Increasing Students’ Felt Need for Teamwork: An Experiential Learning Exercise that Sets the Stage

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes an innovative learning exercise used in three management classes and inspired by the popular group experience-based game of “escape rooms.” Within one 75-minute period, the exercise engaged students and increased their awareness of and motivation for effective teamwork. Our qualitative analysis of the reflection reports students individually wrote immediately after the lesson, shows that the exercise was successful in increasing their knowledge of effective teamwork, creating the felt need for proactively planning their team process, creating the desire to develop more of their own teamwork skills, and arriving at the undeniable realization that working as a team is better than working individually on complex tasks.  This exercise adds to the instructor interventions needed in college classes when professors assign term-long team projects with the goal of helping students develop their teamwork skills and be better prepared for the workplace.