This initial step in implementing a team activity in your class can play a huge factor in its success as a learning opportunity. As an instructor, it is important to consider various factors when forming teams among your students when planning groupwork.
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Choosing a Team Size
There is no set number for a “best group size,” but rather several considerations to bear in mind when deciding the sizes of teams. For instance, for tasks with a small scope, smaller groups of around 3 to 5 students may work best, while large projects with many sub-parts may warrant larger groups of up to 9 students or more. Below are some key aspects that are good to factor in when deciding an appropriate team size.
Amount and nature of work: It is important to match the expected workload with the group size. If a group is too large, not everyone may be able to contribute, whether through intentional freeloading or simply not having enough to do. Also, if students are expected to complete tasks outside of scheduled class hours together, large groups may find it difficult to find times to meet.
Diversity of membership: You may consider a team size that allows a fair degree of diversity: how you distribute the different skills, knowledge and experiences of your students may impact how well they learn as well as can help level the playing field in your class. Diverse teams tend to outperform groups of like-minded or similarly skilled individuals. Similarly, small teams may also lack variation in perspectives, thought, knowledge and skills that can help a team thrive. If you will be assigning teams, another aspect to consider is putting multiple international students or underrepresented students on the same team. Otherwise, only having one such student on a team tends to lead to isolation or being assigned lower priority tasks.
Class size: As an instructor, you may simply be constrained by the number of students enrolled in the class. Consider how can groups be split up while remaining relatively even in number.
Resources: Be mindful if the tasks require specific or specialized resources or equipment. Sometimes resource limitations might necessitate fewer groups even though they will be larger sizes. Consider ways to creatively assign and distribute tasks to overcome larger size limitations. Alternatively, if possible, look at ways to rotate groups between these limited resources.
How to Form Teams
As an instructor, you will need to decide how your students will be grouped into a team. Different methods have different ranges of instructor preparation and may tend towards different outcomes. Which method works best can depend on the needs of the tasks, the students and your resources. Letting students form their own teams or teaming students at random is often sufficient for small projects or classroom exercises, but we recommend putting more preparation time towards intentional grouping (by interest or skill) for longer-term projects that will have a larger grade impact. Below are the main ways to form teams, from low to high instructor preparation.
- Students form their own teams: As an instructor, this is less work for you while allowing students to have more control in their learning experience. However, this may also lead to unbalanced teams as well as certain students being excluded depending on the current social dynamics of your class.
- Random: This method also has a low amount of preparation needed but with a higher likelihood for variation across the team. However, students may have less buy-in for their group tasks.
- Based on project interest: This approach is student-centered, with students more likely to be more invested in their work. However, teams may be unbalanced in skills and experience. This may also take more time to prepare, since you will need to survey students on their interests (as well as may need to guide students in figuring out their interests).
- Based on relevant skills and experience: This will promote a team balanced in strengths and knowledge to complete the task. However, this also requires the most time by the instructor to survey, capture and distribute the different skills and experience of their class. Here are some example questions to survey your class with, or consider using the Team Maker Quiz in Canvas.