1. The team engagement practices that were both used by my team and useful to the project were:
Weekly group meetings with you to gadge the team's progress.
Weekly meetings with demos. We originally had daily updates, which were not sufficient for keeping the other group members updated. I assume occasionally still did these when I had major updates to give, though some folks didn't.
My team employed a couple of engagement process but from the beginning we remained casual with each other and established clear expectations. For almost all of us it is our last semester so we knew we needed to put enough effort in order to graduate but we also had other obligations for other classes and out of class. So we all stated early on that we expected nobody to put an exorbitant amount of effort into this where it would negatively affect other parts of their life. Since everyone agreed to do so this worked extremely well when distributing work for the project. Also we never had any team dinners or anything but regarded each other in friendly manner where we would joke around and keeping lighthearted and less school project grouplike worked great for us.
Having weekly team meetings to give project updates and organize next to-do tasks. Creating a discord server which was used as the primary communication method. Organizing weekly meetings with the Professor and client to ensure the project was progressing as planned and in accordance with requirements.
frequent team meetings. keeping a bublic TODO list along with who was responsible for what. weekly (at least) meetings with the client.
Having frequent meetings and communicating in class.
I think the most important engagement practice was having weekly, in-person, status meetings. These meetings helped keep myself, and I assume others, accountable for their work/progress.
Daily updates, regular meetings with client
Weekly meetings at least once through discord, in addition to meets during class. Reminder pings in discord to remind about peripheral deadlines.
Regular weekly in-person meetings. Jira board for task tracking. Team discord for ideas and personal conversations. Team dinners for comraderie.
From the very beginning, as soon as I learned about the peer mentoring system that would take place every week, I realized that my writing could have an impact on my team members' motivation depending on how I approached it. If I wrote about them in a negative way, it could easily create team fragility, which would not be good for me, my team, or the team's progress. Essentially, I would be hurting not only my team members, but also myself. Therefore, I made a concerted effort to focus on their strengths. I strove to be the kindest person I could be to each of them, to take care of them, and to help them as much as I could with genuine affection in order to build team trust and motivation. I believe that this strategy worked perfectly. The team members gradually became more attached to one another, and they began to show the same kindness and support to one another. Our team began to trust one another more and we started to take care of each other. This created a strong team dynamic that empowered us to do great work together.
Communicate all project changes, concerns, and solution ideas to the rest of team always. In addition, be honest about what work you can finish on time and ask for help if needed.
We listed out the things that we needed to work on and claimed them when we were working on them. This allowed us to stay organized and visually see progress being made on the project. It also kept us accountable for the issues we claimed. We also tried to have meetings frequently to keep everyone updated on what has been going on. The most important practice we used was setting up a way of communication between all members of the team.
Laying out individual tasks with soft and hard deadlines
I suppose team engagement practices are things that we do to make teammates more involve in stuffs. I don't think my team has done any team engagement practice things, unless you count bringing food to the meeting room. Even though food is always welcome, I don't think it's directly useful to the project. My team just meet Tuesday and Saturday, sometimes Thursday. I don't think we have done anything that makes teammates more likely to come or more involve during the meeting.
In-person meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Divvying the work into three 'teams' (I am neutral on this one, because while it worked well for some teams, it worked less so for me. If I were to take CMSC435 again, I would have done the teams a little differently. Likely I would have had 3-4 people working on the framework while one person worked on bots and the rest on site features. Then, once the framework was ready to go, I would have only kept one person on maintaining the framework while having 2/3 on bots/site features.) Having a single person dedicated as a 'project manager'
One thing that i found really helpful was that at the begginning of the semester we had all gone out and got TACOS. This allowed us to get to know each other and become friends. It made it a lot easier to trust people throughout the project. We also had bi-daily standup in the discord where we texted about what we did last day. It helped us stay on top of what was going on. We also had a JIRA board. This was the most useful thing by far. It allowed us to keep track of the issues.
To maintain engagement, my team implemented after class meetings on tuesday and thursday where we discussed any action items or needs of each other. Other than that we had a log of daily updates on our discord server.
Weekly meetings with the client as well as with other team members. We chose a time that worked for all of us and agreed to meet every week. This allowed us to discuss what we needed to work on as well as distribute the work. My group used a Jira board which was useful to see what needed to be done. During our meetings we would create Jira tickets and people volunteered to work on those tickets. We also had a discord server that we used to communicate with each other outside of class.
Having individual weekly meetings with our professor, our client, and ourselves. Getting to know each other outisde of the class. Having a JIRA board to keep track of tasks that needed to get done.
Getting food and meeting up with people.
Having continuous meetings. This helped the conversation being more open especially since it is more stiff in the beginning. It also helped to point out when someone didn’t do what they were supposed to do or when someone needed help but they didn’t want to ask specifically.
It also helped having mentoring as you got insights from the team, both negative and positive. I believe especially the positive one is more important as it helps the team come closer and you feel appreciated when you have provided something
Having weekly meetings helped us ensure that we all knew the progress of the project. Having each individual report their status to other teammates kept things running smoothly. I also think that having friendship within the team helped make people more motivated to produce a quality project.
All group members occasionally taking responsibility for an allocated task was crucial to our success.
I think that our frequent meeting were especialy useful. We typically met as a team after class briefly on Tuesdays and Thursday, we also had a full meeting on a weekday night(Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday), we would meet briefly after our status meeting with Professor Purtilo, and we had longer, 2 hour meetings on Sunday. I think that fact that we had consistent communication made it so that we were all aware of the work being done and what would need to be ddone next. I also think that as a team we did a good job of being considerate, and flexible with our teammates. I think that everyone on the team was respectful and showed gratification for completed tasks. Our consistent positive and supportive attitude helped us stay united during stressful times.
When we did regular weekly meetings on top of our mentor meetings that seemed to keep people engaged in what was going on. Also when we made efforts to have meetings right after class that was effective. We were not able to stick to as consistent of a meeting schedule as I would have liked however.
The daily update system we did (basically tickets but we could see each other's) helped a lot to keep us accountable, but admittedly was not enough as the primary communication channel as showcased by our CDR. Meetings after class were really great as it was a convenient twice a week meeting time and we could kind of just chat. Other than that, the trello board was pretty useful even though we started to neglect it at the end.
Discord server so that we could communicate outside of the classroom and meeeting. Weekly team meetings so that we could all come together and discuss what's up.
Creating a routine where we would meet in person in Iribe to complete tasks for the project was probably one of the most effective team engagement activities we carried out. This is especially in comparison to the times we would try to work together remotely over Zoom or Discord, where I felt we just tended to get less work done. Having swipe access to Iribe during non business hours and to the Huddle, Conference, and Seminar rooms made a big difference as well.
Constant check ins over a discord server along with resource and to-do tabs for role assignment andtracking of tasks.. Use of google docs for live collaboration. Online polling applications to help figure out when everybody was available.
We had regular in-person meetings twice a week where we focused on deliverables for that week and building our product. This was vital to completing our product because being in-person gave us a sense of accountability to our team members. We also had a group server (on discord lol) where we could reach out to anyone in our group if we needed help. Most of our members already had the application and it allowed to seamlessly begin communication.
Our team had our own discord server where we would chat or voicecall about the project. I found it really helpful because it was really easy to reach other members of the team through it. We also had a channel in there where we would post daily updates about what we did to further make sure everyone is doing their part. Later on we did kind of drop the daily updates channel but thats because we decided to demo what we did instead. The demo is more helpful because it shows concrete development whereas text might be vague and others don't necessarily read them.
2. If I could make ONE change to CMSC435 to make it a great class, it would be:
I would have like to be able to view the power point presentations after lectures for review.
Dr. Purtilo tells us about the RSS feed thing at the beginning of the semester, and not the last class
To reduce the amount of wordiness and ambiguity surrounding everything in the class. I understand in the real world there are no clear bulletted guidelines and requirements for assignments but in my experience during my internships I never experienced quite as much ambiguity. Doing so, causes more worry for students when we already have enough other stuff to worry about. I think it would be better to set clear deadlines on assignments because from what I experienced hard deadlines always have a clear due date when it comes to projects. Reducing the wordiness of descriptions and assignments would also help students spend more time thinking deeply about the assignment rather than spend time figuring out what it is asking.
To make the last 15 minutes of every class team time. This is a big ask but class is a very useful opportunity to catch up with the team and discuss the project since everyone is present and there are no time conflicts.
use ELMS, or at least have a single designated place we can find a list of assignments and their descriptions. My team rarely had any idea what was due when, or what it consisted of (see our CDR)
I would not change anything. :)
Make deadlines and assignment details more clear. Having to parse through wordy blog posts is confusing and it's easy to miss things.
Some designated team time at the start of every class, rather than at the end when some members must leave for another class. While the lectures were valuable, they were somewhat disconnected from the projects at times when discussing topics like ethics.
Somehow put more time between start of group formation and cdr deadline. Dependent on spring break, but just even one additional week of coding work (excluding proposal drafting press release etc) would be very helpful.
I think having more knowledge of what other teams were doing would be nice as it was hard to gauge how well we were doing relative to the class
It would have been better if the deadline for all assignments and team work had been set to 12am toensure that everyone was engaged and had the full opportunity to complete them, since this is more common and probably better than middle of each day. Throughout the entire semester, my friends and I were very confused about the deadlines for every assignment.
Post the slides.
One change that I would make would be to remove the textbook. I did not use the textbook this semester and I do not feel that it is important for this class.
More say in choosing the project
I will make all the practices introduced in class into their own respective assignments. No matter how hard you try, my team just default to the programming habit they develop over the year, which is just build the entire product first, then do the required assignment. The process my team used to make the product is atroucious. I would propose one design, anotheer would said he didn't understand what I'm saying and refuse to research, then propose a stupid design that has apparant flaws he can't jusify having. We will go back and forth, without trying any design out because someone hates trying things, then we ran out of time and just stick to whatever. So, I think making the good practices into required assignments will be helpful.
Getting into the nitty gritty about how to get (and maintain!) healthy team dynamics.
I still have a lot of trouble with subversion. If there was one initial discussion about how to use subversion. If there was a lecture about proper practices it would be really helpful.
Make use of some of the lecture material in the project, I feel like much of the material in class is not put to practice such as ethics or other ideas.
Give more team time durring lectures so that people could work on their projects more in class. This would also help the teams that were less organized since they would be forced to work on it. I think that using elms instead of the blog to announce things so that more people see it.
Posting the lecture slides somewhere online. I can only write notes so fast.
More discussion and lessons from other team.
I think it might be worth looking into actually assigning roles or advising us to assign more precise roles to each other, such as Project Managers, Product Owner and Architect(s) of the system. I think that would have made it easier to deliberate workload and also know who is responsible for what. Sure we could do this ourselves but I feel like there should have been covered and pushed for a bit more in that case.
I would say it would be beneficial if there was more team time during class leading up to the CDR. I would say in the two weeks leading up to the CDR, everyone had their nose to the grindstone and would take any time possible to be able to have everyone able to meet with each other. If maybe instead of having two lecture days a week with some team time at the end of both, we had Thursday be a quick lecture and long team time, I think it could be very beneficial. Of course, this would mean that Tuesday would be entirely a lecture day.
It would help to get more guidance on how to develop a project proposal, critical design review, cost study, and demo presentation that meets industry standards. Our initial drafts were not up to these standards because we were not entirely sure what was expected of us.
During class Professor Purtilo mentioned that he was disapointed not more students came to talk to him in the beginning for a free point and that many were scared of him. I think that requiring a 1:1 meeting with him would remedy that. The meeting wouldn't even have to be required neccesarrily to have the desired effect. Simply communicating the precedent that all student typically schedule a 1:1 meeting with the Professor to get to know each other would help. This could be done by setting up a schedule that people could book slots through and you could meet the majority of the class. Although this doesn't test initiative to the extent of the bonus point listed on the grade server, it allows students to find you less scary and benefit from the professor/student relationship early on.
I would like for there to be a system that rewards individual team members for doing a lot of work. It feels as though sometimes other people can really just slack off and not face too many reprecussions. A lot of these projects were massive undertakings and for some people to not be engaged for multiple weeks at a time is not acceptable. I would like for the team members who are not doing as much work to recieve a notification if their average rating for a week falls below a 2.5 from their peers. I think this will be enough incentive to make them take on more and their does not need to be a more severe consequence unless the issue persists.
Hand out that RSS feed to people at the start of class, just too much of a quality of life thing to keep hidden.
Please let us use Git. The assumption that "everyone knows Git" is inaccurate, and I don't feel like I learned SVN beyond basic pulling and committing (what I know of Git) anyway.
I understand why you decided to not give detailed information on what was expected for each major assignment (e.g. rubrics) prior to submission, as we do not have this information in a proper software engineering environment. But I would like some more guidance during this class so that we can ease into figuring out what to focus on for deliverables.
A single repository where assignment and assigment descriptions and due dates would be stored.
I would like to at some point see the logic as to why teams were put together. When we first met we did not immediately get along and it took time to build that relationship with everyone. It would be nice to see later on in the semester see why were put together and what the expectations were for for the team. This could also be useful to building better teams later. Side note, I think all our members offered different strengths and we were able to rely on each other because of it.
One thing I found kind of confusing is how when we did the group exercise at the beginning of the class, I thought that was going to be my project group for the rest of the class. Looking back, I kind of realized how that exercise further helped to determine who should belong to which group. But at the time I was really confused and maybe some clarification around that area would help.
3. The one thing that most gets in the way of me doing my best work in CS (CE) here at UM is:
You don't have to learn professional skills, just technical.
I wish it was easier to get to know people in the major. Since it's so big, sometimes in those big courses it can feel like you're going at it alone if you don't know anyone in your class. It can be scary.
The disconnect between lectures and assignments. For some classes the projects are completely disconnected from what is taught in lecture. And on top of that there are homework problems. I think that classes should be able assign either type of assignment but only one type at a time.
Having trouble getting one on one time with a TA or Professor when experiencing difficulty. This was not the case in this class as Professor Purtilo was always available. However, in other larger classes, office hours are always crowded and it is hard to get individual time to clear confusion.
chronic procrastination
Stress from all of my classes.
My procrastination. Usually work is the responsibility of the individual to do. And the only thing that gets in the way of me doing my own work is myself. My biggest problem is not spacing out my own work enough and leaving it to late dates to finish.
quantity over quality in projects, touching on many technical topics I eventually forget rather than helping produce valuable software I can use to advertise myself, something this class avoids
A busy scheudle impacting availability for total full group meetings with you.
Waking up in the morning D: I procrastinate way too late on starting projects
Due to the distance from Delaware, it was really hard for me to stay longer at school, especially since I was the one responsible for team engagement, task organization, and team relationship development.
I have done many group projects at college. For almost all of them, there have been at least two people who did not really do anything on 5-person teams. This made my workload much worse and prevented me from giving my all in other classes.
Miscommunication gets in the way of me doing my best work. This is because I frequently end up spending a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly it is that I need to be doing. It also makes me anxious because I try to follow the assignment instructions exactly.
In sophomore and junior year critical classes were hard to get into due to class sizes being too small, as well as not being able to take many desired classes due to scheduling.
No knowing what to do before writing my programs. I can write programs decently. But how to get to that point was not known to me before taking this class. I had a group project that required us to build a bittorrent. The planning was terrible, which make our program also terrible. So, the one thing that gets into my way is knowing how to plan before actual coding. My hubris; during most of the semesters I have had at UMD, I take too many credits to really sit down and get immersed in any single assignment. This results in shoddy work, because I'm busy thinking about and preparing for assignments for the next class.
Difficulties with the initial learning curve when understanding version control. There was never really any instruction about how to do proper version control so there would be a lot of initial idfficulties.
Not enough TAs in the class to reach out to.
I tend to procrastinate and end up having to do a lot of work within a short period of time. I end up having multiple assignments that are due so I can not spend too much time on any one project. If I managed my time better then I could do better work as I would not be rushed to complete assignments on time.
Having to do my best work for 4/5 classes per semester. I know what my best work could be but I need to make sure not to fail and therefore waste my tuition which has more priority over doing my best.
It is in college, which I plan to get through not thrive in.
So in Sweden we do only two (sometimes three) classes at once but at double the pace, which means we only do it for 8 weeks. There are many things I think UMD does better than my uni but I like the system of having fewer classes at one time but with increased pace. I feel like 5 classes are too many to bounce at the same time and I feel like the knowledge learnt doesn’t click as well when you have to focus on so many classes.
Other classes. If CMSC435 was the only class I was taking, there would be much more time to ensure a quality end product, but since we all have to juggle 4-5 other classes, it makes it hard to have a perfect end project.
I do not feel that I am supported by the CS Department, it is every student for themselves. This may be purely because the major is so large, my double major (Economics) takes much more of a personal approach.
The one thing that typically gets in my way of doing my best or really just makes it harder is honestly bad lecturers. The number of classes I have just abandoned in person lectures is kind of crazy. For these kinds of classes, I dont learn anything in the actual lecture hall and tend to understand the more concise and clear videos, slides, and practice materials. For example, I did quite well in CMSC330 and I only attended 30% of the lectures. When a professor is either not interested in the topic he is teaching or simply can't talk about it in a way to make people understand, the lectures feel like a waste of time. On the other hand, I have had lecturers that were actually amazing. But when I sign up for a class and I end up with a non engaging and overall "bad" lecturer, I am quite disapointed.
lack of resources to study adequately from. For this class there was a lot of need to read through installation guides that led to nowhere and it would have been nice tohave our mentor jump in a bit more when these were not working. Our mentor was also not very available to us most weeks which made it hard to formulate our plan for going forward at times. I would consider his mentorship a resource in this case. In terms of other classes when a professor does not give enough practice material or study adequate study material for the specific topics he is teaching that can lead to me studying innefficiently at times. For example in some classes when a textbook and or powerpoint has a lot of irrelevant and unhelpful information this tends to affect the efficiency with which I can study.
If you're asking about the curriculum, id say lack of interesting group work like this is one of it's primary issues. Otherwise I wish there was some sort of accelerated sequence for the early cs classes (at least 131/132), would have been nice to knock those out in a semester.
CMSC412. I also wish there was a class on industry practices, where you learn how to use Git, what is Agile, doing a code review, writing tickets, etc. Like a 200-level version of CMSC435 without the big class project.
The CS department has many resources and opportunities to explore, but I find it difficult to find all of them to utilize these assets to the fullest extent.
My health. I am not able to drive, walk moderate distances, or have much energy during the day. It makes it very difficult to stay in sync with my team and scheduling any kind of physical meet up. I often have a set commute, by means of state paratransit services, so staying after class hours to see a TA or tutoring has to be worked into my schedule beforehand.
Currently, life outside of UM. It's not an excuse but just a fact that there are other obligations in my life. Regardless, in the past I have found it difficult to do work in courses I don't see the real-world applicability for.
Personally, procrastination. I would not really do that much work until the deadline gets close and if the deadline is really far, it might seem like im not doing anything at all. Although most of the time I do manage to produce quality work, I don't really do that until the end.
4. The obstacles that prevent me from knowing what is expected of me in my degree program are:
Myself; Not utilizing our professors as resource for learning, I could seek more guidence.
I don't think there's any sort of standard set by the university for what skills and qualities they want me to have when I come out of here with this CS degree. It's made more confusing by the fact that there's so little guidance about upper-level courses. Seems like they don't require me to have any upper-level knowledge of any topic in particular, which strikes me as somewhat odd.
The curriculum and professor quality varies widely in the degree. There are some amazing professors who really care to teach the material and others who clearly make it difficult for students. I don't think this is necessary because I have learned the most from professors who genuinely care to teach without making it crazy difficult for students.
The lack of explanation of how various courses help me in professional roles. Also, there isn't an explanation of why certain CS and EE classes are chosen to be part of the Computer Engineering curriculum and why others are excluded.
lack of documentation
I know what is expected of me.
The prerequisites for higher-level classes are not clear for first/second year students. So even though advisors say what classes the student should take next, they are wrong sometimes leaving a student stranded in their third or fourth year without having correct prereqs to take the classes they want.
lack of interaction with other classmates, particularly in other classes lacking group work where viewing a lecture online is largely the same experience
Classes without public syllabi / overviews. 400 classes can become very surprising. This class was the opposite, very clear expectations / roadmap.
Ive never spoken to a CS advisor (maybe more my fault then theirs) No group projects (very unlike industry)
Nothing I can think of.
A lot of information is difficult to find or not taught. Mostly, real-world strategies and practices are rarely taught, and if they are, students never really have the opportunity to practice them. In addition, there is a culture in CS classes that is very different from my ME classes. I found that CS students are more likely to do work the last minute and always assume assignments are easier than they actually are (though this still happens in ME classes).
The general education requirements prevented me from knowing what is expected of me in my program. I do not feel that all of the gen ed credits needed were necessary. I feel it would have been better for me to just spend those semesters taking more classes that were relevant to my degree.
Nothing. As long as I was proactive in running audits and reviewing the requirements posted online, I had no confusion in my degree requirements.
I know what's expected of me in my degree program once I have taken several 3XX classes. It's nothing other than knowing my tools, which are programming languages and their paradigms, computer archetecture, etc..
The conflicting expectations between the stated goals of a university program (gain knowledge, involve yourself in the cutting-edge, gain critical thinking abilities, set yourself up for success) and the expressed goals of the CS administration (prep you for the gristmills, faculty insularity, learning how to follow rigid and boring project documentation, leeching as much money out of you as possible). This problem is less apparent in the physics department.
There are not too many obstacles. The biggest obstacle was not being able to do a big project. However this class gave me a real taste for how it works to be in a big project.
Too many projects and not enough small exercises that could just as well demonstrate a concept. Projects do definitely have a role, but at the lower level projects are not as important.
Lack of clear communication as I do not have a concrete idea of what is expected it was difficult to choose the courses that I liked as well as the ones that were required. I was unsure which classes I was supposed to take so I took whatever was reccommended to me by my advisor however, I could have taken more specialized courses instead.
Not asking. Someone in the dept probably has the answers, I just never bother to ask.
There are none.
I have quite a hard time understanding this question, but I would believe information from professors is the main reason for that. However I feel like I know what is expected of me within my degree program.
Clarity from professors. Sometimes it can be difficult to know what is expected of you in certain classes if the professor does not outline it at the beginning of the semester.
I have not had the opportunity to be face-to-face with a professor in a meaningful way until CMSC435. I have gone through my degree without interacting personally with a professor unless it was out of pure necessity such as doing poorly in the course. Even in 400-level classes, a lecturer/attendee relationship is established early on, and questions about course material is directed to the TAs (who are usually great).
I think the obstacles are advisors and partially the professors. There is very little professor/student connection built into the UMD CS degree and so I dont typically hear from professor about career topics or degree expectations, with exceptions of course. I think the advisors are really where the department falls short. I have experienced a signifigant amount of advisors that get assigned to me and then leave within a year. Additionally, the department has advisors that almost never have any kind of background in Computer Science. I almost always felt that I would go into my advising appointments knowing more about my dgree requirements and college path than they could ever know. The higlight was when I asked my advisor what the maximum number of credits I could sign up for next semester was and he said he would need to check on that(you would think an advisor would know something like that). I dont really understand why I have had an advisors with a theatre background and a sports background. Shouldn't these people help me understand my own degree and not just read off of a paper what I need to do? Either way, I made it through with my own researching abilities, coursicle, planet terp, reddit, and friends and family.
I have had some bad experiences with advisors who did not fully know the reprecussions of taking some classes now and not taking others later. This led to me having limited options of classes towards the end. I would also like for TAs to have more virtual office hours as that was very easily accesible to me when they were happening.
It's never even explained, now that I'm thinking about it. I'm getting a ML specialization but haven't taken 421 or 422 yet, and I don't know what I'm expected to know by the end - the blurb on the specializations on the cs degree requirement page is pretty short.
In general, CE is a very vague major and looking back, I'm not sure that it should even exist. All CE majors whom I have spoken to regret not doing pure EE or CS. Ancedotal evidence, I know, but it seems like a useless major. The lack of structure with the major (here, take some ENEE classes and some CMSC classes) with no real overarching goal in the upper-level classes means that nothing really feels important. I think the vibe that they want to go for is stuff on the OS-level (with ENEE446 and CMSC412 being required), but those are only two classes. Meanwhile, they also require classes like CMSC330, which teaches Ruby (high-level programming), and ENEE200, with one of ENEE303 being an optional requirement (that or ENEE322), which is at the silicon level. Maybe my personal experience is wack (I took ENEE411, another silicon level class, because it fit into my schedule), but my last two years have honestly felt like a whole mix of topics.
The most common obstacles I see facing me and my peers are unclear or inconsistent guidelines, difficulty accessing resources or support, conflicting priorities or demands on your time, and feeling overwhelmed by the scope or complexity of the coursework.
Lack of experience. I have no internships under my belt and have rarely had to take on full-app development tasks. Nor do i have very good communication skills.
Nothing. I think it is up to oneself to take initiative to discover these things. I can not think of any instances where something not caused by me have delayed my attaining my degree.
I feel like there isn't much preventing me from knowing what is expected of me in my degree program. I try to do the best I can in every class.
5. The best way to predict when students will be compatible members of a successful team is:
Communication then participation
I think the existing engagement metrics are great- but I think an extra-important quality to pay attention to is how communicative someone is. Basically all of my gripes with my team members this semester had to do with lack of communication about an issue. Maybe there could be a Q4: How communicative has the group member been? Or something like that.
I think the current method is good but I also enjoyed working with my scrimmage team. I also though the team sizing was perfect to distribute workload. To improve upon the current system I would reccomend to let everyone in the class mingle and observe where everyone gravitates.
To monitor their engagement. In my opinion, students who are engaged will be able to integrate in a team setting because they will do their part in creating a productive atmosphere.
whether they're friends with each other. My team from the scrimmage consisted of people who all knew each other and we worked together much better than MGP did.
To compare their skill sets and personality traits to determine if they will mesh will for a certain project.
I think the only definitive way of predicting this is by putting students in a group. People don't act like they do in everyday life as they do when working in group projects, so I think it is impossible to predict what people will make good group mates unless they have actually worked in a group before. Are engaged early on in the project, or just with each other, not afraid to befriend team members
Their enthusiasm / focus with the actual work at hand, in addition to enthusiasm with simply meeting.
Whether they can stand to talk to each other outside of the project
The best way to predict when students will be compatible members of a successful team is to ensure that they care for each other. When team members are honest and transparent with each other, they can understand each other more effectively without negative emotions getting involved, allowing all team members to focus on the work at hand.
They don't say things like, "I just want a C in this class," or "That should be easy. I will get it done by Friday," and then proceed to ghost the team for two weeks, finally bringing in a cardboard box instead of a 3D-printed electrical housing, then claiming it took them 5.5 hours when that is how long it took you to hand measure and CAD an entire trike frame.
I think the individual assessments gave a good way to create the initial teams, then the peer feedback was a good way to ensure that the teams were compatible. By using the peer feedback system the students are able to see what their teammates expect of them and also show each other what they are expecting of their team.
They share the same level of commitment
It's passion. If the student is not passionate, no matter how skillful he is, it will not matter since he will be reluctant to use his skills. But a unskillful passionate student is at least willing to learn and try things out, which is the path to success in my opinion.
If they are all passionate about the project being worked on; if they are capable of prolonged and fruitful discussion, and both reaching consensus and expressing dissent; if they are capable of generating roles and expectations for each individual member that the rest of the team can rely on them to carry out.
How well they talk to each other. If they feel comfortable asking each other for help. If students dont work together well then they will all just try to do everything themsevles or not do anything at al..
I suppose the attributes were a decent way of determining compatibility, but general attitude is also important.
If their personalities match and they have similar attitudes towards the project. You can also ensure that the team has a variety of skills so that they can tackle any project together. Getting feedback from the students about their group members allows you to see if they are working well together and allows each student to adjust how much effort they are putting into the project.
I honestly have no idea, I'm pretty bad at reading people. You did really well though with my team, I'm amazed at how you could've done it.
Effort they are willing to put.
When they share the same goal and mindset as well as completing each others skillset. I also believe it is very important that all team members are willing to help and be engaged and wants what is best for the team.
Willingness to put in effort. Even if all members of a team are only willing to put in 50% effort, thats better than some putting in 30% and others putting in 80%. This difference in effort levels can cause tension between team members and will not contribute to a cohesive end product.
Ensure they are on the same page about time commitment, communication, and level of effort expectations. Also, make sure everyone defines their interests and how they could apply them to the scope of the project.
I think that engagement is a great evaluator for when someone will be a successful team member. If a teammate is very relucatant to take part in optional team time and if they have an attitude that they are too good for this or they just dont care enoguh about this class or grade, those are both bad signs. I can't say that I think any of my own teammates in 435 were like this but I have defintely experienced these members in QUEST. I think that the engagement scores at the beginning of class are a great way to identify these characteristics.
If they are good communicators. Our team suffered from lack of communication at times which led to some people doing things on their own and some people not taking as much initiative. I think good communication allows for members to feel at ease about the project at hand and does not make people stress when they have other things to do.
Skillset coverage and compatible personalities are probably the primary thing. Other than that, I feel like it would mostly be up to trial and error. Unlike most of the other students I kinda felt disturbed at how well my cliftonstrengths report identified me, so I think that also was a good predictor.
Similar work ethics - Having one person do everything while no one else does anything causes tensions. I am happy that I was put on team 1 with the "most engaged" people because it felt like I was being supported by my teammates and that I would trust them to do their work.
I think the best way to predict the compatibility of team members is a shared sense of purpose and commitment to the project, complementary skills and expertise, effective communication and collaboration, and a positive and respectful team culture. I see some of this in action with my group in this class.
This is a difficult question. If this class is meant to simulate a professional enviorment, I feel it is up to those students to make themselves compatible, i.e. showcasing adaptability and flexibility to work with others, sometimes complete strangers, towards a common goal, and the being able to take initiative when they need to. The issue is figuring if students already possess this mindset or not.
If the members can get along outside of a team mentality. I think our team became most effective once we started to talk about things outside of class or CS. We became friends and then there was a sense of accountability to helping the team. I think if our team had not liked each other, it would've resulted in less engagement from everyone and a careless product.
I think each team member should have their own unique role in the team. Although on paper it might sound good to have a full team of people who are masters at coding, it is necessary to have people filling in the other roles as well.