Modeling Team-Development Lifecycle in Public Administration Courses

Abstract

During the course of their academic experience, public administration students are expected to work as teams in order to complete projects and embrace a team-based philosophy for addressing public needs. Traditional team-development pedagogy omits a critical piece for future public administrators – developing team-development skills and competence through explicit reflection, modeling, and analysis of the team-development lifecycle. This paper demonstrates how modeling the team development lifecycle within a course setting — forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Tuckman, 1965; Tuckman & Jensen, 1977) — encourages students to explore the team-development process, and to experience and reflect on corresponding emotional and behavioral responses at the various team-development stages. By explicitly modeling the strategies in the context of an entire class serving as a single team, students develop a greater confidence and competence to engage future team-development opportunities. This article (a) articulates a strategy for how to model the team-development lifecycle in public administration courses, (b) identifies anticipated affective responses, and (c) offers examples of lessons learned, so that instructors can apply this pedagogical approach.

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Notes on contributors

Maja Husar Holmes

Maja Husar Holmes, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Public Administration at West Virginia University. Her research and teaching interests reflect the intersection of leadership, public participation, and collaborative public management.