Instructors can use a wide variety of methods for configuring a team. One of the first things to consider is team size. In general, teaming literature suggests that 3-6 students represent an optimal number for a team. This is not a hard rule, rather a guideline. Some instructors are very successful with teams of 2-3 people, while others use upwards of 10. Again, think of your overall goal for the team assignment, and the scope of the assignment. For short assignments that might stop at the brainstorming stage, you might prefer teams of 2-3. For multidisciplinary assignments that span a semester in a large enrollment course, you might prefer teams of 7-8. Part of the complexities of team configuration also lead to assessment questions, which we will cover shortly.
After determining the desired team size, you now must determine how to go about putting students into teams. This can be as easy as randomizing students within something like ANGEL, that provides a random team generator. Even without ANGEL, other options are available to randomize teams that include having students ‘count off’ in class, or placing names on index cards, and randomly pulling them out of a hat or pile. This method of team generation can be good in instances where the students are all at the same knowledge level and everyone should be able to contribute to the assignment equally. This technique may not work if the assignment calls for multidisciplinary teams.
The method I prefer involves first surveying the students on specific skills. For instance, “how comfortable are you with image editing programs?”, “how comfortable are you in a leadership role?”, “how comfortable are you managing a project?”, “how comfortable are you writing applications for the web?”. Depending on what skillsets are required to successfully complete the assignment, build a short survey and allow students to self-assess their own abilities in certain areas. Then, take the responses from the self-assessment survey, and try and distribute students evenly across teams. These surveys can be created in something like ANGEL using the survey tool, or you can use other tools such as Google Forms.
Another method is simply allowing students to self-select into teams. This is certainly viable, but can sometimes leave a few students that do not know one another in a team, while all the other students have selected friends. Generally, I allow students to self-select in small courses, such as graduate courses or small, discussion-based courses. This allows students to form teams around common interests. On the other hand, I find it more useful to survey students and place them into teams based on survey results in larger (20 or more) classes.
Activity
For the teaming assignment you have in mind for your course, what method do you plan to use to place students in teams? Why do you think that is the most appropriate method? Please respond using the “Reply” field below.