Collaboration and Shared Leadership

One of the goals for IAS students is to develop their collaboration and shared leadership abilities by learning to work with others to identify dimensions of a project, generate and refine ideas, follow through on the consequences of collective decisions, and pursue specific tasks without losing a sense of the whole. As part of this process, they learn to assess and draw on group members' diverse histories, strengths, and potential contributions. They develop skills in listening, mediating conflict, playing different roles, and reflecting on the outcomes of collaborative work. Students learn different ways of managing groups, communicating effectively and respectfully across differences, and reflecting critically and creatively on collaboration processes. During my time here at UWB two assignments stand out to me as examples of my collaboration and leadership skills.

The first assignment is a presentation of my first field research project where as a group in my Environmental Monitoring Practicum course we tested nitrate and Ph levels down in the northern part of the campus wetland. We decided on testing this because of the change in the roosting area of the crows and we wanted to see how the change would affect the wetland. We worked together down in the wetlands and up in the lab to collect the data needed for the project. We all at one point or another collected samples in the wetland and tested samples in the lab. Since this was all of our first field research testing things did not go as perfectly as we wanted but we were all able to work together and learn from our mistakes so in future projects we will be better prepared and be able to provide much better research. This project showcases my ability to collaborate equally in a diverse group. We were able to effectively work together in deciding new sample sites in the wetland, to helping each other use water quality instruments and procedures, to comparing new data we collected to historical data. I was also able to collaborate and effectively communicate in a diverse group of people for this project by playing many different roles, and reflecting on the outcomes of our work.

The second assignment is a collaborative website on the ethical implications of habitat destruction. In the website we discussed the destruction of coral reefs, tropical rainforests, arctic and wetland habitats with my main focus on wetlands. We were able to split the roles up evenly between the different habitats but remained a group as we worked together on the home page of the website and helped one another with our individual pages. We relied on one another to complete our shared work and collaborated together to make stronger arguments. We each had strengths and weaknesses but by working together we all learned from on another due to our diverse backgrounds. Some of us had strengths with building websites and some of us had strong writing abilities so working together created a better overall website that we were all proud of.