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How do I teach key skills Working with Others?

Students are likely to need your help in developing the underpinning skills and knowledge of Working with Others. You will be able to help them by:

  • identifying the areas they need to work on
  • planning learning activities with them
  • helping them gain knowledge as well as develop skills
  • reflecting on their work with others
  • reviewing their progress and giving feedback
  • looking for assessment opportunities at appropriate times.

It should also be noted that these skills are closely linked and some will, by their very nature, require development alongside each other. It also means that some activities will develop a number of skills at one time. It is important to be aware that the division between the following sections is to some extent for ease of use only.

See the following sections on:

  1. Initial assessment
  2. Learning to reflect
  3. Personal responsibilities and understanding objectives
  4. Clarifying roles and responsibilities
  5. Active listening skills
  6. Feedback skills (PDF 17kb)
  7. Handling conflict
  8. Assertiveness and empathy
  9. Working methods
  10. General points

Initial assessment

Initial assessment may be useful to celebrate skills already attained, as well as those yet to be developed. Don't assume that students already have these skills. Induction is also a useful time to introduce the fact that students will work together, as it may be difficult to introduce this later. At this point the students will need to:

  • understand what Working with Others is about
  • know the level for which they are aiming

Learning to reflect

Learning to reflect is central to working with others. Take time with your students to develop this skill. Reflecting critically on one's own experience involves thinking about how particular skills and knowledge were used and what might have worked better. You should encourage your learners to ask themselves questions like: 'What don't I know about which might help me do this task better next time?' or 'What would have happened if I had tried it another way?'

Reflection can also be a way of helping to recognise and sort out conflicts that might have occurred or been there under the surface. You could suggest that your learners consider questions like these: 'Were there times when you didn't say what you really thought?', or 'What did you do if you felt that the team wasn't going about the task in the right way?', or 'What stopped you making a contribution?'

Personal responsibilities and understanding objectives

Encourage students to learn how to assess their own performance; to be aware of how their behaviour affects others; what is happening in a group; and why people behave the way they do. This can be done by observation, discussion, and within enrichment programmes.

It is important to be clear about what an objective is. It can be defined as:
The purposes for working together that are shared by the people involved in an activity. They may be set by an organisation, a tutor, supervisor or project leader, or by members of the group or team.

Clarifying roles and responsibilities

The success of any team depends to an extent on how well the team can maximise the abilities of all its members. So, clarifying important roles and responsibilities is a central part of teamwork. Responsibilities are mentioned in the first component at each of Levels 1–4, and Part A of the unit stresses the need for an understanding of roles from Level 2 onwards.

Health and safety provides a useful focus for looking at roles and responsibilities. Discuss safe ways of working with learners and ask them:

  • What hazards do they face?
  • What procedures do they need to follow?
  • What are others' responsibilities?
  • How can they help keep the workplace safe?
  • Working safely may also include avoiding offending others/disrupting their work - why?

Ask learners to share how their work team is organised during work experience or within part-time jobs.

View Roles and responsibilities activity (PDF)

Active listening skills

One of the best ways for learners to gain an awareness of listening skills is for them to observe the behaviour of others. Asking students to review the skills of others (peer review) can also be developed into a useful form of evidence for portfolios. Learners can be asked to make notes on:

  • which members of the group seem to be good listeners
  • what they do and say that shows they are listening

Observation can also be carried out by using video footage, which can then be followed by discussion. Questioning can support skills development.

Feedback skills

View Feedback skills (PDF 17kb)

View Constructive feedback activity (PDF 23kb)

Handling conflict

Keeping a diary or log of incidents where there are conflicts can be useful if the student is encouraged to then discuss or describe positive solutions.

  • Who was involved?
  • What did they say and do?
  • How did you try to resolve the conflict?
  • What was the outcome?

Learners should be encouraged to develop an understanding of hidden conflict and how it is manifested. They will have examples of hidden conflict and this can lead to discussions as to why these situations arise and how they can be resolved.

Role play can be useful. You don't have to call it role play; how about 'standing in someone else's shoes'? Video footage of situations can be used to great effect. The Office and The Simpsons television series, for instance, contains many examples which could be used for further discussion.

Assertiveness and empathy

Being assertive rather than aggressive is a skill that takes time and practice. An understanding of rights and responsibilities is crucial.

It may be useful to discuss incidents where learners feel that they were not assertive (or use a 'what if ?...' scenario), and then discuss how they could have handled the situation better. What could they have said? What could they have asked? Practising in a 'safe' environment will support learners.

If learners have rights then they also have responsibilities, and recognising and understanding what others are thinking and feeling is part of this. Empathy is a vital skill for good working with others. Valuing other people's differences and recognising how others see us must be handled sensitively.

Working methods

  • Encourage students to think about working methods, eg planning techniques:
    1. Critical path analysis as a means of determining what interim deadlines are fixed and which are flexible
    2. Gantt charts
    3. Changing plans/planning for change, ie using a plan as a working document, not as an end in itself
  • Games can be useful for this. Type up the steps that need to be taken to complete a task in the form of a list. Cut up the list and ask groups of students to put them in an order that will work. Ask them, 'Are there any stages missing?' Compare the outcome from each group: 'Are they different? Why?'
  • Writing minutes of meetings is a skill that needs to be taught and practised. Minutes can be an excellent form of evidence and a useful tool for reflection. But to fulfil this role the minutes must be detailed, including not only decisions made, but also why and how decisions were made.

General points

  • Look for where working with others occurs naturally. Skills learned from Working with Others could be used when helping someone do a task at work, doing a group project on a course, or working in a team to organise an event for the local community. You will be looking to bring the best out of learners by:
    • identifying areas to work on
    • planning learning activities with the learner(s) (See page 17 of Supporting Working with Others)
    • helping them to gain knowledge as well as develop skills
    • reviewing progress and giving feedback
    • looking for assessment opportunities at the appropriate time.
  • Encourage students to work in groups outside their friendship groups. Working with people you don't know is a skill we all need to acquire.
  • Who else can support the learning besides you?
  • Students should be familiar with the standards.
  • Students may be working at a lower level than their main programme. They may have gaps in their learning.
  • Breaking down tasks for each component or assessment criteria may be useful for skills development, for example, how to plan and set targets.
  • Skills do not need to be taught 'in order'.
  • The emphasis in evidence is how the student has worked with others not how the job could have been done better. Although the latter may be relevant.
  • All members of the group must have a responsibility to get the job done.
  • There must be a reflection of the process.
  • In other programmes, while students' work must be individually assessed for the purpose of the main qualification, there is always plenty of scope for teamworking, especially in the early stages of planning research and collecting data.

View Mapping key skills opportunities (PDF 15kb)
View for Assessment opportunities within the curriculum (PDF 5kb)

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