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Striving to strengthen teamwork and problem-solving in Kinesiology students

Challenging, Team Dynamics, Accountability

Reflection on the Development of Workplace Skills in your students:

I was focused on the development of teamwork and problem-solving for the Workplace Skills Minigrant for Kinesiology students in KINS 158: Motor Learning and Control. Many Kinesiology students go on to careers that require a great amount of teamwork and problem-solving, such as allied health professions (i.e. physical therapists), teaching physical education and coaching. Therefore, I thought these would be valuable professional skills to target to try to enhance their learning in KINS 158 and translate to future careers.

I had brainstormed several different ways to integrate teamwork and problem-solving into KINS 158 beyond what I already did but to be honest, I was hesistant to incorporate all of the ideas that I came up with the first time and felt implementing everything was too ambitious (and potentially counter-productive). For example, one of my original ideas was to essentially place every single student in a study group and create study sessions but quickly abandoned this idea since 1) the students are already placed in 1-2 separate groups - lab and group project groups - in KINS 158, and 2) students being "forced" into additional study sessions if they didn't want them, likely wouldn't be haven't been received well/seen as a positive by many students. Therefore, instead I had students have the choice to opt-in to be part of study groups and have relative independence on how they used their study group, which would also serve to work on problem-solving. I had about 36% (20 out of 56) students initially sign-up at the beginning of the semester. I had all of the students submit their general weekly availability and strategically placed students in the study groups with overlapping availability. Students availability was factored in with leadership qualities since in my beginning of the semester survey I asked students whether they liked to be leaders in groups or not, and strategically placed at least 1 student who self-reported being a leader into each study group. After forming the study groups, I tasked the groups with meeting and getting to know each other, and finding the best means to communicate. After that, I tasked students to 1) use ChatGPT to help create questions from the learning objectives for Modules 1 and 2 then 2) exchange the questions with members in their study groups then 3) meet as a group to discuss the answers they came up with. Subsequently I attempted to meet with all the study groups to discuss answers. In addition to the study groups, I also modified several existing parts of KINS 158 to help enhance teamwork and problem-solving more broadly for all students including: A) meeting with lab groups at least two times before they orally presented and completed a written group lab report, B) meeting with group project groups at least two times while working on their rough draft for their group project, and C) providing a bonus assignment where students watched "Communication within teams" LinkedIn Learning (https://www.linkedin.com/learning/communication-within-teams/how-high-performing-teams-communicate?u=2152977) then completed a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Responsibility Matrix related to a group assignment they were currently working on.

I can say that not all students embraced the challenge of the study groups as a handful dropped-out; students reported not having enough time as the main reason for dropping out. I think that as the semester started to get busy and since these were seen as an "extra" activities, several students quickly de-valued how benefical the study groups could be. Regardless, I had implemented several other groupwork/problem-solving strategies as outlined above in KINS 158 that received positive feedback from students since it helped make changes to graded assignments. To get a better idea how groupwork and problem-solving changed over the course of the semester I had students voluntarily complete two questionnaires at the beginning of the semester (Week 2) and near the end of the semester (Week 14) - Attitudes towards Group Work Survey (Grzimek et al., 2014) and Problem-Solving Inventory (Heppner & Petersen, 1982). The figures below display the class avearges and standard deviation:

Figure 1

Average self-reported perceptions of group work for KINS 158 students based on Attitudes towards Group Work Survey (Grzimek et al. 2014)

Line figure displaying pre/post-intervention self-reported perceptions related to group work. Approx 2.6 to 2.7.

*Scores reported on a Likert scale where scores range from 1 = strongly agree to 5=strongly disagree. The sample for pre (n=54) was larger than sample for post (n=48).

Figure 2

Average self-reported perceptions of problem-solving of KINS 158 students based on Problem-Solving Inventory (Heppner & Petersen, 1982)

Line figure displaying pre/post-intervention self-reported perceptions related to problem solving. Approx 3.2 to 3.1

*Scores reported on a Likert scale where scores range from 1 = strongly agree to 6=strongly disagree. The sample for pre (n=54) was larger than sample for post (n=48).

**Workplace Skills Development**
Figure 3	Figure 4
RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Matrix used to facilitate teamwork in KINS 158 assignment by a student. It indicates what team members are responsible for as well as the Action items required for the project and what each member will execute.	RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Matrix used to facilitate teamwork by a KINS 158 student in their job as a basketball coach.

As mentioned above, in addition to the voluntary study groups, I also modified several existing parts of KINS 158 to help enhance teamwork and problem-solving more broadly for all students including: A) meeting with lab groups at least two times before they orally presented and completed a written group lab report, B) meeting with group project groups at least two times while working on their rough draft for their group project, and C) providing a bonus assignment where students watched "Communication within teams" LinkedIn Learning (https://www.linkedin.com/learning/communication-within-teams/how-high-performing-teams-communicate?u=2152977) then completed a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Responsibility Matrix related to a group assignment they were currently working on.

In previous semesters, I did not require meetings with lab or project groups but left it to students come into office hours. During these lab and group project sessions, I would discuss with the groups how they planned to approach and organize as a team in addition to taking about the assignment itself.

This is the first time I have introduced an external source to help facilitate professional skills, including teamwork, into KINS 158. I searched throughout the internet to try and find an informative video related to groupwork, and happened to come across Daisy Lovelace's video on Communication within teams and corresponding RACI exercise on LinkedIn Learning. I personally watched it and found it had lots of easy to follow and practical information, and the RACI matrix was a bonus on how students could actually implement what they learned.

Changes in KINS 158 :

Introduction of quantitative measurements (surveys) related to Attitudes towards Group Work (Grzimek et al., 2014) and Problem-Solving Inventory (Heppner & Petersen, 1982).

Introduction of voluntary study groups (with strategic group formation based on availabilty and leadership qualities) with some assigned activities.

Increased time spent with existing lab and project groups to facilitate teamwork on group oral and written lab reports, and group projects, respectively. Prior time spent with group was minimal and typically on own volition (coming into office hours).

Introduction of optional tutorial on Communication within Teams requiring the completion of the RACI matrix on an actual group related assignment (in a course or real-life).

**Faculty Bio**
Faculty Picture	About me:
	I am an Associate Professor (tenured) in the Department of Kinesiology at Sacramento State. I obtained my BSc (Hons.) in 2008 and MSc in 2010 in Kinesiology and Physical Education from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My BSc and MSc research was focused on the effects of dopamine medication treatments on upper limb movement and motor symptoms in individual's with Parkinson's disease (PD). I received my PhD in Kinesiology specializing in Neuroscience in 2015 from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My PhD thesis was focused on using electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate how somatosensory information is used in the control for upper limb movements. I completed my training as a post-doc in 2017 at the Krembil Brain Institute at Toronto Western Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. During my post-doc, I continued my research in investigating how different areas of the brain interact for the control of upper limb movement using a variety of techniques including EEG, TMS, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in both healthy and clinical populations. I primarily teach Motor Learning and Control at the undergraduate (KINS 158) and graduate (KINS 258) levels. I have also teach/have taught other graduate level courses, including KINS 209, KINS 211, KINS 294A and KINS 210. I am also the coordinator of the Department of Kinesiology Graduate program. In addition to teaching, I have an active research program in the Sensorimotor Adaptations and Control Neurophysiology (S.A.C. Neurophys) Lab that investigates: Using non-invasive brain recording (i.e. EEG) and brain stimulation (i.e. TMS) techniques to investigate different brain areas and mechanisms that contribute to using sensory information (i.e. somatosensory) for motor control (i.e. upper limb movement); Investigating changes in sensorimotor control in clinical (i.e. Parkinson's disease) and athletic populations; Developing novel techniques (i.e. brain stimulations, exercise) to induce plasticity changes in the nervous system for sensorimotor control; Determining the effectiveness of potential rehabilitation or treatment strategies (i.e. brain stimulation) for clinical populations with sensorimotor deficits.

STEM4Equity: US Dept. of Education STEMHSI P031C210012
*Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sacramento State.