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Successful graduates in today's competitive business environments must possess sound interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively in team situations within, and across, disciplines. However, developing these skills within the higher education curriculum is fraught with organisational and pedagogical difficulties, with many teachers not having the skills, time or resources to facilitate productive group processes. Furthermore, many students find their teamwork experiences frustrating, demanding, conflict-ridden and unproductive. This paper brings together the perspectives and experiences of an engineer and a social scientist in a cross-disciplinary examination of the characteristics of effective teamwork skills and processes. A focus is the development and operation of "TeamWorker", an innovative online system that helps students and staff manage their team activities and assessment. TeamWorker was created to enhance team teaching and learning processes and outcomes including team creation, administration, development and evaluation. Importantly, TeamWorker can facilitate the early identification of problematic group dynamics, thereby enabling early intervention. (Contains 2 figures.)

Abstract Even though there is substantial agreement about the nature of rural contexts, practice principles, and factors influencing practice we still do not have a framework for organising this knowledge [...]

Abstract Social workers, welfare workers and others living and working in small rural communities report that they are generally highly satisfied with their work and lifestyle. Paradoxically, high levels of [...]