Thoughts of Online Team Math?

Formulate ideas about working in an online team environment.





what may be some challenges that you may encounter with online team assignments?





What would assist with the success of an online math team?





What factors are important to consider when working with an online team?

Thoughts of Online Team Math?
I'll give you some basic thoughts.


It depends on how independently the members work,


and how closely interactive the team assignment is,


how much they need to communicate with each other and what method?





So:


- is the team assignment a set of largely unrelated problems e.g. 12 questions for 4 people =%26gt; assign them by preference or randomly, then have them review each others' work


- are the team members in different countries and time zones? Are they interacting by phone, videoconference, web whiteboard (e.g. GoogleApps), chat, IM or email (the worst method)...? Is the time lag in communicating 1 second or 12 hours (e.g. US-South Asia)? =%26gt; you didn't state this and it has a huge effect. How precise and clear does their communication need to be?





%26gt;what may be some challenges that you may encounter with online team assignments?





- Communicating the task clearly and getting the solution back, coordinating multiple tasks if there are dependencies; (jointly) reviewing the completed tasks, deciding to whom and how to allocate the tasks, based on a (group? leader?) decision about who can best handle what.





%26gt;What would assist with the success of an online math team?


%26gt;What factors are important to consider when working with an online team?





Well if there is not much interaction, dependency or communication needed, then the ideal would be a team of smart people who can work well on their own or in pairs and don't need to be able to communicate so well.


If there IS a lot of interaction, dependency or communication,


then that becomes at least as important as ability. (It also eats up time, and it influences how critically you the break the task down into manageable packages, such that each can be completed on time).


Also team dynamics like group decision-making, whether to appoint a leader or decide by consensus, egos, personality interactions etc. get involved. If you have even one nutcase or tyrant they can shred the productivity of the team. By the way, communicating too *much* is also bad.

teeth grills