The Online Student

I have the blessing of not having to go to a physical campus for my program. All of my classes and coursework are completely online. And while to some this may seem like the easier road, all evidence to this point has pointed to the contrary.

There is more work involved on the part of the student. More responsibility lands on the shoulders of the student to stay current with readings, assignments, posting responses, and communicating with fellow classmates. In many ways, an online program is harder because you lose that face-to-face interaction with your instructor and other classmates. Still, I think I can make that up with organization, motivation, and time-management. All three of these qualities are ones that are agreed to be absolutely necessary for a program like the one I am now embarking on.

I have the technology aspect down. I grew up using various computers. My dad had one of the old systems that was basically a black monitor with gold font (yay DOS!). I also had my own computer in the 4th grade that ran on Windows 3.11 (now that's a blast from the past), so I've followed the PC as it has evolved through the past couple of decades. I also created and continue to maintain the library website used by the campus I work at. Learning new interfaces and computer programs for my coursework has been virtually pain-free.

But the teamwork aspect of this program may be the one thing that will upset this grasp on confidence that I've been slowly building. The picture paired with this post has been my idea of teamwork for a good long while: something that will ultimately drag you down, so should therefore be avoided at all costs. Viewing two videos, one a presentation given by Dr. Ken Haycock and the other a presentation by Enid Irwin, has started turning my views more to the positive. However I still see so much that can go wrong.

Dr. Haycock discussed a lot of factors that affect, improve, and detract from teamwork. He talked about the type of teams that form and for what reasons. One of the terms he used, vertical teams, caught my attention. He explained these as being more successful in libraries because it brings very different perspectives to a problem and would involve different levels of an organization working on a common issue. To that effect, I would argue that any teams I form during my MLIS program would be vertical teams by virtue of the fact that I have seen in merely the first week the variety of students and backgrounds that this program attracts. In my current class alone, there is a student who just graduated with her BA, a student who has done work in the Amazon, a student who has been working in network security, and everything in between. My classmates live all over the nation. Some are parents (both of human children and furry ones!). Many have full-time jobs that they will have to balance with school. I'm guessing that my other classes will have students that are just as varied. With so many diverse backgrounds and so many varied experiences that we are all drawing from, our teams could not be anything but the vertical teams that Dr. Haycock describes.

But successful teamwork cannot be defined only by the type of team that has formed. A successful team has followed through in its plan and completed its objective. After listening to Dr. Haycock's and Ms. Irwin's input on teamwork, I put together 10 rules for good teamwork.
1. Issues discussed should stay on topic. This will help the team move forward without a lot of digressions.
2. Whatever you say to one person, you should be prepared to say to the whole group. Sidebars keep information from the group as a whole, and your teammate is not the person to discuss your personal dislike of another classmate in the team.
3. If the assignment is not clear, get clarification from the instructor.
4. Clearly state your performance expectations for the assignment. That way no one is left in the dark about any one thing.
5. Make a plan for the assignment that clearly establishes tasks and the deadlines for them.
6. Agree on some ground rules that everyone will follow. These can address things like tardiness, lack of follow-through, etc and can outline consequences for not following them.
7. Take responsibility for your actions, and respect your teammates.
8. Check in several times during the assignment as a group to review your progress so far and your goals.
9. Follow through with your assigned tasks/role until the assignment/course is complete.
10. Group health is everyone's responsibility. If something is amiss, it's everyone's duty to address it and come up with a solution.

With all of that (and more) to mull over, I will end this post. This week's recipe will be posted on Monday.

**Picture was originally found on the Very Demotivational website.**