Experts in Teamwork (EiT)

Academic responsibility: Hanne Rustad

Responsible unit: Experts in Teamwork Academic Section

The course teacher (village supervisor) and theme for each course (village) are presented on the website: www.ntnu.no/eit (Norwegian) and www.ntnu.edu/eit ( English)

Level of study: Second-degree (master’s) level

Credits: 7.5 ECTS

Taught only in the spring semester

Assessment system: Assessment of components

Content

Good solutions to difficult challenges often depend on cooperation across boundaries. A growing number of enterprises organise their work in interdisciplinary teams to meet this need. However, differences and disagreements occur in all teamwork, and this is especially true of interdisciplinary teams, where the team members speak from the perspectives of different disciplines and working methods. To enable a team to work well and unlock the potential of its resources, it is vital to handle disagreements and differences. Interdisciplinary teamwork thus demands good teamwork skills. In the Experts in Teamwork course, students develop these skills by working on projects in teams together with students from a variety of study programmes. Here, there is a strong focus on students’ reflections on specific teamwork situations that occur as the project progresses. Topics for the student teams’ projects are based on relevant issues from civic and working life. The course creates a basis for realising the results of the work that the teams have done and putting them into practice.

For more information about the academic content and framework for the course, see www.ntnu.edu/eit.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge

• The student has gained practical and theoretical knowledge about group processes and is familiar with key concepts and prerequisites for good teamwork.
• Based on experience from the team, students can describe the prerequisites for good interdisciplinary teamwork.
• Students have insight into how their cooperation is influenced by their own behaviour patterns and attitudes, as well as those of others.
• Students have insight into how work with the team process is integrated in and influences their project work and the project results.

Skills

• Students can apply their academic learning in cooperation with people from other subject areas, and jointly define problems and find solutions to them.
• Students can apply fundamental group theory and concepts to describe their own specific collaborative situations.
• Students can reflect on and analyse the way that the team communicates, plans, decides, accomplishes tasks, handles disagreements and relates to professional, relational and personal challenges, including their own role in this cooperation.
• Students can give and receive constructive feedback, at both the individual and group level, in terms of how team members’ patterns of behaviour and approaches to situations contribute to cooperation, and can reflect on such feedback.
• Students can take initiatives (actions) that encourage cooperation, and they can contribute to improving their teamwork.

General competence

• Students have extended their perspective on their own specialised knowledge in their encounter with skills from other disciplines. They can communicate and use skills they have developed in their own field in cooperation with students from other disciplines.
• Students can work together with people from other disciplines and contribute to taking advantage of their collective interdisciplinary expertise.

Learning methods and activities

Teaching in EiT takes place in courses (villages), normally with 5–6 student teams. The form of learning is project based, and most of the activities in the course take place in the student teams. The teams carry out a project from idea to completion, where the focus of the project must be within the topic of the course (the village theme). Reflection on the cooperation along the way plays a key role; students are challenged to explore their own and others’ patterns of behaviour and approaches to situations in the team and to analyse how the team communicates, plans, decides, accomplishes tasks, handles disagreements and relates to professional, relational and personal challenges. This takes place through written reflections and structured teamwork exercises carried out by the teams, as well as in dialogue with the teaching staff (the course teacher and learning assistants). The teams are observed as they work, and the observations are shared with the student teams as a basis for reflection.

The different courses (villages) may have varying degrees of online cooperation, from “virtual villages”, where all the village days take place online, to “in-person villages”, where all the village days are face to face. If students have chosen a virtual village, they must take part using both a camera and a microphone.

Compulsory activities

• Compulsory attendance and a requirement for 80 % attendance of the course.
  • Compulsory participation on the first or second day of the village because the team members will prepare the team’s cooperation agreement.
  • Compulsory participation in the perspective dialogue.
  • Compulsory participation on the day when the team holds the final presentation of the project.
• Cooperation agreement: Prepared by the team during the first two days of the village.
• Perspective dialogue: Students participate in a dialogue about the teamwork in the student team when the teaching ends.
• Oral presentation: The student teams must give an oral presentation of the project at the end of the teaching period.

The compulsory activities must be approved by the course teacher before the final work is submitted for assessment. It is a prerequisite that the entire student team participates in the compulsory activities. Attendance in intensive villages means every working day (Monday–Friday) for three weeks in January, and in semester-based villages every Wednesday during the period January–April. Whether the student teams meet in person or virtually, a significant part of their cooperation must take place synchronously, which is a prerequisite for developing teamwork skills. For this reason, attendance is compulsory in the villages during the specified teaching hours (normally 08.00–16.00).

More about assessment

The student team’s final work consists of two component assessments that are weighted equally. Each component is assessed according to the grading scale A–F. The team receives one common grade.

The final work consists of two parts – a project part and a process report. The project part is either a written report or an oral examination. The form of assessment (written or oral project part) for each of the various EiT courses is stated in the course description and the village description for the individual course. The village description for the individual villages is available at www.ntnu.edu/eit.

Expectations for the student team's work and criteria for the evaluation are made available at the beginning of the semester.

The project part is worth 50 % and the process report is worth 50% of the final grade.

In the event of a failing grade or a resit of a passed examination, the entire course must be repeated.

Required previous knowledge

Admission to EiT requires admission to a master’s programme in which EiT is included. Other students may apply for admission to EiT, but must be qualified for admission to a master’s programme in order to participate.

Course materials

The material will be made available at the start of the semester.

Approved by Rector as the governing body for EiT.