Reflection:
Within my biology course, the lab component was rich with experiences to develop teamwork skills while working toward a common goal. The lab met once a week throughout the entire semester with a new lab to complete each week. It did not take long for me and the other 3 people in my group to figure out how to work the most efficiently with each other to get our work done accurately. Some weeks required us to complete more work, so we learned delegating was an important key to completing these assignments. As we returned each week, we had a set idea of what each of us would do to help the group; someone always typed on the computer, someone else always grabbed materials, another recorded data, and the last cleaned as we worked. This way we could all participate in the experiments while working in a time-effective manner. This kept us functioning at high productivity; we were typically one of the first groups to complete our labs without a loss of accuracy. I noticed that there was not a single role that was more important than the others once our “roles” were established. They all worked together to make our teamwork effective.
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One assignment we had was a Genetic Disorder Research project that was presented to the class in small groups. We were each responsible for doing the same research on our respective topics because of a subsequent assignment. However, we had to collaborate on our research to produce one concise presentation. The biggest skill I learned from this project was communication among my group. We had to evenly divide the work on the presentation but still cross-check each other to make sure our research aligned. There seemed to be an organizational leader that emerged to make the work blend together. This role was critical in making the final presentation appear professional. Communication was also important in helping pick up each other’s slack when it came close to the deadline. This team project required a lot of individual work initially, but the entire process of putting it together relied on collaboration. This project and class helped me fulfill Teams Levels one and two because I was able to identify various team roles in this lab setting and put them to use to complete our weekly labs and this project.
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