For everyone who has struggled with team building exercises and writing course syllabuses, I thought you might enjoy this syllabus (in the approved format of course) for a much anticipated (ha!) faculty team-building exercise that I’m leading this week.
Enjoy!
COURSE TITLE
Camaraderie through adversary: The art of building functional teams.
PRE-REQUISITES
A thick skin and a willingness to make a fool of oneself. A sense of humor is also helpful.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Having fun with others – whether you like it or not.
READING MATERIALS:
- A Survival Guide for Working with Humans: Dealing with Whiners, Back-Stabbers, Know-It-Alls, and Other Difficult People by Gini Graham Scott (AMACOM, 2004)
- How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie (Pocket Books, 1990)
- The complete idiots guide to idiots by M. Anne Thrope (Random Publications, 1998)
COURSE EVALUATION
- Participation: 50%
- Not being done for GBH: 25%
- Being the last person standing: 25%
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this course are:
- To group-experience a series of cruel and unusual tasks
- To demonstrate why if you want a job done properly – you do it yourself
- To explore the aphorism “if you want a friend – get a dog!”
- To entertain the instructor – who will not be participating in the tasks
- To finish as fast as possible and head for the bar.
COURSE OUTCOMES
After taking this course, students will be able to:
- Think critically (mainly about other team members)
- Problem solve (in their head at least – problem solving in practice is not anticipated)
- Express themselves verbally – and possibly through hand signals as well.
- Work within a dysfunctional team to complete a meaningless task – sometimes.
MAJOR COURSE TOPICS
- Milling around with bits of paper
- Playing with a stick
- Re-purposing random stuff from a sack
- Being shackled to colleagues
- Group hug (NO – there are some limits!)
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Do you have instructions on the team shackle activity? It sounds interesting.
Thank you.