Integrating mobile orienteering to team forming activity

in a software engineering course

Heli Väätäjä, Aino AhtinenTampere University of Technology

Pervasive Computing13.9.2016

Motivation

• Skills for SW engineering students to master when entering worklife:– Building and maintaining a well-functioning team in

software development – functioning as a cross-functional team throughout a

software development project

• Prior research suggests as most important – Communication and coordination skills– Team work skills

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Our goal

• How could we support the team forming in its initial phases within weekly exercises so that it includes team building activities combined with physical activity at the campus area?

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Our goal

• to support forming functioning teams • initiate their agreement related to the

practicalities for their group work activities• To try out and utilize physically active ways of

education in university context

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Our assumptions based on prior research

• walking has a potentially important and mediating role – in increasing creativy– enriching interaction, and – communication in the educational context.

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Context of the case study

• Human-Centered Product Developmentcourse (postgraduate = master’s level)

• Key learning objectives include building skills to work in a cross-functional team– the capability to function in such a team,

contribute to the work of the team, and – to be able to analyse the functioning of such a

team

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Goal of the exercise activity

• We aimed – to support forming functioning teams – initiate their agreement related to the

practicalities for their group work activities

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Implementation of orienteering (technologyplatform): Action Track

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Implementation of tasks for group forming - 1

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Implementation of tasks for group forming - 2

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Implementation of tasks for groupforming – 3 (team building task)

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Implementation of tasks for group forming - 4

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• Agree on collaboration and work tools

Implementation of tasks for group forming - 5

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• Agree on managing and distributing work

Implementation of tasks for group forming - 6

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• Agree on member contributions

RESULTS

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”Reflect on the activity”Reflection on the exercise as a group: Include everyone in the group into discussion.• What are your thoughts, ideas and/or feelings on the

group forming activity and exercise?• How did the activity support starting to build the ways of

working for the team?• What did you learn during the activity?• What are your thought, ideas, and/or feelings o the

mobile application (ActionTrack) and its fit to group formation activity?

• Ideas for improving the activity or other feedback on the exercise, application or its use?

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Fun, informal and different

fun good interesting exciting

new positive different cool

interactive informal

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Break the ice and get to know each other

Get to know team members’ names and

backgrounds

Revealed the group members expectations

on the group work

First experience of working as a team and how each of the team members work and

contribute in a group

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Support for agreeing the ways of working• Questions worked as reminders of the

important things to consider.

“[…] we decided how we will communicate and collaborate in assignment works and how to divide activities.”

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Learnings from the activity mentioned by groups

The timed tasks gave a time constraint and

emphasized the importance of timing of working and decision

making.

a good group needs both communication and cooperation skills

The importance of every group member

contributing to the work

Learning to work as a group towards a goal

Every member contributes with their

strengthsLearning to share

expertise

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General feedback fromstudents

“It was a great activity at the first time of group making and we really enjoyed it. Everything worked well and we hope there were more funny tasks in the activity.”

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Thanks!

heli.vaataja@tut.fi

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