Bridging the gap between industry and higher education: Training academicsto promote student teamwork

The need for graduates who are prepared for employment and skilled in teamw ork has been widely advocated over the last decade, in Britain and across t he world. This paper outlines a rationale for the development of groupwork in higher education and describes a BP (British Petroleum)-sponsored progra mme and its impact in 10 institutions across England and Scotland. The majo r aims have been to provide academics with professional development in teac hing such skills, and to deliver courses to students to give them an idea o f the potential and the difficulties of teamwork. A series of (mostly) outd oor problem-solving activities is used, with a specific focus on understand ing the benefits of working with others, reflecting upon how each task has been performed, and learning about the theoretical principles of teamwork a nd team review.(1) A case-study of a programme run in a department of Law i s briefly outlined. Summaries of progress in other universities highlight p roblems of institutional change. Although discussion is set within the cont ext of the BP-funded programme, the issues are far wider than this one init iative. For example, the benefits of strategic teamwork for students, the e xplicit training of both students and staff in teamwork skills the strength ening of professional development in teaching skills, effective partnership with external bodies and the difficulties of institutional change are all issues that are worthy of attention throughout higher education.