Month: August 2020

It is a rewarding session on team coaching, by Dr. Clint Lalondeby. Of the ideas shared by Dr. Clint Lalonde, there are on point that impress me most – the importance of social sensitivity in building a successful team.

This point comes from Dr. Lalonde’s share of a Google’s research on team success, with the results point to some determinants related to team building. Of those essential main ideas, the necessity of highly social sensitivity in team collaboration stands out. I see this point particularly important in online learning environment, where learners come from different backgrounds and do not have face-to-face communication to establish a emotional bond needed for collaboration. Individuals in the environment will be less likely to communicate and share their experience with others. In this respect, it is of paramount importance that a feeling of psychological safety is created in the team. It helps to make sure every team member staying involved in the work and contribute to the collective goal. It is very much related to the degree of psychological safety in a team, meaning that every team member can trust each other and respect each other, open to contribute to the collective goal of the team. All these are imperative to successful team work.

There are 2 points in the session of Dr. Veletsianos that impressed me most. First is the importance of setting a clear goal of research. It serves as the essential of how we design our approach of collecting data. There is no so-called the best or universal approach that can be recognized as a panacea for all research – the methods we choose depends on needs and interests for the study. For example, when the need is to explore how people think about one problem, the best approach could be the qualitative research methods such as interviews with open questions, as it provides deeper information than numbers in illustrating how individual students think or feel.

Another key issue emphasized by Dr. Veletsianos is the responsibility of researchers themselves. Oftentimes, we focus on the design of questions and participants’ feedback, while taking our own engagement for granted; however, researchers’ passion and devotion to the work is the very issue that concerns funders of any study – they don’t want to see their money wasted. In this respect, it is also imperative for researchers to justify why their studies are important, whether and how their research can fill in the gap in the field of study, and why they are the best professionals to do the task. It is this sense of responsibility that sustain the quality of researches. These two factors are the every thing that impresses me most from the session.