Mark--
Dominating students is a problem. I have attached one exercise that I have used at the start of the semester to mitigate this (as well as other) team problems. The attachment contains 6-7 vignettes that represent common problems that teams face. I hand out the problem, one per team, and give the team only 2 minutes to "solve the problem". All six teams write as much as they can in that two minutes (note that each have a different vignette). When two minutes are up, each team folds the paper to cover the comments and passes it to the next team. The new team is not allowed to read what the previous team(s) wrote. The exercise continues for another 2-3 passes. On the last pass, the final team gets to read the previous comments, as well as report back to the class on their final recommendations. Feel free to edit the comments as you see fit, to meet the problems that you commonly see.
Why does this work? I think teams go through some cognitive dissonance: teams are less likely to exhibit the dysfunctional behaviors, since they have discussed why they are dysfunctional, as well as how to handle them. The short timeframe makes them focused on solving the problem, so they don’t have time to self-examine their own behaviors. Also, the exercise give teams a safe language for dealing with these behaviors, if they do manifest themselves. If "Gary" is the talkative student in one of the problems, for example, and one of the members overshares, one team member can say, "OK, 'Gary', let's let someone else talk."
Another suggestion: At the start of class, have the team assign each member a number (1-7). At the start of an exercise, tell the team that #3 is expected to report back, so be sure to brief him/her. Rotate the numbers during the session. If your students are advanced enough, don’t tell them until just before the report back: then all members will need to be ready, since none will know who will be reporting.
Finally, I might suggest dividing the group into two teams. Seven is pushing the size a bit, and large teams encourage more passive students to hide. Two smaller teams might up the participation a bit.
Mark A. Serva, Ph.D. | Associate Professor of MIS
Advisor for Management Information Systems Programs
012 Purnell Hall | Newark, DE 19716-2715 <x-apple-data-detectors://4/0>
Office: 302-831-1795 <tel:302-831-1795> | Mobile: 302-562-4308 <tel:302-562-4308> | Email: [log in to unmask]
On 1/21/19, 2:49 PM, "Team-Based Learning on behalf of Mark Stevens" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi all -
I'm currently teaching a 7-person class with a single team. I am finding
that one of the students talks almost non-stop during the team
activities, and that 3-4 of the remaining students say almost nothing
because the talkative student doesn't give them much of a chance. The
talkative student is very knowledgeable and is usually saying something
useful and on the right track, but I am worried that the other students
will disengage and get frustrated.
I always have my teams complete an ungraded midterm peer evaluation to
provide constructive feedback to their teammates on their
behavior/performance, and the midterm comments always include some
combination of encouraging the talkative students to give quieter
students more chance to talk, and encouraging the quieter students to
talk more. As a result, I have found that the students tend to balance
out the over/under talkativeness issues on their own via the midterm
peer evaluation comments, if not sooner.
But in this case, my talkative student is SO talkative that I'm not sure
I should wait another 3-4 classes for the midterm evaluation to start
the process of balancing the team out and I wonder if I should intervene
in some way to help out.
What do you all think? Do you think I should intervene (and if so,
how?), or should I leave it up to the students to find a better balance
on their own?
Thanks,
Mark
--
Mark Stevens, PhD, MCIP
Associate Professor, School of Community & Regional Planning
Director, Planning Evaluation Lab
University of British Columbia
433-6333 Memorial Road
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada
http://www.scarp.ubc.ca/people/mark-stevens
604-822-0657
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