Written by Sarah Hilton a current teacher trainer and not an AI :0)
I am currently teaching T Level Business Management and Administration. I am in charge of delivering unit 2 "people".
These last couple of weeks my group have been tackling the topic of teamwork and in order for them to reflect on their 'Belbin' role they first needed to complete a series of activities. Below are the teamwork activities, the resources and a rating of how well they went.
In the previous lesson they had found out their VARK preferred learning style so we were linking these activities to that.
1) Students lined up in the hallway and tried the silent sorting activity to work out who was the tallest, who had the next birthday and who lived furthest away. This worked well and I give it 7/10 as an activity, no resources required. (Kinaesthetic activity: VARK)
2) Students sat back to back (also works in a three) with mini whiteboards and one describes while the other two draw. Great for communication and for teamwork. I used these diagrams LINK for students to draw and mixed it up around the room. They then swapped over and had a chance to draw or explain in the opposite role. 8/10 great activity. (Auditory activity: VARK)
3)Students then had a cut and stick activity with questions and answers from the previous week's lesson on VARK. I used this LINK to find out their preferred learning style. The twist was that the instructions said they should ask to see the answers. If they had done they would see that all the answers were in the correct order. They had all cut up their sheets without fully reading the instructions making the task almost impossible. 3/10 Students felt 'swizzed' that they could not complete the cut and stick as advertised, and that it was, in reality, an exercise in reading and working together. (Read / Write activity: VARK)
4) Students were given A3 paper and a list of topics from the whole term. They were to complete a team mind map with prizes. No catch this time, just a mind map as a group. I gave out too much paper to see what would happen and quickly teams became individuals wanting to complete the task. Interesting outcome and one they can reflect on in the next lesson when we link to Belbin. 4/10 (Read/ Write activity: VARK)
5) The final activity was a class photo collage and I sent students out to take photos that met with the criteria. No catch, but time limited. Four groups became three as they went round looking for images to fit the criteria. Interesting that they worked out that "many hands make light work" for this activity. Time was tight but they did get the results uploaded in the end. (Visual activity: VARK)
Next moves
I have more teamwork lessons based round Belbin and reflection on how they did in the practical activities. I will also link all of this to VARK to increase their understanding of these concepts.
Reflection for us as teachers is also important, especially in these complex lessons with lots of moving parts. The time shift to move between activities and the time to explain what is happening next needs to be factored in to lesson timings, with plenty of slack at the end for discussion and student feedback.
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