In this episode we are going to be talking about teamwork or collaboration and how you can manage it well in your classroom, How you can get it to be successful rather than turning into chaos.
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I was watching my daughter play touch rugby the other night and I was reflecting on teamwork, so I just wanted to give you four tips on how you can manage teamwork in your classroom.
1. Identify a Leader
Tip number one, in any kind of teamwork, exercise or collaboration you need to know who is in charge, every group needs a leader. You need to be able to either allocate a leader or the group needs to choose a leader for themselves but you need somebody that can call the shots or call the direction. Often with group work if you have not got somebody that has clear instructions and is directing the group it turns into chaos. You have multiple people trying to do multiple things and it is very hard to manage, so help the students identify who the leader is in the group.
Whether you get them to pick out their roles out of a hat or whether you identify someone in the group to be the leader and then give very clear instructions about what the leader’s job is. Their job is to help assign the tasks, help to keep everyone on track and to direct the flow of the teamwork, so, help them find a leader.
2. Give Everyone a Job
The second thing is, you need to give everyone a job. An effective team on the field is a team where everybody has a role and everybody knows what their role is, they know how to contribute in effective ways. If everybody is trying to do the same thing that is an ineffective team. Everybody needs to have a role and needs to know what that role looks like and how they can actually contribute. It gives them a sense of purpose and meaning to what they are doing but it also gives them a really clear direction so they are not stepping on each other’s toes and causing unnecessary conflicts. So that is the second part, make sure everyone has got a role.
3. Make Sure That Everyone is Pulling Their Weight
The third thing is this, you need to make sure that everyone is pulling their weight. Very often in group work you will have a couple of people that stand back and do not say much, they do not do much either so you have to really make sure you are monitoring the group to ensure that everybody’s contributing and doing their part. This can be where a lot of the frustrations arise, when people are not pulling their weight they are not contributing in the way they should, other team members get frustrated and often arguments and conflict can ensue.
4. Learn to Coach More and Teach Less
The last point is this, probably where you come into most as a teacher and that is to take on the role of a coach. A coach is able to look from an outside perspective. You are not actually directing them, you are not the leader, you are not not taking control of the group or anything like that but a coach helps them to identify their weaknesses and gives them strategies on how they can overcome their weaknesses. So the things you need to focus on as a coach are the interpersonal relationships; how they can talk to each other, how they function in their roles and how they can most effectively contribute to the theme.
If you take on a coaching role and ask more questions rather than giving directions, it helps them identify what is going wrong. Help them identify what they need to change, then they will actually begin to own the change for themselves. They will begin to own the work for themselves and you will find them becoming more constructive and more cohesive as a team.
So these are just four little thoughts I had for you today on teamwork and managing teamwork in the classroom. Firstly, make sure there is a leader, somebody to direct the flow of the group, make sure everybody has a role and knows what their role is and how they can contribute. Ensure that everybody is pulling their weight and contributing equally, be a coach, do not be a teacher, ask questions, help them to get the best out of themselves and watch your teams flourish.
I hope that was really helpful for you, If you would like to learn more about behaviour management, understanding and educating boys or leadership, head to our website. We have a whole range of self-paced video courses that you can use to up skill yourself as a teacher.
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