5. 10 Ten-Minute
Exercises to Develop Your Students' Team Skills
Presenter: Kate Lancaster, California Polytechnic State University, San
Luis Obispo
Description: The use of teams
has created some additional class management issues and added to the complexity
of class dynamics. While most student teams find team activities helpful, the
presenters have experienced a variety of problems encountered by various teams.
For example, some class teams never function as a team and the members end up
working in subgroups or individually. There is also the risk that one member
dominates the other team members or shirks his/her responsibilities.
It is important to give students time
to develop their team interaction skills. To help students get the most out of
the team learning experience and help them develop habits that promote positive
team interactions, we present ten in-class development activities. Because in
most classes enhancing team skills is of secondary concern (first being mastery
of course content), each activity is designed to take at most ten minutes. The
exercises may be used during a semester as a package or the professor may elect
to implement one or a few of the activities. Regardless, these activities will
help even the best-performing teams become more functional, will reduce the
likelihood of team conflicts, and help student develop team skills.
