Hi Bernie, It sounds like you have a very good approach to team bonding. Please send me a list of what you do. Getting teams to bond is an area I would like to improve on. Frank Dinan at Canisius College in New York has a similar approach. He teaches organic chemistry and has a different group of students than you do, but he firmly believes in the value of time spent in team bonding and orienting his students to the value of a team approach to learning. I have attached a copy of his "First Day" article.  Paul Paul C. King, Instructor Massasoit Community College [log in to unmask] (H) 781-784-2195 On Jan 30, 2009, at 2:20 AM, bmillar wrote: > Hi Sophie > I understand your problem, and think I may have something for you > to try. > > I teach at a South African University and am using TBL in very diverse > groups - multicultural as well as multilingual. Although we have > been a > democracy for 15 years now, the legacy of apartheid lingers on and > people > are still racially divided. > > I mix the teams up colour-wise and strengths-wise. So, it may be > that there > will be white students from excellent schools in the same team as > black > students from disadvantaged township schools, EFL and EAL in the > same team. > These are people who would normally not even talk to each other. > > Therefore, the very important thing is to get the teams to bond, so > I spend > the first class, when they are in their brand new teams, entirely on > ice-breakers and team-bonding exercises (I can let you have a list > of what I > do) that I find work very well. I invest time on teaching the teams > what a > team is, time-management in a team, conflict resolution, team roles > that are > swapped for every task to avoid social loafing and how to > communicate using > "I"-language. I do all this in a fun way so that there is a lot of > laughter > and enjoyment. At the same time I explain to the students what I > doing and > what they are learning in the process. I do all this right at the > beginning > of the course and have found that the teams gel and work very well > after > that for the entire term. > > I have used Prof. Dee Fink's taxonomy of significant learning to > design my > course, which contains the element of CARING. I go through the whole > taxonomy and explain to the students what I am doing, what the > course is > about and why it is so different from the other courses they have. > I pause > at the Caring section of the taxonomy and we brainstorm what caring > can mean > and then I explain how we are going to make this a core value of > each team > coupled with the African philosophy of Ubuntu (caring). Then the > teams do > tasks where they are given scenarios where caring has to be applied > and as a > team they have to work out how to do this, e.g. a team member's > mother has > suddenly died, how will the team respond? This takes the team > through a > discussion of the different cultural approaches to death and > mourning, and > then they come up with an appropriate response that is caring in > terms of > that person's personal Discourse. > > This is time-consuming, but without getting the team to bond first, > TBL > would be, in my opinion, a meaningless exercise. > > I just want to share some of the comments made by my students in > yesterday's > first Information Literacy TBL class: > > "I really enjoyed class today. I actually thought it was an odd way of > teaching but very effective". > "...for the first time I gave feedback and spoke in front of the > class, not > being shy of what I wrote." > "It was great to listen to the other student and what their dreams > entailed. > One realises not everyone is the same and there is always more to > learn > about one another." > "Today's class was a pleasant surprise. It was fun getting to know > group > members a little better". > "I thought the class was interesting and did well for team- > building. I also > didn't feel the need to fall asleep coz I was actually having fun!" > "It was a new way of learning, experiencing other people and what > they are > interested in...We get to know each other and get comfortable > around each > other and their beliefs. It was nice to get to know other people from > different groups and diversities. Time flies when you're having fun". > "I am a natural introvert, so it's very hard for me to be > interactive and do > these kinds of activities, but as we began, I started warming up to > the > group and wanted to be a part...I didn't feel like I was exposed or > forced > to do something". > "The dreaming exercise was a good starting point as everyone of us has > dreams...realising once again we may not all be the same age, colour, > gender, but we are made-up all the same. We all dream." > "In today's class I really had fun learning about other people in > my class, > what they do and what kind of things they like e.g. clothes, food, > music. I > also loved talking about the different music that my group listen > to cause > there's other kinds of music that I didn't know about". > "I was always tense in class coz I'm that someone with low self- > esteem but > after this class all that is gone. I'm a new person...I am proud of > who I am > and where I come from..." > > I think the comments above (there are many more in similar vein, not a > single negative comment)indicate the value of spending time getting > the team > to bond and to break down barriers. > > Hope this helps a bit. > Regards > Bernie Millar > Cape Peninsula University of Technology > Bellville Campus > Cape Town