Parker’s Roles in Evaluating Workshop Effectiveness

• CHM 203 workshop involves students working together in small groups to solve sets of problems under the guidance of a teaching assistant (TA). • The students that get the most out of workshop are those who work in productive, interactive groups. • Glenn Parker, in Team Players and Teamwork, proposes that an ideal group has one of each type of team player: the contributor, the collaborator, the communicator and the challenger. • Each of these roles has their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and requires members of the other three roles to work at maximal efficiency. • Due to the problem-solving nature of workshop, many students would gravitate towards the contributor and collaborator roles. • The result of most favoring these two roles is a lack of communicators and challengers, who are just as necessary for groups to work at their best.