Project Title:
Creating Communication, Collaboration and Community by Constructing a Team Building Challenge Course
Project Director and Other Associated Faculty and Staff:
Lori Halverson-Wente, Instructor of Speech, Rochester Community and Technical College, Contact: lori.halverson@roch.edu, Telephone: (507)285-7553
Jay Lee, Interim V. Pres of Academic Affairs, Rochester Community & Technical College, Contact: jay.lee@roch.edu, Telephone: (507)285-7256
Project Design:
In the past, RCTC developed a portable Team-building Challenge Course that has proven to be successful in teaching communication skills in an active learning format. This project would all RCTC to build a professional quality permanent course with more sophisticated challenge events. The course will be fully integrated into the RCTC Speech Department’s courses and teacher education based programs. Also, the Course will be used as a staff development activity and for community service workshops.
Project Evaluation and Outcomes:
The project experienced a serious problem when it was discovered that a permanent Challenge Course would require a security fence which would cost approximately $10,000. Since funding for a fence was not included in the CTL project proposal, an alternative was agreed to which would use CTL project funds to acquire a new portable course. Using this portable course, the RCTC staff have pursue the proposal objectives which primarily involve a “train the trainer” approach whereby RCTC Speech students are trained to use the Course to teach public school students and community groups team building skills. The portable Course proved valuable in taking the Course “on the road” and serving groups outside the Rochester area. Ultimately 50+ team building sessions were implemented using the portable Course which involved 247 RCTC students during 2004-2005 academic year. Evaluation was provided in the form of letters from these groups speaking to the merits of the Course. In addition, the project director used focus groups and surveys (pre and post) to provide feedback from RCTC students who participated. Generally, students identified the team-building exercise as the most significant learning experience in the speech class and between 60-70% of students expressed a high comfort level with speaking/communication which was often 10% higher than the national average of respondents to this survey but reflected little or no change from pre-test results.
Lessons Learned, Dissemination and Sustainability
Findings of the project involve verification that students can lead teambuilding workshops and events and that they will reflect on their own participation and risk-taking. Dissemination took several forms including sharing information with community groups through meetings and letters, creating a web site to highlight the program (http://ctlrctc.project.mnscu.edu/index.asp), an article in local newspaper, providing training to incoming faculty on the project, sharing information about the project to local CTL groups. In addition, the project director made a presentation at CTL’s Realizing Student Potential Conference in March, 2005.
