W11 Co-Op Work Term Requirement
REFLECTING ON TEAMWORK IN THE WORKPLACE
The co-op work term experience provides you with an opportunity to apply classroom
learning in the workplace, to discover expectations of employers, and to further develop
interpersonal skills. The accounting and financial management professions have
determined that personal skills such as written and oral communication, analytical skills,
awareness of professional ethics, and leading and participating in groups are equally as
important as technical skills. We want to start developing good reflective practices on
your work term placements.
As we move forward with the implementation of a Learning Model within the School of
Accounting and Finance, one set of outcomes addresses collaborative or teamwork
skills. Skills included in this area include: functioning effectively as a team member,
developing effective working relationships, and accepting constructive feedback.
Since you started your program, these outcomes have been both central in a given
course and secondary in other courses. These are the themes that will be interwoven
into these two work term reflections, submitted during this work term; helping you
demonstrate your progress in developing teamwork skills.
In the fall term of 2009, you benchmarked your teamwork skills through the completion
of three reflections. In the course of completing these reflections you received reenforcing feedback, and you were asked to identify areas for personal improvement.
During this co-op work term, you are expected to critically reflect upon teamwork skills in
the workplace, building on your past experiences and integrating work term experiences
with what has happened in the classroom. The team experiences should include both
formal teams that you are part of and informal teams you may end up working in (most
often the team will consist of you and your immediate supervisor).
The first submission is a “work in progress” due Monday, February 28, 2011 and
should be approximately 2 pages, single spaced. The final submission, due Tuesday
May 10, 2011, should incorporate feedback from the “work in progress” reflection and
should be 5 pages in length, single spaced.
Take the time to properly lay-out and organize your reflections. Make sure to review
them thoroughly to minimize grammatical and sentence structure errors so that the
reviewers are focused on what you are saying. Significant errors of this type will
result in a requirement to re-submit.
About Feedback…You will receive timely feedback on both reflections. The feedback
on your mid-term reflection is formative in nature. This feedback will affirm the value of
your opinions and provide a different perspective to your experiences. The feedback on
your final reflection will be both formative and summative. Like your mid-term feedback,
your reviewer will again provide you with their perspective on what you wrote. In
addition, this reflection has a summative component, as you will be awarded an
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evaluation. An evaluation above re-submit or unsatisfactory will be required for you to
receive credit for this work term.
REFLECTION # 1
Due:
Length:
MID-TERM “WORK IN PROGRESS”
February 28, 2011
2 pages (single spaced)
Submit through your ePortfolio
This first reflection will require you to look back at your team experiences to date during
the AFM program and connect them to your workplace team experiences. You should
incorporate in your critical review, your thoughts from the final reflection in AFM 131,
including those team work skills you wanted to work on.
How to Proceed
Please deal with all the specific questions and requirements outlined in the points below.
1.
Background
Begin by describing your workplace, to provide a context for your reflection.
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2.
Type your name and UWID at the top of the first page.
Describe the team you are working with. The team may be a formal team, or it
could be the group you have worked with, either regularly or periodically, over the
first half of the work term.
Also, describe what you have been doing on this work term to date.
Keep this section brief; limit yourself to three to five sentences.
Stages of Team Development
Look back on your notes from AFM 131, that talk about the stages of team development
– forming, storming, norming, performing, transforming/adjourning.
Reflect on the stages you have gone through to date with one or more of your teams
(the focus should be on the earlier stages)
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3.
Describe specific events that have happened in the stages you have experienced
to date.
Compare the time spent in a given stage with the time spent in the same stage
during a course.
Functioning Effectively as a Team Member
Reflect on the following issues to assess your effectiveness.
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4.
Describe the individual differences between team members.
Site specific examples of how you have made a commitment to your team.
How have any biases come into play in terms of team effectiveness?
Provide specific examples of how all team members have or have not
participated
How have you been a good listener?
Developing Effective Working Relationships
Reflect back on your experiences over the past 8 weeks.
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5.
Describe any workplace incidents that have been a learning experience for you.
What did you learn? How will your actions be impacted in the future?
What insights have you had regarding teamwork in the workplace.
Your Personal Teamwork Question
Finally, to increase the relevance of reflecting on teamwork,
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6.
Create your own reflection question on teamwork. This question will be
answered as part of your Final Submission.
Employer Feedback
Employer feedback on your teamwork skills will better inform your reflection. Therefore,
include any employer feedback. (While your employer is not required to provide you
with feedback at this time, you are encouraged to ask for some commentary on your
performance so far.)
If need be, advise the employer that they could choose to use the evaluation form
supplied by Co-op, which can be accessed at
http://www.cecs.uwaterloo.ca/pdfs/evaluation-form.pdf
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How does this feedback relate to your earlier comments on functioning effectively
as a team member and developing effective working relationships?
7. For the Balance of the Work Term
Finally, having had the experience of reflecting on your teamwork skills, once again,
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How are you going to use your discussion of your current co-op experiences to
inform your self-awareness?
What areas of your teamwork skills do you want to work on (support this
discussion by providing specific instances of where something could have been
handled better)?
Provide specific plans on how you plan to work on these areas (you will be
expected to report on your progress in your final reflection).
In discussing your plans apply the SMART approach – specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic, and target date for completion.
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8. What to Add to Your ePortfolio
You should ensure that the following items are added to your ePortfolio:
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Any feedback that you have received from your employer.
This reflection.
The feedback you receive on this reflection.
REFLECTION # 2
Due:
Length:
FINAL SUBMISSION
May 10, 2011
5 pages (single spaced)
Submit through your ePortfolio
The final reflection will build upon your midterm reflection and focus on the second half
of your work term. The quality will be enhanced if you refer explicitly to your
midterm reflection and feedback, and the final evaluation you received from your
employer.
How to Proceed
Please deal with all the specific questions and requirements outlined in the points below.
1.
Background
Like you did for the first reflection, begin by describing your workplace, in order to
provide a context for your reflection.
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

Type your name and UW ID at the top of the first page.
Describe the team you are working with. The team may be a formal team, or it
could be the group you have worked with, either regularly or periodically, over the
first half of the work term.
Also describe what you have been doing in the last half of this work term.
Keep this section brief; limit yourself to three to five sentences.
2. Stages of Team Development
Reflect on the stages you have gone through since the midterm reflection with one or
more of your teams.
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Describe specific events that have happened in the stages you have experienced
since the mid-term reflection (the focus should be on the later stages).
How has the time spent on the individual stages, since the midterm reflection,
compare with the time spent prior to the midterm reflection?
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3. Functioning Effectively as a Team Member
Refer back to your discussion on functioning effectively as a team member.
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Since the midterm reflection how have you improved your effectiveness as a
team member? The areas where improvement could occur are: leveraging
individual differences between team members, your commitment, dealing with
your biases, getting all team members to participate, and listening skills. Use
specific examples to support your points.
4. Developing Effective Working Relationships
Refer back to your discussion on working relationships from your mid-term reflection.
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Discuss a situation that either demonstrated or questioned a working
relationship. If you questioned the relationship, what would you do differently
now, if you were faced with a similar situation?
5. Your Personal Teamwork Question
You were asked to create your own question on teamwork as part of your initial
submission.
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What is your response to this question?
6. Accepting Constructive Feedback
You may have received feedback throughout this work term, and now have received
formal feedback through the Co-op Evaluation form.
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7.
What did you think about the feedback you received on the Interpersonal
Behaviour component of the evaluation?
How did this feedback compare to your own assessment of your teamwork skills,
both from your reflections in AFM 131, along with any teamwork experiences
since then?
Describe how this information might explain your interactions with and reactions
to individuals in the workplace.
Piece of Advice
Learning happens not only by looking forward but by reflecting on the past.
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8.
Thinking back on this work term, what one piece of advice would you give to 2A
students on how to develop their teamwork skills over their first work term?
Re-visiting Your Individual Skills Worksheet / Valuable Learning Experience
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Referring to the Individual Skills Worksheet (attached), re evaluate yourself and
respond to the requirement you see highlighted in red.
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9.
Explain what you have found to be the most valuable learning experience in
terms of teamwork in your program to date. This could be a particular course, a
particular lecture, a particular incident that happened during your academic terms
or during your work term.
How have you used that experience to date?
How will you use it in the future?
Improving on Your Teamwork Skills
First look back on the balance of this work term. Then going forward, identify what you
can do to improve your teamwork skills.
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Refer back to your plans from the mid-term reflection and comment on the
progress you have made.
How will the feedback you received from your employer and from the mid-point
reflection impact your future plans?
Going forward, what areas of your teamwork skills do you want to improve on,
and what are your specific plans for improvement? (again, apply the SMART
approach)
10. What to Add to Your ePortfolio
You should ensure that the following items are added to your ePortfolio.
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The formal feedback you received from your employer.
This reflection.
The feedback you receive on this reflection.
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INDIVIDUAL SKILLS WORKSHEET
Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each of the
following statements about your team related skills. Rate the items using the
following scale:
1 = Strongly Disagree
4 = Strongly Agree
Highlight areas of growth in the past year and a half. How do you
know that you am improving in the indicated area?
I need to improve my…
Listening skills
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2
3
4
Skills to evaluate the performance of
other team members
Skills to provide constructive feedback
to team members
Skills to receive feedback from team
members
Coaching skills
Negotiating skills
Skills to communicate with other team
members
Skills to manage a team project
Skills to be a team leader
Skills to adapt to differences in team
members’ work styles
Skills to adapt to different cultural
norms of team members
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