Katheryn,
I sympathize with your dilemma. I've faced a similar one several times over the years. However, I have never re-formed the teams and fortunately, with one exception*, none of my fears have ever materialized. Nonetheless, I'm not sure what to recommend because I don't have three critical pieces of information:
1) How large are the groups?
2) What proportion of your group assignments conform to the 3 S's (i.e., Same Problem, Specific Choice, Simultaneous Report)?
3) How much confidence do you have in your diagnostic exercise for this specific class?
If your teams are 5-7 members and the majority of your assignments are designed around the 3 S's, I'd recommend maintaining the existing groups. Further, I am reasonably certain that the group you are worried about will be just fine. I've seen hundreds of 5-7 member groups in which no individual member was more than just barely above average for the class, perform at an extremely high level¯often above similar groups with one outstanding individual. Further, you'll be able to learn a great deal about both your assignments and your diagnostic exercise. If, however, the groups are 4 or smaller and/or quite a few of your assignments don't conform to the 3 S's, then the risk of a bad group is high enough that I'd probably "bite the bullet" and reform the groups.
I hope this helps.
Larry
*The only time that problems ever actually came about was in a large class in which 3 members of minority group decided to "trade" group assignments so that they could work with one of their mutual friends who was a member of the same minority group. Thus, 4 members of a 7-member group started out as a cohesive sub-group¯and never got over it.
Larry K. Michaelsen
Professor of Management
Dockery 400G
Central Missouri State University
Warrensburg, MO 64093
O: 660 543-4124
F: 660 543-8465
>>> Kathryn McKnight <[log in to unmask]> - 1/22/05 9:02 AM >>>
Dear All,
Has anyone meddled with team composition at the beginning of a semester? We
just formed the teams in the last class meeting, and students have only
spent about 45 minutes in teams, introducing themselves and doing a practice
RAT over the syllabus.
I've used TBL only once before, and am now teaching the same course
again--Introduction to Hispanic Literature. In this second go-around, I used
the same group characteristics as I had before to organize the students into
a long line from which they counted off to form teams. But, when I later
looked at group composition in relation to the results of a diagnostic
writing exercise, I found a significant imbalance. One team is notably
stronger than the other three and one is significantly weaker in the
academic skills most important to achieving class goals. In past classes,
this writing exercise, which assesses analytical thinking and fluency in
Spanish, has been very predictive of students' individual success in the
course.
What I would like to do is take one academically strong student from the
stronger group and trade her/him for one academically weaker student from
the weakest group. I could explain to the class that, when I looked at the
personal information cards they filled out the first day, I found less
diversity of experience and identity in two of the four teams than in the
other two, and that it is important that all teams share the same degree of
diversity. The statement is true, but avoids stating that the imbalance has
to do with academic skills. The information cards ask for language history
[bilingual, heritage speaker, etc.], academic major, prior coursework in
literature, work experience, and experience living or studying in a
Spanish-speaking country. These are the criteria I used to form the
counting-off-into-teams line.
Any advice? Thanks!
Kathryn J. McKnight
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
MSC03 2100
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
Office (505) 277-3924
Fax (505) 277-3885
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