Careers these days are searching for people who have teamwork experience and skills. Classes such as Virtual Enterprise International, choir, video productions, drama and others generate the skills needed to work in groups. In these classes teachers use different techniques that are then applied by the students to create more of a student based learning environment.

“To prepare students for working together I ask them to choose a leader and think about why they choose that leader,” Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD) teacher Andrew Cocagne said. “I also ask them to divide the roles so they aren’t doing the same things, they have to have specialists to do different parts of the job, so that people are responsible for different parts of the job. Some complications we have are, some people don’t care and other people care a lot and trying to figure out how to balance that.”

Group work can help make work more efficient. If everyone contributes and does what they’re supposed to do, the work often is done faster which results in getting more progress.

“One most efficient way we work together in drama is when we do rehearsals,” senior Donnie Hall. “We have to learn our lines together and have everything in line to make everything according to how Mrs. Thompson would want it to go. As a team there we have to really work well with each other because if we don’t have that chemistry then, it just falls apart. Something really fun is whenever we all learns our lines and have everything down, everything that we do becomes a joke. Since we all know our stuff we can joke around with it and we start having more fun and that’s probably the best thing.”

When working in a team-like situation students may not know each other very well. Working together often forces students to get out of their comfort zone and builds relationships.

“When we start the class in the beginning of the year the kids are told, ‘you’re going to be working with people you haven’t worked with before,’” Video Production teacher Rich Ashley said. “One of the things I like to tell kids is, ‘when you form groups, don’t just get with your friends.’ Some things that work really well are seeing the dynamics of people who come together, and sometimes it’s just fun. Their video might not look the greatest, but you know they had a blast together and you see the friendships develop from that. There are times I’ve seen some really amazing videos produced because you get these different styles that come together to see the way they envision it and work together.”

Some other possible benefits to help maximize group work are, to have clear objectives and goals, be prepared, ensure participation, and to stay focused.

“To work as a team we have four different departments [in VEI],” senior Blake Wheaton said. “The four departments work to complete projects such as, the business plan and different sections of the business plan, different things are done by different people. We sometimes run into communication issues because, not everybody talks to each other and occasionally there is a motivation issue. Compartmentalizing is a really big thing because, not all classrooms do that, everyone does the same exact thing, and when you have different people doing different things you can get more work done.”

Classrooms use teamwork but that’s not all, other things such as sports, volunteering and many jobs require teamwork. Not only do these classes give you the ability to work together but also the ability to bring these skills into to the real world.