Team Communication Strategies 3

You may wonder, why do we assign collaboration and teamwork?

The answer, frankly, has to do with learning to manage conflict.  There are two types of conflict:  productive and unproductive.  When students engage in productive conflict, they share perspectives, debate ideas and engage in high degree of discussion.  However, when there is unproductive conflict on a team, students get caught up in personal and emotional tensions that derail collaboration. 

In the following module, you will read two scenarios about a student team that grapples with the challenges of collaboration.  Then, you will learn and practice an important strategy that will help you plan for successful collaboration and engage in productive debates and discussions.