PBL Birdside View: Getting To Know Each Other

I hate team builders, energizers, ice breakers or whatever you want to call games you play to get to know or connect with people. You wouldn't know I hate them if you ever play one with me. The competitive side of me takes over and I am immediately in it to win it. Sometimes it is not even a contest but I make it one.

Even though I hate it, I have not found a more powerful way for me to get to know my students and for them to get to know each other. I have found it to be an effective tool for building community even for those who would rather not "play". This year, I have made a commitment to do them more often than just the beginning of the year or when things seem off. My goal is to do one at least once a week after the syllabus project ends. I also complete other routines or tasks to get to know my students. In this post, I share how I use team builders to set the culture of the class, some of my favorite team builders, how I will use team builders to develop soft skills and ways I get to know my students.

Setting the Culture

To help set the culture of my class, I have students participate in what I call a lite version of PBL. I call it lite because it doesn't have all of the 8 essential elements of PBL. However, it has some of the key elements that can be easily done outside of a PBL and it helps to build the culture for when students complete a PBL. In the syllabus project, students are working to answer the driving question--"How can we create a fair and engaging learning environment?". While answering this question, we complete almost daily team builders.

Students are finding their seats through a class challenge

Starting with the first day of school, students get into their assigned seat by completing a challenge. The first student to class is the only person who can give the directions that are already written on the board. Everyone else has to be silent. This is usually a stretch for this student because the first student to class is typically a shy student. They have to sit in the correct order within a specified time frame. They do this challenge every day for 5 to 7 days depending on what day of the week school begins and how many schedule changes have to occur. Some examples of ways they have to sit include alphabetical order, height, number of pets or number of extracurricular activities. I take pictures the entire time so that I can see who are the leaders and followers and other personality traits.

Favorite Team Builders

My wonderful friend Myla Lee shared a great site of team builders with me a few years ago. It is http://www.teampedia.net/wiki/. I have been sharing this site with everyone I meet. One of the ones I have used on the site is Two Truths and a Lie.

I am in love with Kagan. In addition to having great collaboration structures for learning, they have great team builders. I have used a few activities out of their teambuilding book. I have used blind sequencing, match mine and team interview. I also love their team builder cube and silly sports and goofy games flip chart. The picture below is students playing "Magic 11" found on page 21 of the flip chart. Students move their fist in the air and a leader counts--one, two, three, eleven. On the count of eleven, students make a fist or show 1 to 5 fingers. They count and if they make 11 they win. If they don't, they try again but they can never tell people what number to use.

Developing Soft Skills

We always say we want students to be better communicators or critical thinkers or creative. However, none of these things just happen. We have to intentionally teach and assess it for students to develop it. I use team builders to teach various skills that I have as a goal for students. To teach a soft skill, I have students complete a team builder that brings out one of the skills I want students to develop. While they complete the team builder, I walk around collecting evidence of the outcomes I want students to have in regards to the skill. During the debrief, I point out the observations as well as lead a discussion with the students. For assessment, I walk around with a clipboard that has the seating chart and mailing labels with the learning scale. I observe a group and write the assessment of each student on the seating chart. I then write it on a mailing label and gives it to each student.

Other Ways to Learn About Students

I have every student complete an index card sharing details about themselves. I place all of the cards on a ring so that I can refer to them throughout the year and update them as I find out new information. Below are the details of what students write on the card. The front is basically their contact information and any important information they want me to know. Sometimes students have shared that their parents are getting a divorce or they have lost a family member recently.

A colleague shared with me a great form for students to fill out at the beginning of school as well. In addition to filling in the information. You can allow students to be creative and color in parts of the intro about themselves.