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January 22, 2006
Team Project Decisions
When deciding to construct a team exercise, we need to make decisions about the following factors:
- Size -- the number of students per team. So far, I've used teams of 3 or 4. But, I understand some classes have teams of 7 or 8.
- Duration -- how long does the team work together. Some teams exist only for the duration of a class period, others span several classes, several weeks, and some professors allocate teams for the entire quarter or semester.
- Grading -- how are grades to be assigned? Do all students receive the same grade? Do students do peer reviews? Is there an individual component to the grade as well as a group grade?
- Member Selection -- who selects team members? and how? Do students make their own teams, or does the professor make the assignment. Are teams constructed randomly, or does the professor attempt to balance the teams. If the latter, on what criteria are they balanced? By major? by year? by specific expertise?
- Project Assignments -- what is the team to do? What tasks make for effective team learning and what tasks should be avoided?
I want to address each of these dimensions sometime this Spring in this blog. Meanwhile, if anyone has experience that has led to strong opinions (or questions) on any of these dimensions, would you please leave a comment or send me an email at this site? Also, I'd appreciate any references to work on this topic that others could use.
Posted by DavidK at January 22, 2006 12:14 PM | Permalink