Abstract:

Developing team-working skills is a widespread activity among University students that is usually promoted in the European Higher Education Area. Teamwork should be carefully designed in order to achieve the best students’ outcomes but there are different opinions and preferences about the composition of the team among the professors.

The subject “Algebra and Discrete Mathematics” in the Faculty of Computer Science Engineering (University of Castilla-La Mancha) includes among its activities a “guided work” that students must develop in groups. This work accounts for 30% of the final mark. The main objectives of the work are to learn and practice contents included in the subject and to develop and enhance team-working skills. When the students are interviewed about the functioning of the groups, some of them indicate that there are problems in the group and, occasionally, the group is a complete mess.

Belbin team role model is a well-known theory that sets out nine team roles that should be performed by the members of the team. Each of the roles can be performed by a team member and the same person can fulfil more than one role. These roles are: resource investigator, teamtworker, co-ordinator, plant, monitor evaluator, specialist, shaper, implementer and completer finisher. This model is recommended by different specialists and has been implemented in different levels of education.

For the present academic year, the professors of the cited subject decided to implement Belbin’s model in the “guided work” in order to improve the functioning of the working groups. The aim of this contribution is to show the planning of the activity and the results of the experience.