Forming Teams

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Forming Teams

• or
• How to mix things up a bit

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Topics

• Introduction to forming teams
• Team selection criteria
• Forming teams in practice
• Summary

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Intro to Forming Teams

• Items to consider when forming teams
• Project scope
• Skills required for the project
• Skills provided by the group members
• Relative importance of exposure to varying group
  dynamics

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Intro to Forming Teams

• Project scope
• Duration How long will the team be working
  together?
• Size How much work needs to be done?
• Complexity How varied/specialized are the tasks
  that need to be done?

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Intro to Forming Teams

• Project skills
• What skills are needed?
• What skills are supplied?
• Do the provided skills match well with the
  required skills?
• If not, can they be learned while the project is
  underway?

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Intro to Forming Teams

• Group dynamics
• How important is exposure to different
  learning/working/personality styles?
• How important is learning to function in
  different team environments?
• Importance likely related to project duration and
  frequency

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Intro to Forming Teams

• Once the scope, necessary skills, and importance
  of exposure to different group dynamics are
  determined, then a method for creating the groups
  can be considered that best fits the project.

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Methods of Forming Teams

• Some common methods
• Random
• Student Selected
• Instructor Selected
• Learning Styles or Personality Types
• Majors or Background of Students
• Gender and Race

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Random

• How to
• Count off by numbers
• Make a randomized list
• Draw names from a hat, etc.
• Assign teams a place to work together

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Random

• Pros
• Forming teams requires little time
• Potential for diverse styles working, learning,
  personality
• Opportunity to generate new partnerships.
• Cons
• Teams may be slow to start
• Random assignment does not guarantee diversity of
  styles

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Student Selected

• How to
• Give the students a few minutes to decide on
  teams
• Make sure no one is left over

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Student Selected

• Pros
• Because students often choose to work with people
  who are familiar to them, this method can allow
  teams to auto start quickly
• Cons
• May develop super groups of stronger students
• Tending toward the familiar potentially reduces
  student exposure to various forms of diversity
  learning, personality, and working styles,
  backgrounds, gender, race, age

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Instructor Selected

• Instructor chooses teams based on various
  criteria that could include one or more of the
  following
• Learning/Personality Styles
• Geography (Classroom and Residence)
• Gender/Race/Age
• Student Majors/Backgrounds
• Student Input

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Learning/Personality Styles

• Pros
• Students benefit from group members having
  complementary styles.
• Cons
• Testing can be time consuming and expensive.
• Developing balanced teams may be time intensive

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Learning/Personality Styles

• A free alternative to expensive learning styles
  testing is available
• Developed by Barbara A. Soloman and Richard M.
  Felder of North Carolina State University
• http//www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/
  public/ILSpage.html

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Geography (Classroom)

• Pros
• Team formation requires little planning.
• Students dont have to move which saves time
• Cons
• If people generally sit in the same area, it may
  result in the same people working together.

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Geography (Residence)

• Pros
• Minimizes travel time/inconvenience for group
  work outside of class.
• Cons
• May conflict with other criteria such as ensuring
  the requisite skill sets are brought to the
  project

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Diversity Gender/Race/Age

• When forming teams in which one of the goals is
  to expose group members to those who differ in
  gender, race, or age, it is advisable to pair
  minority group members in order to strengthen
  their voice and prevent them from being made to
  feel even more of a minority.

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Diversity Gender/Race/Age

• Pros
• Students become more adept at overcoming racial,
  gender, and cultural differences.
• Cons
• Maintaining an even distribution may prevent
  minority students from ever working together.
• Racial, gender, and age mixing may seem
  heavy-handed to students.

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Major/Background of Students

• Pros
• Allows teams to be balanced in terms of areas of
  study and backgrounds
• Cons
• Groups can only be as diverse as the class allows
• Not all projects require all skill sets.

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Instructor Selected with Input

• In this method student input is requested
  regarding with whom they would and would not
  choose to work.
• The instructor can then factor student choice,
  along with the various other criteria, into team
  formation.

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Instructor Selected with Input

• Three general combinations are possible
• Yes Yes
• Yes No
• No No

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Yes Yes

• When you get these combinations, you find that
  your teams start quickly to get the team project
  done.

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Yes Yes

• Pros
• Teams can self-start quickly given that members
  are already acquainted and desire to work
  together.
• Cons
• Comfort level with team members may not challenge
  students to improve their interaction and
  conflict resolution skills
• Potential for the team to become overly social

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Yes No

• The Yes-No method allows students to work with
• At least one person they want
• No one they do not want

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Yes No

• Pros
• Students get to work with at least one person of
  their choosing.
• Conflict is reduced by keeping counter-personaliti
  es apart.
• Well suited for long term teams
• Cons
• This method requires significant planning and
  iteration by the instructor to decide groups.
• Ideally, students should have prior experience
  with many of their classmates in order to
  accurately make judgments.

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No No

• The No-No method forces students to work with
  people with whom they would ideally choose not to
  work.

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No No

• Pros
• Well suited for teaching students how to make bad
  teams work.
• Students gain experience/skills in working with
  polarized personalities.
• Cons
• Some instructor intensive choices are required
  for team formation.
• This team forming method is typically only
  suitable for short-term projects.

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Team Forming in Practice

• In practice, there are many things to consider
  when deciding what methods to use to form teams
• Goal of the team
• Duration of the project
• Desired diversity
• How well you want the students to match up

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Team Forming in Practice

• Remember, many of these methods are not mutually
  exclusive and may work best as a subset of
  another plan.

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Summary

• Weve shown
• Several team formation methods that should help
  augment the instructors toolset.
• The pros and cons of each method so that
  intelligent and appropriate selection can be
  made.

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Q A