3.2 Identify Additional Support Required for Teams and Individuals

A team is composed of individuals with different skill sets. To develop critical thinking skills in your team, you have to assess their current skill level in order to identify additional support that can be facilitated. A good way to accomplish this is by monitoring the team and its individual members.

You can monitor the team and your members by seeing them in action. By being in the moment, interacting with team members, spending time with them and actually observing how they go about their work, you get a feel of what additional support they may require. You can also get some insights as to additional support they might need by going through regular review of their work progress.

As the person responsible for team/s and the members in it, you get to know them over time and develop a sense of each person: their strengths and weaknesses, habits, level of motivation, etc. With these in mind, you also get to know where your team members and employees will shine the most and who needs help in improving some areas. Each one of them will require different modes and opportunities to learn new things. Watch out for training sessions, seminars, workshops, or any other learning opportunity that any of your members or employees could benefit from.

As the leader or manager, you can assess or at least get a general grasp of the team's current skill level. Think of instances when individuals in your team needed to use their critical thinking skills. How did they react to the situation? What was the process used - from identifying the root of the issue to addressing the problem and finally completing the task? By asking those questions and analysing the situations, you will know which areas the team and the individual are good at and which ones need more improvement.

Supporting the individual is different from supporting the team. While supporting the individual is to take note of each one of them personally, supporting the team is to make sure that each one works in harmony and as one unit.

3.2.1 Providing Additional Support to Individuals and Teams

Comprising your team is a group of individuals with different personalities and different skill sets. Each individual will require additional support depending upon these factors.

Additional support, in the context of this unit, can include supplemental resources or practices that can be implemented when completing workplace tasks that require critical or creative thinking. Examples of a supplemental resource are articles and online video tutorials that team members can study on their own time. To illustrate, a team member is tasked to design a website for a new product being launched. You could send the team member articles on the psychology of colours to help choose a colour scheme that is in line with the product's branding.

Additional support can also be exhibited in other forms. For example, idealistic team members or those who see everything as either right or wrong will need a gradual introduction to the world of grey areas. Rather than direct teaching of critical thinking, you can help them understand through real-life situations. For example, a client is asking to have their project be entertained first rather than wait on queue. Rather than directly explaining to your team member the ethics of skipping the queue or the rule on 'first come, first serve' , have your team member evaluate the importance of the project and the capability of the team to cater to the request without compromising the other projects. From there, the team member can see other angles to the situation - the urgency of the request, the ability of the team to accommodate the request without compromising other clients, the related projects that might potentially come from accommodating that one request, etc.

For individuals of your team, consider mentoring sessions. Having a mentor can help develop a variety of skills, aside from being able to collaborate on solutions and decisions. Mentors can help learners focus while using critical thinking techniques, or the mentors could have resources to help learners improve their critical thinking skills. The mentor, in this case, could be you in your function as the leader or you can have individual members shadow other competent individuals for a period of time.

Giving individuals leadership opportunities will also help individuals as they will be thrust to manage conflict resolution and make crucial decisions. Consider asking individuals to lead new projects. By leading a project, the individual put in charge will necessarily be thrust in a more proactive role, dealing with issues and challenges that will require critical and creative thinking in their decision-making.

While identifying the additional support required for individuals, you can also simultaneously work to identify the support needed for the team. Teambuilding activities are a great way to improve critical thinking skills both for groups and individuals. If your organisation employs these exercises, encourage your team to participate. If your organisation does not currently employ them, consider introducing your team to similar exercises during your team meetings. Set aside time for activities that will require them to work together and tap into their critical and creative thinking skills. These activities need not be elaborate and could be as simple as a short game before or after a meeting.

An example of an activity that can be done is 'Game of Possibilities'. This team building exercise inspires creativity and individual innovation. All you need are random objects and about 5 minutes. The mechanics are simple, you give a random object to each person in the group. One at a time, someone then has to go up in front and demonstrate a use for that object other than what the actual object is used for. The rest of the team must guess what is being demonstrated. The demonstrator cannot speak and the demonstrations must be original ideas. So, supposing that the random object is a pen, it could be a hair tie, a magic wand, a gun or even a chopstick missing its pair. Imagination is the limit for this game.

Another teambuilding activity that you can do with your team is 'If You Build It'. This will promote critical thinking and teamwork. Divide the people into smaller teams. Then, give them equal amounts of a certain material like popsicle sticks or dried spaghetti and have them construct something, like a castle or a tall building, out of the material given and within a time frame.

To summarise, additional support can be any or a combination of the following:

3.2.2 Organisational Learning Environments and Related Learning Systems

Organisational learning environments play an essential role in how the team and team members are able to effectively absorb critical and creative thinking skills taught to them in a formal learning process.

Thelearning environmentis the educational approach or the physical setting in which the teaching and the learning occurs. It refers to how the 'classroom' environment is set up. There are mainly two learning environments:

Depending upon the circumstances and the resources available for the conduct of formal learning geared towards developing critical and creative thinking, you can choose which learning environment can best support your team.

Classroom learningis the traditional type of learning environment. It is usually composed of one teacher and a number of students who actively listen and participate. Both teacher and students need to be physically present in the classroom so they can instantaneously discuss topics or agenda items.

On the other hand,distance learningis a form of education in which the teacher and students are physically separated during instruction. Student-teacher and student-student communication are facilitated by the use of various technologies. Chat, email, forums and discussion boards, among other means, are used. Distance learning is also called eLearning or online learning.

There are five main differences between classroom learning and distance learning.

• The place to learn

With classroom learning, the place to learn is typically one physical classroom. With distance learning, a physical class is not necessary as it can be accessed through various technological platforms.

• Social interaction

Depending upon the place to learn, social interaction differs as well. In a classroom setting, the teacher and students engage in personal communication every time there is a class. Learning occurs synchronously in real-time since the set-up allows students to ask questions and get immediate feedback.

With distance learning, students typically reach out to the teacher via email or phone should they need assistance. In online classrooms wherein everybody is logged in at the same time, students could ask questions while the class is ongoing. Mainly, student-teacher and student-student interactions occur through chat, forums, email and discussion boards.

• Instructional material

In classroom learning, the instructional materials are usually presented verbally, sometimes with the help of visual presentations. In distance learning, visual and written notes are presented in place of the traditional instructor. To put emphasis on important parts of the lecture, the notes are highlighted or in bold text, or come in the form of headlines, bulleted lists, subheadings and the like.

• Audio, visual and beyond

In classroom learning, materials to aid the discussions are limited, and the majority of the teaching techniques cannot be transferred directly to an online environment. Distance learning, on the other hand, has a broader range of tools and media that can be used like simulations, visual storytelling and moving graphics.

• Learning time

Learning time in classroom learning consumes more time than in distance learning. However, the way the learning environment is designed allows the students to be guided through the discussions. Distance learning takes less time to complete, and participants can choose to take smaller sessions to understand the lectures better.

Learning Systems for Classroom Learning

Learning systems are the different ways that learning can be delivered using each learning environment. Classroom learning is the more traditional method between the two types of learning environments. There are a number of ways this is conducted. Among them are the following:

• Training sessions

Training is the act of providing information and instruction to enable the effective performance of tasks and duties. It aims to address a need that was found in employees to help improve their capability, capacity, productivity and performance.

In a corporate setting, training sessions refer to the act of training recruits or new employees - providing them with relevant information, skills, and resources for their job.

• Workshops

Workshops are like small discussion groups wherein there is a sharing of knowledge or experience, and demonstration and application of techniques and skills. It can last from a couple of hours to a few days. Its purpose is to provide additional information so that employees may develop new skills and incorporate that in their jobs.

• Seminars

In seminars, there is only the main lecture. Speakers only share information; they do not usually give exercises or activities for employees to apply the knowledge they have just learned. Seminars tend to have a big audience or more participants than in workshops or training sessions because of how it is designed - one expert sharing information with the audience.

Learning Systems for Distance Learning

Distance learning incorporates developments in technology in the learning environment. Some of its learning systems are the following:

Webinars

Webinars are informative presentations done online, such as seminars and workshops. The speaker cannot hear or listen to the audience. If the audience wants to communicate with the speaker, they must type their questions in the chat window.

Teleconferences

A teleconference is simply a meeting through telecommunications platform. It is used for meetings whose purposes are usually sharing news and information and making decisions.

There are four types of teleconferences:

• Video teleconference - a combination of audio and video providing voice communications and video images
• Audio teleconference - voice only or conference calling
• Audiographics teleconference - also called desktop computer conferencing and enhanced audio; a mix of visual information such as graphics, documents and video supplemented with voice communication
• Web teleconference - information such as emails, memos, reports, updates and newsletters are simultaneously shared from one computer to another

3.2.3 Industry Best Practice for Instructing Others

Industry best practice for instructing others refers to the most effective method for teaching people in that industry. As such, what could be considered best practice will vary according to the industry you are in and the workplace task identified. Critical and creative thinking methods applied to a workplace task can subsequently be developed into an industry best practice for that particular task.

The Scaffolding Method

Scaffolding is an instructional method that describes the support a learner gets from an instructor throughout the learning process. The method operates under the principle that at the beginning, learners will need a lot of help. As the class progresses, learners will be able to make and understand more on their own and will require less support from the instructor. In this case, the learners are your team members and you are the instructor.

Wood (1976) states that integral to scaffolding is the social interaction between the learner and instructor. Together, they develop a mutual understanding of the activity and its goals, thereby sharing ownership of the process. Through this, the instructor provides support and ongoing diagnosis of the learner's abilities by altering the scaffold to accommodate the learner's needs. Eventually, the instructor removes the scaffold so the learner takes responsibility for his or her own learning, which, once completed, leaves the learner more capable than before the use of the scaffold.

Several scaffolds have been identified to help team members move forward in their learning. These are the following:

The scaffolding method is considered a best practice approach to the critical thinking method. While developing critical thinking skills in others is no easy task, it is not impossible. In the workplace, assigning your team members to projects can help build critical thinking skills. Incorporating a scaffolding guide, like a mentoring system, can help guide them while deepening their skill sets at the same time.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a creative thinking approach wherein individuals come up with a solution to a specific problem by sharing various ideas with each other. It operates under four rules:

• Withhold criticism

All criticisms of ideas generated in a brainstorming session should be put on hold - all ideas are welcome and no idea is too bold, too big or too crazy. By doing this, the team will feel more at ease and is able to generate more unusual ideas. Criticisms are reserved for a later stage when all ideas are pooled and it comes down to determining the best possible, workable idea.

• Go for quantity

Quantity breeds quality. The more ideas, the more options to choose from. This principle is based on the assumption that the greater the number of the ideas generated, the greater chance of finding an effective solution.

• Welcome wild ideas

Wild ideas are encouraged in the session. Wild ideas can be generated by suspending assumptions and looking from different angles and new perspectives. The premise is that wild ideas might be able to give you better solutions.

• Build upon other's ideas

Take multiple ideas and combine them or build on an existing idea to provide a better solution.

Question 1.

What are two ways you could develop critical and creative thinking skills in individuals?

1-

Question 2.

What are two team activities to develop critical and creative thinking skills?

What skills do they develop and give instructions on how to set up the activity? Complete the table below.

Activity name	Skills it develops	Instructions, (how to do it?)

3- Complete the following table by identifying:

Your current workplace industry. If you currently do not have a workplace, use the industry you are familiar with.

Identify the best practice used in the identified industry to instruct others on critical and creative thinking methods.

Current workplace industry	-
Industry best practice to instructing	-

4- Give three examples of existing workplace objectives, processes and resources

Objectives	-
Processes	-
Resources	-

5- List two government legislation and one legislative requirement for each that relates to personal development procedures that could apply to any organisation.

Government legislation	Legislative requirements