Shared learning teams

Summary
Within a Shared Learning Team (SLT), a temporary partnership of a group of people with different roles and 'identities' (lecturers, students, researchers, work field partners), people work on complex issues in a hybrid learning environment where both the development of all team members and the achievement of the assignment are central. This page further explains what an SLT is and the roles and learning mechanisms that are important within the different systems or contexts of both education and working practice.

Our society is changing rapidly, perhaps faster than ever. Globalisation is leading to greater cultural diversity, among other things, and with the development of new technologies, inequality is also at risk of increasing (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012). The complexity of social issues we face is also increasing. This calls for new, or more innovative forms of partnerships between study programmes of Fontys ICT and its environment (Zitter & Hoeve, 2012). Fontys ICT's learning environments are rapidly evolving: structural collaborations with the work field are increasing and are increasingly taking place in hybrid learning environments. The philosophy of the hybrid learning environment assumes that there is a rich world between professional learning in the workplace and learning in the school context (Cremers, Wals, Wesselink & Mulder, 2016).

Teams have become the centrepiece of contemporary organisations because of their flexibility and capacity to make high-quality decisions and solve complex problems (e.g., Cooke, Salas, Kiekel, & Bell, 2004; Salas, Rosen, Burke, & Goodwin, 2009). Teams are increasingly composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds and unique knowledge and expertise. This is also the case within Fontys ICT's hybrid learning environments. A Shared Learning Team (SLT) is a group of people within a hybrid learning environment, working on a wicked problem, and in which the learning and development of the team members plays a major role. Members in a Shared Learning Team are expected to be self-regulated: it is the extent to which a member is actively involved in their own learning in terms of meta-cognition, motivation and behaviour.

A Shared Learning Team (SLT) is a group of people - lecturers, researchers, students and field partners - working together temporarily on a complex issue, where the development of all team members is as important as achieving the assignment.

Members in a Shared Learning Team are expected to be self-regulated: it is the extent to which a member is actively involved in their own learning in terms of meta-cognition, motivation and behaviour. The main ground rules in an SLT are:

• Everyone learns;
• Everyone looks for the solution to the complex issue;
• Everyone is an expert;
• Everyone is equal;
• Everyone contributes to the end result to be achieved.

In SLTs, an authentic hybrid learning environment is created in which not only an innovative product is developed, but also the professional development of all participants is essential. The goal is that SL teams can effectively solve wicked problems and thereby create an innovation. The returns of an SLT are knowledge, development and innovation. Translated into concrete returns, this means that team members really want to innovate, come up with a good product and consciously use the knowledge of other team members. It also means that each team member has a clear vision of how this can be applied in practice. Finally, it means that each team member can demonstrate how they achieved the relevant substantial change. The result of the learning team is a product that has more innovation in it than a product created from a “regular” team. This innovation is measured using the Creative Product Semantic Scale (Besemer, O'Quin,1989).

The research shows that self-regulated learning is important in an SLT. This refers to the extent to which the learner is actively involved in their own learning process in terms of meta-cognition, motivation and behaviour. In an SLT, this is not an individual process, but happens in a team context: everyone is a learner and everyone is an expert. Still, equality in the team is a point of attention: it appears not easy to break through the traditional roles of lecturer, student and work field partner. There are a number of conditions that can be helpful. First, visibility of one's own talents and those of others is the necessary basis for working towards equality in performing the work and learning from each other. Second, to ensure that every team member - student, lecturer and work field partner - has the opportunity to learn, it is important to work with an assignment that is challenging and offers learning opportunities for everyone. Clear agreements and rules are also important. Moreover, initial exploration points to the need for a physical space to actually meet and work together. Physical meeting contributes to mutual trust.

In an SLT, different systems or contexts come together: education and work practice. However, gathering good people with different fields of expertise does not automatically lead to better team performance. To truly learn from each other as team members, it is important that team members step out of their own system and way of working, try to transcend boundaries of both systems and combine their expertise into an integrated team result. This is also known as boundary crossing. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) distinguish four learning mechanisms in such situations:

• Identification (the extent to which team members know themselves and others);
• Coordination (concerns mechanisms to make cooperation as efficient and effective as possible);
• Reflection (reflecting on and learning from different perspectives);
• Transformation (letting go of own ways of working and finding a common, new way of working).

The following roles are distinguished within an SLT:

Everyone is a team member. Individual team members have their own set of tasks appropriate to their field, talents or expertise. These tasks are distributed among team members by the team as a whole and can also change during the project (teamcrafting).

The following is expected from each team member:

• Performing individual tasks;
• Giving input, especially from fields of expertise or perspective;
• Make an active contribution to the final product to be delivered;
• Setting your own development goals and understanding your own growth;
• Make active contributions to the learning curve of the team as a whole.

In addition, two process roles are distinguished, namely:

The main task of the process facilitator is to encourage team building in order to achieve a more productive and solid team. The process facilitator encourages each team member to contribute and interact, enabling the team to reach joint decisions. A definition of a facilitator is: “A person who is acceptable to all group members, substantively neutral, and has no decision-making authority, who helps a group improve the way it identifies and solves problems and makes decisions” (adapted from Roger M. Schwarz).*

The process facilitator focuses on the process of team building and team participation and has at his/her disposal a number of interventions that help build trust and commitment to the process from all team members.

The project facilitator focuses on the content of the project and makes decisions on which topics to discuss, on tasks, agenda items, goals and planning. “One who contributes structure and process to interactions, so groups are able to function effectively and make high-quality decisions. A helper and enabler whose goal is to support others as they achieve exceptional performance” (Ingrid Bens).*

In schedule (Table 1), this looks as follows:

Table 1
Tasks associated with the roles Process Facilitator and Project Facilitator.

Finally, substantive roles can be distinguished. Each team member chooses one of the substantive roles they want to fulfil in the team, matching talents and/or the learning objectives they have set for the project. The substantive roles that can be fulfilled in a Shared Learning Team depend on the content of the project, but also on the method of working chosen by the team.

Previous research (2019)* has shown that the process facilitator and project facilitator play an essential role in achieving the goals as set in an SLT. After all, they guide the team's (learning) process and keep track of the goals to be achieved and the planning. These roles therefore need to be performed well, which is why both the process and project facilitator can call on the so-called Fly on the wall during the project. The Fly on the wall is an external expert who, in the role of expert, guides the process and project facilitator in the background during the process a SLT has to go through. The Fly on the wall has the knowledge and experience to supervise the group process in particular and the associated group dynamics, and to guide/coach the process and project facilitator in applying conversation techniques that can set that process in motion. The Fly on the wall pays attention to team development and the individual behaviour of the team members and to the team culture.

The Fly on the wall is not part of the team and does not participate in team meetings. However, the Fly on the wall does have an observing role and can be present in that capacity (in the background) during meetings. Guidance/coaching from the process and project facilitator takes place one-to-one and outside the meetings.

To start a Shared Learning Team, a number of preconditions must be met. The most important are:

• There is a complex assignment (wicked problem) that the team will work on. The complexity of the assignment provides space for each team member to work on their own development points and to learn from and with the other team members.
• Every team member knows the principles of a Shared Learning Team.
• Every team member commits to the principles of a Shared Learning Team.
• Each team member has a minimum availability of 1 day per week.
• Every Shared Learning Team has the kickstart as its beginning.
• The kickstart is a mandatory part, in which every team member participates.
• Each Shared Learning Team has a process facilitator and a project facilitator.
• In each Shared Learning Team, the process facilitator and project facilitator are guided by a Fly on the wall.

These preconditions are listed in the following checklist (see Table 2):

Tabel 2
Checklist of preconditions to be met when starting a Shared Learning Team.

• Pellegrino, J.W. & M.L. Hilton (eds.) (2012). Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the Twenty-First Century, National Academies Press, Washington, DC.
• Zitter, I. & A. Hoeve (2012). Hybrid learning environments: acquiring learning and work processes. 's-Hertogenbosch: Expertise Centre for Vocational Education. Consulted on WikiWijs: https://maken.wikiwijs.nl/bestanden/958865/2013-02-Hybride-leeromgevingen-het-verweven-van-leer-en-werkprocessen-2.pdf
• Cremers, P.H.M., Wals, A.E.J., Wesselink, R. et al. (2016). Design principles for hybrid learning configurations at the interface between school and workplace. Learning Environ Res (19), 309-334. doi:10.1007/s10984-016-9209-6.
• Cooke, N., Salas, E., Kiekel, P. & Bell, B. (2004). Advances in measuring team cognition. In E. Salas & S. M. Fiore (Eds.), Team cognition: Understanding the factors that drive process and performance (pp. 83-106). American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/10690-005.
• Salas, E., Rosen, M., Burke, C. S., Goodwin, (Eds.) (2009). Team effectiveness in complex organisations. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
• O'Quin, K. & Besemer, S. (1989) The development, reliability, and validity of the revised creative product semantic scale. Creativity Research Journal, 2(4), 267-278. doi: 10.1080/10400418909534323. This article was published online on 2 November 2009.
• Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of educational research, 81(2), 132-169. doi: 10.3102/0034654311404435.

* Further source references will be added for these references

For more info or to start a Shared Learning Team, please contact:
Constanze Thomassen c.thomassen@fontys.nl.