Goals

Assign students into groups and get them comfortable with each other

 

Details

Duration: 60 minutes

Assessments: Group work

Materials: Supporting materials for icebreaker activities

 

Description

In this benchmark, students are assigned to groups of 5 or 6 people. After groups were assinged, the first thing we had students perform was intitial teambuilding icebreaker activities. I would suggest choosing icebreaker activities that you are comfortable with. The second part of this activity was to have the students collect contact information and assign preliminary roles for the project. This is explained in more detail in the attached handout.

Group Norms. After initial icebreakers, each group then created norms for their group. After they were drafted and approved, students documented their norms on small poster paper and they were put on the wall near their group table so they could be referenced throughout the project. The norms had to be stated in a positive form and be a specific action each group member could undertake vs. being too vauge or general. The groups had to have at least five norms and, once approved by the teacher, they had to sign the posted indicating that they agreed with the norms. Some examples of good norms were: "We will have a group meeting on project workdays", "only work on tasks that have been assigned", and "When you finish all your work, then help others with their tasks".

Grouping Strategy: Since this was a large project, we planned heterogenous (mixed skills) groups. As a teacher groups, we rated students 1 (Strong), 2 (Average), or 3 (Special Ed and/or Developing). We then assigned groups with a mixture of student types. On average there was 1-2 Strong students, 2-3 Average students, and 2-3 Special Ed/Developing students. This is generalizing somewhat, but you hopefully you get a feel for the grouping strategy.

Contact Information and Roles
Contact Information and Roles...
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Author Reflections

I really think it is important to perform icebreaker/teambuilding activities at the start of the project. It is also helpful to have an easy activity for groups to complete, such as the Contact Information and Roles document, to eliminate some of the nervousness when groups are initially brought together.

By making a poster of norms for each group and putting them up un the room, it is very easy to refer back to them with each group to see if they are using them,