This presentation is dedicated to helping educators understand the challenges they face when assigning teamwork in online courses and improve the faculty member’s knowledge about the factors that will influence students’ attitude and explore some methods and technologies educators can use to design effective team activities in online courses.

For those who taught online courses before, you may encounter the same problem as many other educators did: students refused to complete assignments as a team or did not want to put their efforts towards team assignments/activities. Every instructor can give a long list of reasons why students don’t like teamwork. For those who teach asynchronous online class, the list of reasons grows even longer because it is more difficult for students to collaborate due to the nature of online courses. On the one hand, students like the freedom to work on their own schedule in the online class and appreciate the independent settings of online assignments. However, on the other hand, students lost the opportunity to develop interpersonal skills. The ability to work in a team and the ability to collaborate, share knowledge and contribute to teams have become the most important skills that everyone needs to succeed at work. In a survey conducted by LinkedIn, teamwork skill is ranked as the third most in-demand skill by 291 hiring managers (Berger, 2016). In addition, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) also defines teamwork as an essential career competence that is a key to ensuring successful entrance into the workforce. With most recent pandemic, more and more organizations shift their once forever in-person jobs into fully or partially virtue format. Therefore, the ability to be able to work in a virtue team became more appealing to the organizational recruiters. This trend indicates how important higher education should adapt their practice to the shifting needs of the future. While workplaces heavily rely on teamwork and teams are commonly utilized in college classes, the development of teamwork competencies and skills is often overlooked (Chen et al., 2007). Many students enter college with prior group work experience, but very few have received explicit instruction on effective collaboration. Some evidence suggests that students do not feel adequately prepared for the collaborative work demanded by their future careers (Landrum et al., 2010). Although educators realized that collaborative learning (i.e. group learning) increase students understand of the course materials, help them to store and retrieve message by sharing, observing, and imitating others in the class through social interaction (Wilson, Goodman, and Cronin, 2007), they still struggle to push students to out of their comfort zoom and put them beyond the limits of what they can already do by themselves. Due to difficulties in implementing an online team project in the online course and resistance from some students, many faculty members are reluctant to utilize group work in their courses. Indeed, a recent study from the National Survey of Student Engagement reveals that approximately 47% of students reported never or only occasionally experiencing collaborative learning in their courses (NSSE, 2023). Researchers have suggested that isolation and lack of connection contribute to the higher attrition rates in online courses (Bowers & Kumar, 2015), so engaging students in collaborative work may be a part of improving online student retention. While many researchers and educators studied the reasons why students don’t like teamwork and tried to identify ways to engage students in the online course and motivate them to join group work, others also proposed that educators need to consider another issue that they did not consider enough before, how teamwork is designed in the first place (Bart, 2020). Scholars have consistently found that teams succeed when team members are task focused and relationship focused which ultimately depends upon how team design features are deliberately considered (Courtright, et al., 2015). One of the important team design features is team interdependence. Courtright et al. (2015) summarizes the studies in structural interdependence and classified different views of structural interdependence into two categories: task interdependence and outcome interdependence. Task interdependence refers to “the degree to which taskwork is designed so that members depend upon one another for access to critical resources and create workflows that require coordination action” (Courtright et al, 2015, p. 4). Task interdependence can further be divided into process (or means) interdependence, such as pooled interdependence, sequential and reciprocal task interdependence; and resource (or input) interdependence, sch as skills, data, materials, and information team members depend upon one another. Outcome interdependence includes goal interdependence which refers to if common performance expectations exist in the group or not and reward/feedback interdependence which refers to how rewards and feedback are allocated at the group level or individual level (Courtright et al, 2015). There are three ways outcome interdependence can be decided: reward individual performance only, reward group performance only, and hybrid reward that consider both group performance and individual performance. Therefore, the purpose of this session is to exam a few different formats of the online teamwork design based on the integrative model of team interdependence (task interdependence and outcome interdependence) developed by (Courtright et al., 2015) and discuss how this model can be applied to design teamwork in the asynchronous online classes. This session will follow a structured 15-minute lightning presentation format. The presenter will: • Introduce the integrative model of team interdependence. • Share initial insights into online teamwork design, including factors relevant to task interdependence and ways to design team activities in online courses based on task and outcome interdependence. They will also explore various tools applicable to online team activities. • Report on research findings from a two-year study concerning students' attitudes toward different types of online team activities and the effectiveness of these activities. Throughout the presentation, the presenter will utilize virtual polls to gather audience feedback. This session aims to gain a better understanding of the challenges of teamwork in online courses and determine how to design effective team assignments. It will improve the faculty member’s knowledge about the factors that will influence students’ attitude about the online team assignment and explore some ways educators can use to design effective team activities in online courses. References Berger, G. (2016). Data Reveals the Most In-Demand Soft Skills Among Candidates. LinkedIn. Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-strategy/most-indemand-soft-skills Bowers, J. & Kumar, P. (2015). Students' Perceptions of Teaching and Social Presence: A Comparative Analysis of Face-to-Face and Online Learning Environments. International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies (IJWLTT), 10(1), 27-44. http://doi.org/10.4018/ijwltt.2015010103 Chen, G., Kirkman, K. L., Kanfer, R., Allen, D., & Rosen, B. (2007). A multilevel study of leadership, empowerment, and performance in teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(2), 331–346. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0021-9010.92.2.331 Courtright, S. H., Thurgood, G. R., Stewart, G. L., & Pierotti, A. J. (2015, May 4). Structural Interdependence in Teams: An Integrative Framework and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000027 Landrum, R. & Hettich, P. & Wilner, A. (2010). Alumni Perceptions of Workforce Readiness. Teaching of Psychology - TEACH PSYCHOL. 37. 97-106. 10.1080/00986281003626912. NACE. (2019). MEASURING COMPETENCY PROFICIENCY: THE CAREER READINESS PILOT PROJECT. Retrieved from: https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/trends-and-predictions/measuring-competency-proficiency-the-career-readiness-pilot-project/ NESS 2023 Student Survey Report. (2023). NESS. Retrieved from: https://tableau.bi.iu.edu/t/prd/views/NSSE23CoreSummaryTables/EngagementActivitiesQ1-3?%3Aembed=y&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&_gl=1*1clyond*_ga*MTU3OTY2OTc3OC4xNzExMzgzMjk3*_ga_61CH0D2DQW*MTcxMTM4MzI5Ni4xLjEuMTcxMTM4MzMzOS4xNy4wLjA. Wilson, J. M., Goodman, P. S., & Cronin, M. A. (2007). Group learning. The Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1041–1059. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.26585724