How should students be grouped into teams?
This Page: Number of Students | Mix of Students | Team Stability | References
Number of Students
Most experts recommend a range between two to seven, unless there is a pedagogical reason to make the team larger.
When the team has more than nine members, subgroups will form within the team. On the other hand, if the number is too small, then there may not be enough "peer pressure" to enforce that all members complete their work.
Many projects have teams of four because that is small enough for everyone to communicate, but large enough to have genuine team dynamics. Smaller scale projects may put students in pairs.
TECH TIP: The ANGEL Course Management System allows instructors to assign students into teams which can be tracked for communication and other course maintenance functions.
Mix of Students
The one thing almost everyone recommends is - do not let students form their own teams unless it is for a very short (5-10 minutes) exercise. When students form their own teams, the potential for cliques to form within a team greatly increases, thus potentially excluding some team members.
Some strategies that have been successful:
1. Heterogeneous Groups
A commonly recommended strategy (Michaelson 1999) is to group members of mixed talents and temperaments. Some ways to balance teams include:
- Distribute different majors or specializations among teams
- Distribute people from different geographic locations among teams.
- Distribute people of different genders or ethnic background among teams.
CAUTION: Try to avoid one woman or one minority on a team. That person may feel isolated or may be inadverdently shut out by other team members. - Do a mini survey on learning styles or temperments and distribute people of different learning styles on one team.
NOTE: If there one "odd" demographic person on a team (e.g. one woman with three men), you may want to make sure that person is not inadverdently "locked out" from contributing on the team.
TECH TIP - Penn State has a number of options for creating online surveys including the ANGEL Course Management System.
2. Random Assignment
Teams with randomly assigned students have also been known to be effective. Some people may even form teams alphabetically according to the roster.
3. Group by Interest
Some instructors group students by interests, such as future career plans, current major, or another similar topic. In many cases, these groups do have heterogeneous skill sets.
4. Grouping Students by Reported G.P.A.
Somewhat controversial, but some faculty have found that team dynamics are smoother and that projects are of equal quality as with other grouping methods. Even lower-bracket G.P.A. teams were reported to complete quality work.
A Generalization
Teams which have similar membership often function more quickly and efficiently than heterogenous groups, but heterogenous teams can be more innovative in the long run.
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Team Stability
It is usually recommended that teams remain stable throughout a project. Some courses gives the students the option to switch out of a team between projects, but many teams choose to remain intact for the next project.
One exception could be if your class does relatively short projects with pairs or small teams. In that case, it could be advantageous to rotate members so students are exposed to more viewpoints.
References
Breslow, Lori. (1998) "Teaching Teamwork Skills, Part 1"
http://web.mit.edu/tll/tll-library/teach-talk/teamwork-1.html
Breslow, Lori. (1998) "Teaching Teamwork Skills, Part 2"
http://web.mit.edu/tll/tll-library/teach-talk/teamwork-2.html
Issacs, Geoff. (2000) "'Group Assessment' - Assessment of Students on Group-Based Tasks - Issues and Options" A Report for the Queensland Teaching and Learning Committee.
Michaelson, Larry K. (1999) "Myths And Methods In Successful Small Group Work." National Teaching and Leaning Forum, Vol. 8, #6
Penn Wharton Leadership Program.
(2000) "How are Learning Teams Formed?"
http://www-management.wharton.upenn.edu/leaders/faq.htm#ten
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