times we were allowing one another to be pinged or available in general.
Having weekly demos. This idea was mostly given by our client but it gave us a goal for each week so we wouldn't fall behind. During our meetings we'd come up with a goal for next week. Then the next week we'd have a clear goal to work towards. After presenting the demo, we'd get feedback which was crucial for finding out if we were on the right track.
In person meetings. It was more convienient to have a Zoom meeting but so much more fun to have an in-person meeting. Bringing food also helped :)
The team didn't have any dedicated engagement practices to boost team synergy or morale. In fact, the team was having fun and feeding off each team member's energy naturally while being focused on the project during the semester. On the last day of class, we tried to use the sustenance grant to feed ourselves, but most gatherings were just meetings and work sessions, but the team was having fun while participating.
One thing that was especially helpful with engagement in our group was that while we did not go out specifically for engagement, all our meetings had a personal aspect to them. We wished everyone well in things they were doing outside of this class and everyone was genuinly interested and seeing everyone else succeed. From giving out job advise to providing tips for other classes our team did a good job of balancing seriousness and playfulness.
ensuring that we met in person and limited our zoom meetings. This helped us make sure that we were always on the same page and allowed us to have better communication; Making a trello board that allowed us to clearly see the tasks and everyone's participation in them -Getting food at almost all meetings. This increased trust and built a better team dynamic.
We started with a google sheets to keep track of tasks, but we switched to trello. We had a weekly meeting with our client and another weekly meeting with Prof. Purtilo. We kept in touch through our group discord. Every week we did the peer mentoring, and we did the survey questoins when they came around. The weekly meetings were the most useful as the helped us all stay on the same page.
Meeting in person definitely helped move the project forward and made us feel more like a team.
We really did not fully engage, and this was a very present problem throughout the project. Engagement was by self drive, with most just aiming to do as little as possible without appearing to be doing nothing.
Creating sub teams (backend/frontend); Assigning specific tickets with tangible completion; assigning team members to them; creates accountability/ownership over portions of the product
The biggest practice we used were weekly meetings. Whenever we all got together as a team we seemed to get a lot more done. The collaborative aspect of being face-to-face with someone was something I really undervalued before this project. Another practice we used were code reviews. So, before saving a chunk of new code and just adding it in we'd make sure the rest of the team take a look at it so that they could gain understanding on that piece of the whole application.
daily standups, weekly in person sprints, using discord channels for updates and communication
Consistent communication really helped my team start together and moving forward. Just a message in a group chat or something everyday really did the trick for us and might help a team in the future.
Having in-person meetings to bounce ideas off of each other was crucial to making steady progress on our project. With Discord meetings, it was very hard to hold teammates accountable and be sure that they are prioritizing the meeting and work that needed to be done.
Holding in-person meetings at least once a week, usually twice. Having a team Discord for communication and posting of announcements (EX: meeting times).
Daily standups were helpful because it gave all of us a better idea of what we each were doing and how our progress was day to day. We also all used a jira board to assign tickets, though I admit I didn't use it as much as I could or should have.
None really. Our team obviously had problems with engagement.
I thought meeting in person with the team twice a week to work together really helped with engagement . We were able to communicate with each other and just connect with each other as people and make friends along the way. Meeting in person allows you to draw or present your ideas more efficiently.
Lots of team coding sessions, even when we were working on separate parts. Clear communication.
We meet up almost every other day (outside of class, of course) to work and update on the progress. It does ensures progress and help everyone to be up to date.
Constant communication via discord; In-person meetings weekly at least; Frequent demos to give us real deadlines
Sprint planning meetings, having work sessions before and after class, actively communicating in discord.
Commiting to weekly demos with client Having frequent (More than once a week) meetings amongst the group Going through the effort of making a trello to better plan out tasks
Mapping things out on a whiteboard as a team exercise was helpful to plan out how we wanted our project to work and interact with itself. It was also good for team building, where we got to know each other and our preferred methods of thinking or working. Working in-person was invaluable to us. Seeing each other's screens and working in real time, having the space to just ask questions out loud, etc. was great for engagement and idea generation.
The regular check-ins and stand-ups and meetings definitely was very helpful for the project. It ensured constant attention and thinking about the project that facilitated constant workflow.
2. If I could make ONE change to CMSC435 to make it a great class, it would be:
More demo's and deadlines along the way, because that would force us to integrate the project sooner.
To have more opportunities for student participation in each class. Allowing students to engage with material beyond just answering questions during lecture would help keep students engaged and also give students a chance to interact with course concepts. This might look like occasional in-class group activities, or even just small exercises where students work through scenarios and apply course lessons in order to achieve a goal.
I think that it would have been fun to propose our own projects. It was clear among some people in the class that they were not totally happy with their projects which maybe contributed to the low engagement seen across some teams.
To include previous CMSC435 students as guest lecturers. It would be great to learn from their experience And possibly avoid some mistakes they made during their time.
I would add more guidance on agile development. I wish we would have used a more structured approach to agile development but my team wasn't on board. While there should be a certain amount of "figure it out as a team", I think that having us start out with a structured method might help more teams stay on track.
I would've liked to see more industry insight and data during lectures, especially from speakers besides Dr. Purtilo. It would be more beneficial to have more perspectives and case studies to learn from outside of the instructor and project owners.
Include guest speakers so we can go on to see how 435 principles and experience were (or were not) applied in their careers and the results of that.
I wish the beginning scrimmage assignments did not carry as much weight as they did. The effort matched to do those assignments did not seem to reflect the effort I needed to do for the later assignments of the final project.
I would like to be able to receive the powerpoints that we use in class. It would be very helpful for someone who has a bad memory and needs to regurgitate information on our final.
Assign teams one week earlier. Find some way to gather the data faster and assign teams earlier. This will help most teams fail fast earlier and overall be more successful. I think that the team practices that are taught before teams are assigned can still be taught after they are assigned.
Some form of lecture notes, or a list of tpoics covered. There was a secton of the website with a vauge description of what chapers of the textbooks to read that changed occasionally with no way of knowing when it will change. This made it hard to follow and hard to know what topic to read about. Lecture posting lecture notes or slides on the website would make it clear what material needs to be learned when. If that is unrealistic, at least a list of topics so you can see past topics would help old topics stay fresh in the mind.
I think teams could benefit from a quick overview of the technical part of other projects. Mostly we just had a demo which is great, but I am also interested in how it is working.
Get rid of 0700/1200/SOB due dates - I would even prefer the due date moved up to midnight over these times. 0700 is always a bit confusing, just because 7pm is a more standard due date (confused me for both SVN assignment, and this current assignment)
Give us the slides please
One thing I would change is having more performance measures. I felt like I had no idea how I was progressing or doing in the semester/class until the CDR.
more time to do team projects
The specifics of what exactly is due with each assignment. Not asking for like a rubric with everything or more handholding, just a more detailed like of what goes with each assignment. For example, in the greenlight, knowing what the parts of the greenlight are would have been very helpful. I know they're on the static site but they're rather hard to decode the requirements for that block of text.
By giving the student more of a say in what project they get to work on. I understand that this would be very hard to do but some sort of ranking of what project interests the student the most that is then used to determine their team would be a nice addition. This might help motivate some students to put more effort into the project since they have more of an interest.
Making assignments more obvious on the blog, perhaps bolding any text describing an assignment and its due-date, or having a separate page listing assignmwnts and due-dates. Although I could possibly understand if the way it currently is is to be an exercise for students in attentiveness and forming a routine. That being said, the penalty for a short (or long) drop in attentiveness can be quite harsh.
I understand that it is difficult to balance the difficulty of each project given the wide variety of topics between different projects, but I feel like our project was significantly more open ended/difficult to implement than some of the other projects. I think our team functioned well in terms of engagement and practices and I'm decently proud of what were able to accomplish, but the fact that there never seemed to be an end within sight was discouraging at times.
Smaller teams with small project scopes to reduce the risk of an engagement problem. I think the biggest cuase of the lack of engagement was the scope of the project being large, leaving some to be concerned about jumping into it.
Have a discussion about failure. Like how to plan for something that fails horrible or how to manage the risk of failure. Maybe talk about contingency planning. The mantra of change is inevitable is good but also talk about how can plan for these changes such that when the change happens it does not completely ruin your product.
More engaging activities during class time
I would love to have the slides from class. They would help a bunch to study for quizzes and exams.
Space the early scrimmages a but more
Provide/Upload the powerpoint slides somewhere. Although I know this would discouraged students from attending class, it'll also be helpful for students who do come to class but may have missed something.
Add a discussion section that is treated as purely group time each week
I would shorten the initial part of the class and get people into the larger groups quicker. I felt that, especially with our project, more time was needed to complete the project (especially since we were thrown into the deep end with the process). I also don't feel that the scrimmages were useful - they would have been better with the group that we would end up working with later on. The initial startup period felt really long (3 weeks, a month?) and even if the scrimmages were kept the period before we were put into big groups should have been shorter.
Make the announcement more noticable and actually remind people of what they have to do. Because for people who remember to read the blog they don't really need reminders, and for those who forgot to do something they probably forget to check the blog too. But I guess it's professional to be on the top of your game constantly so I can see why that may not be changed.
Maybe add a couple of guest lectures into the mix. Not that I didnt like hearing Dr. Purtilo's voice, just would be fun to mix things up a bit.
You already take significant efforts to do this, but I think if I had come into this class with the right set of expectations in terms of difficulty and workload I would have been much more successful in this course. As it stands, I severely underestimated this class despite the warning email, and paid the price in terms of my grade.
Having clearer project description. In our case, the client is basically satisfied with our progress all the way and left too much freedom to us so that some of our final decisions contradict with your envision, which caused unnecessary confusion. In short, the groups need the maximum set of instructions that contain both the client requests and your requirements.
Allowing us to make valuable suggestions to who we'd like to work with. Working with people that I knew from before, or even a mix of new people and people I know would be good. Although I understand this could cause problems within the realm of communication, but form a set of students who have some experience with SWE this should be possible.
3. The one thing that most gets in the way of me doing my best work in CS (CE) here at UM is:
Communication with the professors scares me, but if I had more guts I am sure I would do better.
Outside of this class it was the lack of peer communication that tends to be a staple in all project based classes. Being disadvised to working with and collaborating on projects has always been a confusing and counterproductive part of the UMD CS curriculum in my opinion.
My own poor work habits. I often fall into the trap of only doing things a few days before they're due, which only allows me time to write and submit garbage untested spaghetti instead of good quality work.
Writing code on papers, especially in exams. No sane person would ever write code on a paper with no monospace characters, no syntax highliting and no modern productivity tools at all. This is highly questionable and unrealistic in real work scenarios.
A lack of support and resources, especially for students struggling with mental health issues. I have ADHD and so it can be extremely challenging for me to stay up on my coursework and I fall behind every semester. I've tried finding tutors through the CS department multiple times to no avail. Office hours are usually more distracting than they are helpful and most study groups that I've been a part of consist of people who are trying to freeload and get answers without doing any work, while I'm looking for people to work through problems with and have some structure that keeps me accountable.
Occasionally, grades can create unneccessary pressure on students. This can lead to students neglecting to learn concepts properly because it is genuinely more valuable for them to focus on just treating an assignment as a way to get a certain grade in a course and then moving on to the next assignment when they're done with it. Learning about strategies to lead or work in teams successfully may also be valuable to students too. I know that is a huge part of work beyond undergraduate education but working in groups is often discouraged for us so we have little opportunity to practice.
The amount of work that feels like we're just being churnned to hopefully have some people drop the program. The amount of work that was done during 216 for example, looking retrospectively was not as important for my personal career development. I could have learned everything I learned in 216 in a less rigorous fashion, but the lack of career path specific courses make this program terrible. I'd like to have been exposed to the Software Engineering course much earlier in my path, but instead I literally had a SWE internship before being able to/taking cmsc435.
It might be too much to ask but some of my favorite classes have been with professors who are engaging. I found 417 with Bobby to be a very challenging course, but I was always happy to happy to attend lectures.
I feel like I am afraid to ask questions when I am stuck. I am scared to ask for help on my assignments at times, and I do not have a consistent line of communication with my projessors. If I can establish a connection better, I feel like I'd do better in my courses.
The fact that many of my CS classes are not held in Iribe. I have to travel halfway across campus to ESJ From Iribe just to attend CS classes.
Finding deadlines since the CS department refuses to use Canvas. I have to check three (or more) different websites to find deadlines for my classes.
I normally am not a fan of small assignments that offer little substance or significance to the course material. This would include weekly readings / quizzes or homeworks that feel more like work for the sake of work rather than applied knowledge of course material.
The amount of work and lack of resources to do that work. I took this class because I love classes like this. While, I have enjoyed this class for the most part, there were times where it became frustrating as it feeled like what we were doing did not really connect to our main project.
An overload of projects. At any given point in a CS class there is a project assigned. I feel like fewer but more comprehensive projects will be just as effective and reduce the stress generated from constant deadlines. This would allow me to learn the material better as opposed to blowing off lectrues to finish projects.
Lack of cohesion between classes. Even in lower level classes each class seems seperate. This gets worse in 401 levels where every class feels like an island with no relation to any other 400 level class even if the topic is realted. This is different from the math department where classes feel connected even at the 400 level. This adds to learning since you can easily understand where a subject fits into broader math. In CS, you work under the rules of one class and then move on to the next class.
We are unable to work in groups to complete projects here. I understand the issue with group work especially with coding, but I have found that I do better work when I am able to work with at least one other person.
rigid or severely outdated assignments
Slow and dated administrative systems
The one thing that gets in the way in the lack of mindfulness by some professors of people's outside obligations. Many professors I believe have the attitude that there class is the "end all be all" and students free-time should be going strictly to that.
other classes
Time. Even doing my best to manage my time, a lot of CS professors seem to stack assignment due dates on top of each other. Not really something that can be avoid all the time but some leniency would be nice occasionally.
Good/quality work is not really rewarded or even acknowledged in most cases which makes it so simply doing the bare minimum to pass the release/secret tests gets you the same outcome as properly following the fundamentals. It is difficult to put in the extra time when the outcome you get will be same as someone that simply did the bare minimum.
Myself? I have a pretty bad problem with procrastination, and usually end up living by the rule of "if it's due in an hour it only takes an hour" (an hour is an exaggeration but you probably get the point). I also have a hard time maintaining focus. Other than that stress/anxiety can get in the way and are usually compounded by/compound on the procrastination.
There doesn't feel like there is actually any career guidence. Career fair/resume reviews are good I guess but all the department really does is tell you to churn applications and practice leetcode.
The motivation. Sometimes I do not feel motivated to do my best work. I put in a lot of effort into my work and sometimes it does not work and I lose motivation to continue to put in my best work when the best results in an average outcome.
Taking too many challenging courses at once prevents full engagement in any of them.
I would say no database class is required. I feel like it is one of the most important skill and thing to know. And also no meaningful projects, really.
Requirements being obfuscated or hard to find, usually on projects
Everything else with life like personal issues and what not.
Major Requirements (Gen EDs taking up space in schdule and forced to take upper level classes in the different areas)
Other work. Even with 9 credits this semester, I was struggling to complete work for my classes and my internship. I felt like this class took up an enormous amount of time on it's own, but so did others. Time has to be divided efficiently, and sometimes that means it's not my best work.
Lack of decent advising. All the advisors are kinda oblivious of what is really happening. Many of them come and leave constantly so it's hard to form a relationship or just get familiar with. The ones we get to see don't really know what is happening. I once met with my advisor to discuss something and she randomly asked me what I plan to do for my upper level concentration. I told her Japanese and I'm 100 percent sure that is viable. But she told me no you can't use Japanese as upper level concentration. After 10min of looking at her screen she finally said that yes you actually can use Japanese, which I already know. I guess I can be a cs advisor as well.
4. The obstacles that prevent me from knowing what is expected of me in my degree program are:
My own inability to engage with professors due to fear or embarrassment.
prevention of communications between students in most classes lack of teaching real world development technique (I never heard one mention of agile/waterfall before this class. I was lucky enough to have learned these things beforehand but the point still stands). It just seems like they teach you how to code, but dont teach you how to work together in a development process. This is the only class where I felt that wasnt the case.
The CS advising department has been almost entirely useless to me. I haven't recieved any useful advise, and what information I have recieved has sometimes been factually incorrect.
As I have started to apply for full time jobs, I have realized that there is a big disconnect between what jobs expect new grads to be familiar with and what is taught. I would have liked if I could have planned my academic path around what is done in industry.
There is no consistency in the upper levels of CS. The quality of instruction and course content has an extremely variable range. I imagine there are many universities where this is the case, but I seriously question the validity of UMD being a 'top CS school' when more than a few of my CS instructors were subpar.
Not knowing enough about my degree program early on. If I had a better idea of the benefits of different academic decisions earlier I might have tailored my coursework to achieve different goals like specializations or simply taking care of pre-requisites earlier on so that I could take courses I was interested in later on. Not exactly related to this question, but it would have also been really valuable to have known about programs outside of my degree program which were available to me, like QUEST. I would've definitely applied to QUEST if I had known about it when I transferred to UMD my sophomore year of college. I think QUEST and other programs like it give students awesome opportunities to practice skills which strongly complement their CS studies, so getting involved in these programs and other extracurriculars could help students in CS grow beyond just programming skills.
The amount of work a certain assignment could possibly take. I believe if I had this information then I could manage my time more effectively.
The lack of communication between department and students. The advisors and advising appointments are good ideas, but they rarely work in practice. At least from my anecdotes, the advisors basically gave information that I already know as a student, while knowing nothing about the things that I was inquiring. Also they rarely gave constructive feedback on my future plan and I only found out the caveats in hard ways.
The gap in student learning outcomes across sections from the same course. There should be a standard for what is taught instead of it being what is known as completely different courses such as cmsc351 where if you are able to get any professor which isn't a certain someone, then you will be fine. Otherwise, the same course but with a certain professor has the potential to force you to switch careers entirely.
I honestly feel like there were not many obstacles for me that I was not prepared for in my degree program. Coming into college, I knew this program would be a grind, but I knew I could handle it. If anything, getting through CS at UMD has made me more confident in my abilities and helped me understand what I am capable of with my hardwork.
How unclear the degree requirements were. They've been updated to be more clear but I had an especially difficult time picking my ULC. In hindsight, I would have picked something different since business analytics is so hard to do as an ULC now.
I am not aware of any mission statement provided by the Computer Engineering degree program that specifies my expectations and acquired skills by graduation. In addition, there is some room (although not that flexible for computer engineering) for electives, but I don't feel like there is a synthesis or conclusion to the curriculum (despite learning being neverending process).
Many times there is an information overload without time to digest that information. That is my main obstacle in this arena.
The confusing tracks of the degree. It would be better to have a more streamlined curriculum as opposed to cookie cutter classes.
I don't think there are any obstacles, its just that there are no real expectations. You take a certain number of classes in the right areas and that is it. The CS degree is very open ended and you can pretty much take any class you want once you get to 400 level.
I think I understand what is expected of me because of semesterly meeting with my advisor and making sure my degree audit looks good.
the advisors - the majority due not really understand the differences between courses, and some do not even properly understand requirements
None come to mind
I would honestly save I have a good grasp of my expectations of me in my degree program. I don't have any obstacles to list.
the department of computer science's takeout menu style of course requirements. upper level classes are all pick and choose, so it's difficult to know which are useful and which aren't
The patch-y way we run our curriculum. Had to check that I was taking something that actually counted towards my degree at least a hundred times every time I needed to register for classes. Councilors, maybe just my councilor, were always busy and unavailable to answer questions.
There is no flow to the curriculum, it feels that we are learning different languages/skills in any order that we desire because we are for the most part. Instead of learning the correct way to do things the first time around we learn a certain way to do it and later find out why it isn't the best of practices. I have worked on group projects for other courses that could have benefitted from the things that I have learned through 435, but since I ended up taking this course after, I didn't get to apply them.
Lack of communication from higher-ups and being just one of the thousands of cs majors at umd.
It's too open ended after 330/351. You are given a list of 4xx classes to take and some general guidelines, but everyone comes out of it knowing so many different things it gets a bit silly. The range in skillset and knowledge between any two students could be very large based on what classes they have taken.
The lack of knowledge/experience, In every class they teach you about different language and CS topics but they never really tell you why and what to expect in the real world. Most of the projects are novel and textbook without the real development process or how to be good at coding. When I did my internships it was completely different feel working on projects. There was a lot of planning and thinking before real coding started. While in classes it was just given a prompt and start writing the code.
Constantly changing advisors, pressure from "weed-out" classes creating a warped sense what the best way to get through classes is
Again, no real impactful and practical projects that actually applies to what we do later. However, I feel like a lot of stuff is covered well
Degree Audit not being updated; Requirements not being updated (LOOKING AT YOU, CS HONORS PROGRAM.)
Absurd amount of "filler" work, advisors that don't give good "advise", professors who don't encourage actually learning the topic (i.e. no example, just all definitions and theories)
Lax lower level classes that don't really teach you to be a self sufficient coder that can solve problems alone
It's not a matter of not knowing, it's the ability to fulfill the given expectations. But sometimes, the information given is fluffy and unclear. Without concrete requirements listed somewhere, it can be difficult to fulfill expectations.
The tracks system is very vague and for people not on a specific track it is difficult to know what skills are necessary for a particular thing. Because there are so much freedom to choose from and there could potentially be some weird situations happening where someone takes only classes from very few categories and end up not having all the skills they need to do something.
5. The best way to predict when students will be compatible members of a successful team is:
How engaged they are with the project. The more available they are, the more easy it would be to work with them, and thus lead to a better project
If a student can clearly and effectivley commit themselves to a schedule based on a groups needs. In addition to that if the student can communicate any shortcomings they have about their own skills its usually a good indication they have a good measure of their own ability and how they can see themselves contributing.
I think any group in which all the members are engaged and start working early will be sucessful in the long run. Personalities and such aren't especially important as long as everyone is focused on the same goal, and starting early gives the whole group time to develop any skills they might collectively lack.
What they hope to get out of or accomplish during the project. Now, I'm sure some people will not be honest about their motivations but I think this is the best indicator of team cohesion. Every individual on my team made a commitment to making an excellent project to the best of our abilities and I think for the most part we held up that agreement.
The gap in student learning outcomes across sections from the same course. There should be a standard for what is taught instead of it being what is known as completely different courses such as cmsc351 where if you are able to get any professor which isn't a certain someone, then you will be fine. Otherwise, the same course but with a certain professor has the potential to force you to switch careers entirely.
I'd say a combination of the scrimmage scores and their previous experience in the field. Not to say that someone without previous experience won't be compatible, but if people who have previous experience are on the same team they will have an elevated amount of knowledge about SWE. Also depending on where they worked, because the gap in how much interns are able to do is evident. I also think the goals assignment was useful, as the goals of the students should be somewhat alike and they will get along better.
I have found that when someone takes pride in their work, they will usually be good team members. A good way to gauge for this might be performance in scrimmages, the kind of classes they have taken, and their engagement in the class.
Effective communication; Commitment to work hard; On time for meetings; Provides valuable input to the team
Their effort in individual assignments might be a good indicator. In individual assignments, no one can push work onto someone else. However, you can still have people who finish an assignment but do so at the last minute.
More group project data needs to be collected and evaluated. In the CS department in particular, there is a lack of team exercises or projects where CS students can see how they interact with others in a possibly long-term project. Those who are dedicated and committed to delivering quality work can demonstrate it through the project with results and feedback from team members and instructors. This would provide a better indication of the characteristics and traits an individual brings to the team and whether the person is compatible with other members given similar traits or characteristics from previous team members.
Seeing how they act with other assignments. What worked well in my group was that all of us were highly motivated and wanted to get work done as soon as possible instead of postponing it. We seem very alike in that regard and it helped us get along really well.
How they communicate with people that they do not know and how willing they are to help other people in that group.
Its hard to predict at first, but I think the best way to make sure the team will be successful is to make sure everyone has the same buy in and expectations. If everyone is committed to doing work and wants to see the project succeed, they will find a way. If no one care whether the group succeeds and don't want to work, they will get along fine. If there is a mismatch, there will be conflict.
by seeing how they work with each other. I think the best way to see how team members will perform together is just by throwing them together, for better or for worse. However, paying attention to different aspects of a student like their current workload, extracurricular obligations, and general interest in a topic might help with evaluating how much time a student will be able to put into a certain task and might be a factor worth considering when creating a team. Not always the best idea to consider though; I know all the members of my team had very busy lives outside of this classroom but I really enjoyed working with all of them and it seemed like they generally enjoyed working with our team as well.
Making sure there are not too many students on the team with the exact same skillset. Everyone's skillset should complement the others.
I know when I have a successful team when the team is very open to each other and open to all their ideas to one another. It does not feel good when you feel like your teammates cannot trust you with big decisions. Therefore, having that line of trust from all your teammates is essential.
It is honestly fine as is.
They have good energy together, and take initiative on a project
The best way to predict when they will be compatible members is from hearing from people whom they worked with. It's hard for someone in a position of power to be able to understand what someone is like as a team member. Someone who has worked on a team with a student will have the best understanding of a student's qualities and how they can improve.
how well they communicate and make themselves available
Don't really know from a teacher's perspective, but as a student, we can normally tell who's actually going to do the work well pretty quickly by the attitude they kind of carry themselves with when talking about the project specifics. If they're super laid back about things from the beginning, they're probably not entirely in it and will keep the attitude even during crunch time when we need everyone pulling their weight.
I don't think there is any good way of predicting this without the team communicating/engaging with each other to some extent. I don't think that the personality test instruments are any good at accomplishing this either as there is simply too much bias involved in everyone's answers. The results end up being more what the person sees themselves as than what they actually are. I think that working on small tasks that mimic the needs of a full blown project in smaller doses like the Scrims are a good way to find out if a given team works but I also understand that it would be very time consuming to do this over and over until the right teams are formed.
Honestly not sure, maybe matching based on the Gallup surveys are effective but I don't get to see the full process there. Usually I just guess based on how stubborn/ pushy/ friendly/ interested in the class others seem to be, and weather they start to take initiative early (less amounts of stubborn/pushy are good, as are higher amounts of the other criteria).
Using the Gallup testing results. There is no real gauge on how well a team will interact with each other without fully knowing how each person is. The Gallup is a good starting gauge on a person's personality. Another good gauge is someone's background, both their work and their life. If people in a group have similar interest or experiences then they would be more likely to connect and have good chemistry and have good communications.
Please be as specific as possible in answering the following.
When they have nothing in common
I honestly think that you did a great job putting the team together. Also, I feel like it is not about compatible team members, but more about committed team members. As long as the group is commited, the results is guaranteed.
If they have a successful first meeting
Let them first be in a team environment and then gather feedback on them from other students. Tickets also help to see if they're actually putting in the work.
How seriously they take the class and how hard they want to try.
So long as they are all interested in putting in the work, communicating, and compromising, students will more or less be compatible.
Having common interests so they can chat not about business as well. I think that's pretty important to form a collaborative relationship because people are not all about business and common interest is the thing that bring people together.