Knowledge Without Boundaries (KWB) Summit 2021

Presenting a Literature Systematic Review: A Collaborative Team Project - A Report.

Dr. MacDonald Chaava as Team Leader 

I received an email from University Research Leadership on February 2, 2021, asking me to lead a team to research the ramifications of COVID19 for K-12 education in the virtual environment. It was entirely up to the team to decide what to make of the project. The original two member team focused on the topic of emotional intelligence using a quantitative study design. The original idea was to publish in a journal or to produce a document the University of Phoenix could use in education courses.

The two members of the original team, including me continued to the end of the project. Along the way, three new members joined the team. Each member brought new energy and a different skillset to the team. As new members joined the team, we decided to revisit the earlier parameters (quantitative study on emotional intelligence) and we welcomed the ideas of the new members to give the team direction.

We were invited to present at Knowledge Without Boundaries (KWB). One colleague suggested a workshop style output and another one suggested a team presentation for KWB. We adopted the team presentation of a systematic literature review.

The team benefited from regular consultations with University Research Leaders, who provided the general direction and infused positive energy for our team to keep moving forward.

Our regular weekly 45 minute meetings were set for Wednesday afternoons. Our first two meetings were conducted using Teams, however, it became evident that the group was more familiar with Zoom. After that we met using Zoom every week.

Team attendance was up and down. Two members consistently attended all meetings, arriving on time and remaining to the end. One member only attended 40% of meetings but also completed all written team assignments on time.

Email and Teams provided the means for regular communication. Members viewed Teams threads as complicated, finding it challenging to follow the threads and to find files stored in Teams.

Once the subject for the literature review was identified, the team researched the literature to find articles published during the COVID19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. From the initial search, each member identified a theme of interest to focus on for the KWB presentation. All themes were relevant to the impact of the pandemic on the transition to teaching and learning in the virtual environment.

As the team leader, I encountered some personal challenges and leadership headwinds. Perhaps my style of leadership contributed to some headwinds. For example, I proposed to use a reference manager called Mendeley. Each member was asked to familiarize themselves with the program and then to join a share point on Mendeley to store and have access to the same references in one place. The suggestion was accepted by members but not everyone was able to get on board. As team leader this experience was frustrating, but I decided to overlook it at the time. On the whole, team cohesion was high.