Go, Team! 

       Picture it... January 2023 

       One individual works for a shipping company.

       One individual works as an educator at a charter middle school.

       One individual works as a public elementary school teacher. 

Each has different backgrounds, experiences, knowledge, and familiarity with the ADDIE model, how could a team comprised of individuals who are vastly different in a lot of areas, possibly work together in a team? 

   When you are put in a group, where the most you know about each person is their first and last name, it can be worrisome. As my team and I navigated through a project for three weeks, one thing that I learned very quickly is how none of us having anything in common came to our advantage. Due to our differences, each member of the team had strengths, and we utilized each member's strengths to design a piece of training that was, in my opinion, really well constructed. 

    Now, I know many may argue that it's obvious that when you have people with different backgrounds, there are benefits of it, however, it wasn't to me. It may be due to my lack of work experience, however, with my current occupation, no matter who I may be grouped with, we always will have something in common, i.e., being an elementary school teacher, working at the same school, or teaching the same grade level. I haven't had the opportunity to collaborate with individuals with whom I have nothing in common with except for us all being humans. Moving forward, as I continue to work in teams with individuals with vast experiences, knowledge, and more, it would be beneficial to identify each members strength and utilize those strengths to design content. I find myself very fortunate to be able to collaborate with individuals who bring different ideas and skills to the table because then I can learn from them. 

    With all of this being said, the lesson that I have learned in these past three weeks is, working with individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, opinions, and skills can result in designing truly phenomenal products. 

   

    To my teammates, I wish them the best and thank you for teaching me new things that I would've never learned without being able to collaborate with you all.