Introduction
The Teamwork Skills are the one of the intellectual skills category identified and listed in the “Guideline for integrating Soft skills in HEIs curricula”. This is the first result of the Enhancing the presence of Soft Skills in Higher Education Curricula (Skills4Employability) Erasmus+ project, which seeks to support universities in their efforts to improve the quality of education by adapting curricula to the soft-skills demands of the labour market and, as a result, ensure a greater impact on the employment situation of future graduates. The project aims at strengthening HEIs capacity to assess whether and to what extent their programs match the soft skills that are particularly valued in the labour market.
Definition
Teamwork skills are the qualities and abilities that allow a person to work well with others during conversations, projects, meetings or other activities that implies collaboration. These are skills that include active listening, communication, empathy, honesty, problem solving, conflict resolution, collaboration, responsibility and awereness.
Why is this Soft Skill important?
Teamwork skills are essential for any person’s success at work or any other activity that implies interactions with other people. Teamwork at workplace:
- offers differing perspectives and feedback;
- motivates unity in the workplace;
- provides great learning opportunities and helps you accomplish career goals;
- provides improved efficiency and productivity and helps drive the entity forward;
- promotes synergy and positive office culture;
- create an enjoyable environment both for yourself and others.
How can this Soft Skill be assessed? Give an example
Teamwork Skills can be assessed through a wide range of methods, starting from self-assessment questionnaires, negotiation memos, assessment rubrics, role playing and even game-based assessment.
Example of:
- self-assessment can be found at http://questmeraki.com/assessing-teamwork-skills/
- assessment using a simulation tool to recreate common team dynamics through the use of chatbot AI and use a computer scoring algorithm to automatically analyze natural language responses amy be found athttps://skillsimulator.com/.
- assessment rubrics and assessment tools for each learning outcome area of teamwork skills are proposed by Vance (2014) based on the framework of the Model of Domain Learning (MDL).
References
Vance, K., Kulturel-Konak, S., Konak, A (2014). Assessing teamwork skills and knowledge. 2014 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference, Princeton, NJ, 2014, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/ISECon.2014.6891052.
Prepared by UPB
