Josiah, Gerri, Kendall, Kelly

Group work can go two ways: catastrophic failure or epic winning.

One way to make group work less painful and more successful is the constant integration into class time. The class seating chart can be arranged into groups so the students are unwittingly, constantly improving their group work skills. Classroom setup can include themes which can help facilitate group competition, incentive, and group roles.

For example: each table can represent one “house” from Harry Potter and gain points for their team during class activities. Being in groups habitually, takes away the novelty and prepares students for group work outside of class.

Within each group, the students can assign themselves roles (also based on theme) to help facilitate the group work. For example, we made the labels “Keeper” (in charge of notes, material collection), “Beater” (time keeping, moral boosting, time management), “Seeker” (collect data, information, from notes/google/etc.  for group), “Chaser” (overall goals for day, task completion [in long range], turn taker control). Having defined roles will keep everyone participating and on task during class time, and help students manage tasks outside of class for group projects.