My top 5 tips for Organizing Student Teams

One of the best and worst experiences a student can have in the classroom are with team members. Student collaboration is celebrated as a vital precursor to the real-world or work, and yet its management is not entirely easy for every instructor. Many instructors simply form teams and hope they work out fine. If they do, great; if they don’t, maybe next time. As a teaching assistant, I made several observations while managing student groups. My professor, Dr. Faheem Hussain was very supportive and guided me through the experience. Here are my top 5 tips for managing student teams.

1. Be clear about the requirements of the task

This applies to all types of assignment given to students. Clearly communicating your requirements leaves little room for assumptions and inaction. For assignments that require students to be creative, set a comfortable baseline. This will help students define their roles and estimate how they can contribute to the task. Consider an assignment that requires students to design a magazine. In being clear about requirements, we could add the minimum number of pages, the minimum number of words, the preferred and recommended citation method, and other pieces of information that make it easier for students to complete the assignment.

2. Provide opportunities for student feedback

Make it easy for students to communicate progress on projects, difficulties with assignments, and complaints against team-members. After communicating your expectations for students, it is important to facilitate a communication medium back to you. I learned this the hard way. It turns out one of my student groups was dysfunctional, but since there hadn’t been any mention of what to do, the members were essentially suffering through it. Eventually, the issue was resolved but I learned to always let students know that they can always inform me or the professor about any difficulties they encounter.

3. Announce team member roles (team captain, secretary, devil’s advocate, etc.)

Teams have structure and it is important how that structure is defined. When planning out teams, the type of assignment helps us plan out what kind of teams should be created. Is it a British Parliamentary style debate? Well, you’ll need two opposing teams comprising three members each. As we move into less rigid team organizations, these roles become less explicit and the challenge more taxing. I recommend having a team leader, either by selection or appointment depending on your circumstances, and requiring a team description of assigned roles. This will help keep team members accountable and on track, while serving as a potential evaluation tool for the instructor [1].

4. Explain team evaluation strategy to students

Once teams know how they will be evaluated, it’s easier for them to manage their collective and individual tasks. Much like the first recommendation, communicating your evaluation strategy to students helps them identify how they will contribute to the success of their team. For example, if timely reports account for 10% of the final team score, students can plan to avoid losing points. As a caveat, an evaluation strategy is more about feedback between instructors and students than it is about scores. In my experience, explaining to students how specific evaluation criteria correspond to specific skills drives them to perform better [2, p. 72].

5. Hold a mock session

Before actual projects, consider having a mock evaluation. This helps students deeply appreciate the set up and the level of expectations the instructor has. It also sets the tone for the group to see how they can perform better together. For the instructor, this is a great opportunity to explain your expectations with specific examples from students’ performance. It is vital to treat mock sessions as such, informing students of the differences with the real session. One of my professors used this approach and it worked remarkably well.

Utilizing these five recommendations do not guarantee exceptional team performance. However, they do make it easier to measure progress, and engage students. Also, my recommendations are primarily based on experience in a college setting, which can be very different from other environments. Some schools have student management systems that are passed on from one class to another, enabling instructors to learn about their students’ special characteristics and needs. These would prove very useful when factored in team assignments. I also recognize that teams can be grounds for learning in themselves. One of my mentors shared her experience of using teams to explore the concept of cooperation in businesses. She formed three structurally different teams, gave them the same assignment, employed reflection and journal writing, and led the class through discussions of what a good team looks like. Teams have a lot to teach us about ourselves, collaboration, and how the world works. How do you approach team-based assignments?

Notes

[1] D. Potosky and J. Duck, “Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning FORMING TEAMS FOR CLASSROOM PROJECTS,” vol. 34, 2007.

This authors propose an interesting approach to team formation which I found fascinating.

[2] M. A. Fox, N. Hackerman, and E. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Recognizing, Evaluating and improving undergraduate teaching in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. National Academies Press, 2003.