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