DEpart PME Report

13 NOVEMBRE 2013

CHRISTOPHE BERTILLE - EL BOUCHTILI AYOUBFOUQUET ANAÏS - LEPETITPAS PAUL

Self-Directed LearningQuestion: How to manage our learning and interactions with other groups?

Objectives: After a first meeting with our tutors, we learned that we’re going to work most of the time in collaboration with another group (APPUI PME). We decided then that it’s important for both teams to define the kind of interactions we should be having between us.

Resources: - http://www.curiousmind.com/Competition - http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/01/collaboration-is-the-new-compe/- http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/france-facts/economy-of-france.htm- http://about-france.com/political-system.htm- Duct Tape Teambuilding Games, by Tom Heck.

Activities: Team building:

Because we already know each other well enough, we decided to skip presentations and instead start with an activity that could help us define the kind of interactions we could be having in the future:

Human chain: After attaching each group members with a duct tape, one to the other (cf. illustration), they were asked to move from the start to the finish line, by stepping only on the non-restricted areas. The wining team is the one to get to the other side first without walking outside the boxes. Teams should improve their timing too with each new game.

After playing against each other’s, we also switched a player from team A with team B, so we can experience collaboration too.

English learning:Our intentions towards English learning were clear: make it our project’s first language. But since our levels vary within the group we fixed individual objectives using our “Passport Langue”, and we are now more careful about the way we share work (English related) so that we keep working on these objectives. We also did a research session where we looked for articles related to our project, and after reading those articles, we shared and explained different new/interesting ideas we learned.During the marketing and innovation week, the first afternoon we decided to work the whole session in English. However it was pretty difficult for us to be really effective. Thus, the day after we worked only for 2 hours of English.

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Evaluation:The “Human chain” game made it easy for us to think about types of interactions we might have with the other group. In fact, at the beginning we thought that there would be only collaboration between the two teams, but playing the game proved that once our interests diverge we switch instantaneously to a competition atmosphere where each team do his best to get better results and feedback, some of us were even more motivated in this case. The question then is: How to use this competitive atmosphere to motivate both teams?

Concerning the English learning, we believe that the timing couldn’t be better. We had last week a training program, where we were asked to apply marketing and innovation tools -we learned earlier- to our project’s subject. This was for us a great opportunity to seek for subject and documentation in English, and it helped us improving our vocabulary (project related) and communication since the work sessions were in English.

Our first try of working the whole session in English was not such a good experience. In fact we quickly weren’t able to get enough concentrated. Our work has become really more difficult because we had to search the translation of many word or sentences. Thus, during this day we didn’t do a lot of things and we were afraid of being late in our project. However, even if our project projection was slow, we found it really useful in order to improve our English level. The second time we did the experimentation was better. First of all we knew some basics project vocabulary: we didn’t need to search all the words in the dictionary. Secondly, we have spoken only 2 hours in English: in that case we were enough concentrated to do some good job and the teachers were proud of what we did during this session.

Conclusion:We can only be excited about working with other groups, and we believe that the collaboration between us shouldn’t be restrained to work only, but we may be able to learn from their management skills and vice versa.The first experience was interesting, we had the possibility to talk about internal and external interests of each team. We also find out how our relation depends on our tutors commands, and we are looking forward to change this situation.

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Personal feedback:Anaïs: To work against the other team was good because we had to do a strategy, a collaborative work. The communication was an important element because our feet tied. The work was compulsory thoughtful. With our project team, we stopped to speak about our strategy.Moreover, I liked to play with the other team because we are sometimes together for the project so it’s important to learn together. To practice English activities is difficult for me because I have to try to understand the rules of the game but, also, translate the game.

Ayoub: I personally enjoyed the time we spent working or playing with the other team. I believe that this is a good thing for our group and that we will learn much of it. I also admire the evolution we went through, starting with “how do I learn by myself?”, then “how do I learn in a group” to finally get to “how would my group learn with another one?”.What caught my attention the most is the transition we may have from competition to collaboration. In fact, I had the chance to play for both teams, which made me think about how relative the image I have in mind of the opposite team is. After all, this is how thing have always been, we make the others our enemies hoping that would justify our bad behavior. But what if we can approach this situation differently, or as what Ben Hecht would say: Make collaboration the new competition.

Bertille: Concerning the game we played with the other group, I remember that it seemed very difficult for me to set out a strategy. Ayoub, the game leader or the person who fixed the rules, told us the objectives at the beginning: we had to do better than the other group, and in a second time, we had to improve our own time. What seems really difficult for me was that we had to elaborate a strategy immediately, in a very short time. So, the first party we played, both the teams were in difficulty. We tried to not do less well than the other team. In the second party, when our strategy was better elaborated, we could think about our own success and improvement. Thanks to this game, I realize today that the competition can be a motor in a collective project, but it doesn’t always appear. It generally appears at the launch and at all the moments when all the group are in difficulty. Then, when all the other projects, even the ours, are well launched, we only think about our own success without thinking about the others. I always feel difficulties to speak in English with the group, but I understand better and better what the higher TOEIC score of the group (Ayoub) says. I have now to entertain to speak more and more in order to this become normal and fluent. With Anaïs, we have begun to set the different sections of our professional language passeport for the level B2 and to describe what we are able to do in all these sections.

Paul: Even if this game was pretty difficult (cases weren’t very large) I spent a great moment with the other group and mine. This game has revealed my competition spirit. In fact I did some little bad things such as pushing the other team while we were in the same case or bit someone with my finger…Even if it was a joke many people reproached it to me. Thus I felt strange and I thought about what I did. After that I understood that what I did wasn’t collaborative. However, if we don’t mind the fact that our projects group work together we were just two teams in competitions and not in the same team: we had to do

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our best and try to be first. At the opposite, with my team I tried to make them progress of the best way by giving them some advices or indications on the way to move their foots.During the English work session it was really difficult for me to get enough concentrated because first I had to think about what to do and then try to translate it to the other. As I am a “hurry up” people, I was also really disappointed because of our work rhythm: due to the English, we were really slow. I tried to keep calm and just focus on the English improvement. It worked for a while but after I was really busy. After other working English sessions, I’m sure we are going to be more effective and that I can do the whole session in English

The learning team:We were able to approve a theory we had in mind earlier: A learning team needs activities involving physical gestures to improve their learning skills or make it easier to learn. In fact, our last activity was selected for this purpose, and we ended up with two conclusions: First, this kind of activities bring us back to our spontaneous state, where we act in a natural way, and that is how we could determine each team’s member managing and working style. The second conclusion is that playing physically creates a convivial atmosphere which helps us gain more confidante and open up to the rest of the group.

Another theory we have in mind is that a learning team needs other teams (whether it’s a collaboration or competition relation) to gain more motivation. We had a first experience last week, and it’s true that felt more heat than usual, but we think that one activity remains inconclusive.

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Illustrations:- Human Chain:

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