Forming is the first stage of team development and begins as soon as a team is created. This stage is where students get to know one another and are typically introduced to the assignment or overall goal the instructor has in mind when creating teams. This stage is a great time to introduce a teambuilding activity. You can run ‘teambuilding activity example’ through Google and receive many great examples. The activity I often use is a “Lost at Sea” teambuilding activity that takes ~30 minutes of class time in a class of 30 students.
Another good assignment for this stage is the team contract. This is a short document where the team outlines how they will communicate (for instance, email, phone, face to face meetings) the frequency of communication, meeting times and dates, how they will handle situations where a member misses a meeting, how they will handle situations of disagreement, and begin thinking about each team member’s role on the team. This document is then turned in to the instructor.
In addition to the Team Contract encouraging the team to think about how they will organize around the project, the contract also serves as a reference for the instructor throughout the semester. For instance, if a team comes to you and reports that a team member missed the last 3 team meetings, you can reference the team’s contract to help determine how to deal with this student. The contract helps to remove the instructor as the sole authority regarding how to deal with a team member that might not be participating; the team contract should outline how the team wants to handle these situations, the instructor simply enforces the contract.