Teamwork Support: The SWEET Center

WPI students engaging in project work

Supporting WPI through Effective and Equitable Teamwork

Teamwork Support: The SWEET Center is dedicated to Supporting WPI through Effective and Equitable Teamwork. Our goal is to ensure that every WPI student has at least one highly effective and equitable team experience before they graduate, and that they leave with skills and tools to increase their own ability to collaborate effectively in teams throughout their careers.  The Center provides support and consultation for the teamwork that is at the heart of WPI’s project-based curriculum. Individual students, student teams, and faculty and staff can bring questions and problems related to their teamwork to the SWEET Center and can get support and guidance from staff, faculty, and peer facilitators. Faculty can refer student teams for a consultation, or teams and individuals can seek assistance on their own.

CONTACT
Location: Laurie A. Leshin Global Project Center
Phone: 508-831-4944

As part of The Global School at WPI, the Teamwork Support SWEET Center brings together experts on teamwork from across campus and beyond, creating space for partnerships with students, faculty, and staff that support high-quality teamwork experiences for all WPI students.

Through the Teamwork Support SWEET Center, WPI students, faculty, and staff can:

  • Seek resources to propel their teams forward into deeper, more meaningful collaboration
  • Seek individual and team consultation
  • Obtain support for project advising to improve team performance

    Offerings

    Individual and Team Consultations are offered by SWEET fellows who are WPI students, staff, faculty, and alumni with lots of project and teamwork experience, and additional training from WPI experts on effective and equitable teamwork. All Teamwork Support SWEET Center offerings are available for free to WPI undergraduate and graduate students.

    Individual Consultations

    Do you have ideas for how your team can improve your performance, but you’re not sure how to introduce them? Is your team having difficulty collaborating? Would you like to talk about your teamwork experience with someone who has been through their IQP and MQP already? The Teamwork Support SWEET Center hosts drop-in office hours via Zoom or at the Project Center each week for WPI students seeking assistance with their teamwork. Whether you are dealing with a challenging teamwork issue, or are looking to take your teamwork from good to great, we can help! Come to one of our drop-in hours to talk with a SWEET fellow about what’s going on in your team. You may reach out to sweetcenter@wpi.edu to book an appointment.

    Individual consultation weekly drop-in hours for D-term:

    T: 12 - 2 PM

    W: 12 - 2 PM, 4-5 PM

    R: 12 - 1 PM, 2-4 PM

    Zoom link: https://wpi.zoom.us/j/96918179113

    Team Consultations

    Team Consultations are a great way to re-focus the energy of a team. The consultation is facilitated by a SWEET staff member or fellow, and provides a space for teams to talk candidly about the challenges they are facing and set goals for the remainder of their collaboration. Team Consultations typically take a total of ~2 hours. The first hour-long meeting is spent talking initially with the entire team, and then individually with each team member about how the team is functioning. We then meet again within a week to discuss themes that came up in the individual conversations, steps that individuals within the team can take, and we help the team to develop goals and an action plan. The process is developmental in nature, and we seek to have the team create and own the solutions, with our facilitators guiding the process. Students receive a written summary of the consultation that they may opt to share with their faculty. Please reach out to sweetcenter@wpi.edu to make an appointment.

    Performance Coaching

    Student teams that have participated in a Team Consultation and have found it beneficial have the opportunity to continue to work with a SWEET fellow facilitator on a weekly or bi-weekly basis during their project term. Contact sweetcenter@wpi.edu for more information.

    Resources

    Want to learn about some of the resources the SWEET Center recommends to teams for more effective collaboration? Here are some tools that can help guide your group created here at WPI based on research concerning equitable and effective teamwork.

    • Team Processing Sheet: A reflective tool that teams can sit down and work together on to critically examine how the quality of their dynamics. Questions are presented on this sheet to the team to spark discussion and conversation that can help them plan how they wish to proceed as a team in the future. 
    • Team Contract: A document that acts as a set of agreements between team members on how to proceed throughout a project or assignment. It facilitates discussion between a group on how they would like to create work, establish deadlines, communicate, resolve conflicts, make decisions, etc. 
    •  Asset Mapping: A diagram or graphic that allows team members to visualize their skills and compare it with other people in their group. An individual's assets can range from their skills relating to the project, passions, coursework and experiences, other technical skills, personal background, among others. These asset maps can be compared to one another to see where individuals excel and identify areas for improvement. This same approach can be used to make an asset chart, another tool similar to the map that breaks down the needed skills for the relevant work, what assets people have, and what areas they want to grow in. 

     

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