Laura,
The key thing to remember is that the most significant outcome isn't the grade distribution system. It's getting the teams to face up to some realities about what members need to expect from each other and that might even happen more effectively when the discussion in the decision-making group gets, at least modestly, intense. However, the key is making sure that the decision making discussion takes place ONLY in the group of representatives and usually requires stopping the action and sending the reps back to their teams for a brief consultation at least one time. Quite often, students don't realize that stopping the action is even possible. Thus, if someone in the audience interjects an opinion (which generally happens because their rep isn't active enough to suit the commenter), I say something like, "if you want to talk to your representative raise your hand and we'll stop the action so you can do it." Normally, that results in a brief conference. At that point, I also announce that it is OK to change representatives and that, if you have a member with really strong feelings, they should probably be the one representing the group. The combination of those two things usually stops the audience comments. If an audience member is REALLY persistent in talking (which rarely happens), I address them directly and say something like, "You need to either be quiet or trade places with you representative, do you want have another break in the action so you can talk to your rep?" In hundreds of classes, I've had only one that couldn't reach an agreement. When that happened, I simply said, "Go back to your groups and I want EVERYONE to send up a different representative." They did and the new group reached an acceptable compromise within 2 minutes.
What should you do at this point. I think it's worth it to spend the time to reach a consensus. So I would summarize where you thought were the issues that needed to be resolved, remind the students about the rules for the discussion and have at it--but, make sure that you enforce the rules.
Good luck.
Larry
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Larry K. Michaelsen
Professor of Management
University of Central Missouri
Dockery 400G
Warrensburg, MO 64093
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>>> Laura Bird <[log in to unmask]> 01/11/11 12:17 PM >>>
Hello,
I'm hoping for some helpful advice. I tried the grade weight setting
exercise as described in Team-Based Learning and demonstrated in Larry
Michaelsen's video. My class did not react at all the way Michaelsen's did.
There were some good discussions but I could not for the life of me get the
non-task force members to be quiet. The task force was dominated by two
talkative members. Task force and class alike argued rather than
negotiated. I didn't leave enough time to do the exercise but we were not
even able to set the overall distribution within 25 minutes. We ran out of
time with some people quite upset and the impression that I had lost control
of the situation. I'm willing to dedicate another class period to this but
I'm not sure what I need to do differently to get a better result. Any
advice for how to better moderate the process?
Thanks for your time.
Laura Bird
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