Hi all,
Almost all of the work in my classes is TBL, and almost all of that work is done in class. However, I occasionally assign work that requires student teams to meet and work outside of the classroom. I, too, have observed that students who behave beautifully in their teams in the classroom often abandon that behavior outside of the classroom and revert to their old bad behaviors. I have, to some extent, ameliorated this behavior by requiring student teams to draw up contracts with each other prior to beginning out of class work, and this may work for you in teams and work that do not have the built-in accountability of TBL projects.
The contracts are entirely up to the teams, but must include all out of class meeting times and locations, individual and team responsibilities, due dates for all work and specific penalties if any of those agreed-upon items are violated in any way. So, meeting at an unscheduled time that excludes a team member would be just as bad for the grades of those who excluded the team member as skipping a meeting or failing to complete assigned teamwork. The contracts must be signed by all team members before they leave class on the day the assignment is given. Any amendments to the contract must be signed by all team members. When things come up and students fail to fulfill their duties I allow teams to tell me why they think a team member deserves clemency...but they must take off the agreed-upon points, and I always make the final clemency call. If students receive grade deductions from their team members, those must be justified, too, but they typically boil down to the 'they missed three scheduled meetings' variety, and I seldom question them.
I know this is a bit (a lot!) regimented, but it saves me a ton of last-minute scapegoating /blame fest meetings when teams perform poorly.
Cheers,
Tammy Tobin
Professor of Biology
Susquehanna University
On Nov 27, 2016, at 12:54 PM, Dolowitz, Annetta R <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Hi there.
Part of my posting this situation was to see if any of you may have suggestions on how to approach this NON-TBL team. This class is both TBL and Service Learning. Thmeans that I essentially have two teams for each student: the class TBL team and then their service learning project teams. The latter is NOT a TBL team. This is the first time I have used teams for the service learning projects. As I just stated to Mark, I "assumed" that the skills would transfer. And yes, I know feel like the 'ass' in assume! (Apparently undergraduates do not necessarily transfer the team skills that occur in class to outside teams, despite that we are teaching these skills at the same time. This could be an interesting study for us!!!)
Thanks for input on how to approach this NON-TBL team now that there are three weeks left. Any ideas would be great because they are presenting their Service Learning Project results next Monday as a team.
ard
Annetta Dolowitz, MSW, MPH
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