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Investigation
into the effectiveness of project work and
practical work if pupils are organised according
to Belbin Team Roles |
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School:
Sexey’s School, Somerset |
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Fellow: Tracey Coleman |
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Email: tracey@colemant1.fsnet.co.uk,
tcoleman@sexeys.somerset.sch.uk |
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Aims |
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The aims of the project are to try and improve
the effectiveness of pupil’s group work.
The potential benefits to teaching include:
more effective use of time and resources by
pupils and teacher; every pupil has a positive
contribution to make and they learn to value
the different roles of others; pupils become
more confident and more willing and able to
work as a team. |
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Why Is Group Work Important? |
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We often use the terms “group”
and “team” without really being
precise about what we mean. In this project,
the term group or team, means two or more
people working together, sharing resources
and working collaboratively towards a common
goal.
In the workplace it is an almost automatic
requirement that employees will accept working
in teams and that they have the required skills
in order to do so. The effectiveness of these
teams has a direct impact on the success or
failure of a business and many businesses
spend vast amounts of time and money trying
to ensure they have the correct structure
in place and that their staff have the skills
needed to work well together.
In education we organise pupils into groups
via their forms, year groups, key stage, subject
areas, and sports houses and teams. Many of
these pupil groupings are administrative and
are based on age, ability or are random. They
aren’t necessarily designed with benefits
for pupils in mind. Plenty of studies have
shown that pupils benefit personally and educationally
from effective group work - self esteem can
be improved, there can be improvements in
social, racial and inter gender relations,
together with improved educational attainment.
So we know that pupils benefit directly whilst
in school and that outside school these skills
are recognised, so why don’t we pay
more attention to groupings? |
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Groups and Assessment |
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In today’s climate of virtually constant
monitoring and assessment, there does not
seem to be a place for assessing pupils as
part of a group, unless their work can clearly
be attributed to them as individuals. Pupils
have come to connect worthwhile tasks with
achieving a good grade or tangible results,
not necessarily with developing skills or
working together towards a common goal. For
pupils, the idea of being assessed as part
of a group can have some alarming consequences
and challenges, such as how will their mark
be affected by others and how will they make
sure that their work is recognised? |
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Belbin’s Ideas on Teams |
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Belbin’s studies looked at how well
teams worked together, highlighting the fact
that some teams performed better than others.
Team members were given a series of psychometric
tests looking at personality and mental ability
and the results were used to form teams where
members had particular types of characteristics.
These new teams were then allowed to work
together and their performances compared.
What the researchers found was that teams
had an optimum make up, with each member contributing
characteristics which balanced well with characteristics
of other members of the team. The aims of
this project weren’t to establish formal
roles and teams strictly in accordance with
Belbin, but to use the established principles
to guide group organisation. |
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Progress and Feedback |
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Initial discussions with pupils on how teams
work and what makes a good team revealed that: |
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most pupils believed that
it was important to work with people
you liked rather than people who were
good at a particular task and given
a choice they chose by friendship group |
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most pupils claimed
to enjoy working in groups, although
when asked to explain why they enjoyed
it, it seemed that they enjoyed the
opportunity for social rather than educational
interaction! |
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there were a minority of pupils who
did not enjoy group work and who did
not want to be assessed with others
as part of a group. |
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most pupils recognised that a team
needed different kinds of people, with
different kinds of skills and knowledge
to work well, |
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younger pupils weren’t clear
about how they might fit into a team
or what qualities they might bring,
but as pupils got older they seemed
to be able to identify skills within
themselves that might be useful in a
team. |
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In their new groups: |
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Many pupils didn’t like
their new groups because they weren’t
working with their friends anymore and had
some clashes with people in their new groups,
but on a more positive note: |
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Many recognised that there
were skills that others had brought
to the group that had been useful and
that there was a better “balance
in the team”. Some pointed out
that there had been fewer disagreements
about what to do and that they had often
allowed the team leader to make the
final decision. In some cases pupils
disagreed with the decision but had
continued with their tasks |
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Many felt that they
had an identity or role in the group
which was now clear, but that they weren’t
always sure what this role meant they
had to actually do |
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Most said they would not want to continue
working with their new groups, although
interestingly some of those pupils who
had tended to be excluded from the friendship
grouping arrangements were quite positive
about staying in their groups |
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Some pupils recognised that there
were long term benefits possible from
working in a team and that teamwork
skills were recognised by employers
and that they could benefit from understanding
more about how they worked in teams.
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Challenges and Next Steps |
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Restricted long term trials
of groups. By their nature, groups need time
to establish, pupils need time to settle into
their roles and for the group dynamics to
settle. Whilst feedback from one off trials
with pupils has, on the whole seemed positive,
I have not been able to run groups for any
length of time and adequately prove the effectiveness
of the new set up. I have now identified two
groups to use - one within the science department
and one year 10 Young Enterprise Group. |
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Some pupils within the groups
identified problems using the questionnaires.
Younger pupils or pupils with low literacy
ability found it particularly difficult to
complete. I then changed to asking them to
discuss verbally in small groups, the areas
they thought needed improvement. I prompted
some discussions and introduced other aspects
for them to consider. This proved easier for
more pupils to access, but did not provide
a quantitative approach to “ranking”
problems. This approach relied on the teacher
accessing pupil’s views. I will need
to re write the role identification questionnaire
before the next trials. |
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Suitable projects for group
work have not always been available in the
current schemes of work in the science department.
It is important that groups are not given
artificially created projects to work on,
as these are a waste of time for both pupils
and teachers. With pressure to “get
through” content in time for exams or
to keep on track with schemes of work, it
is important that teachers and pupils have
projects which fit with the content and learning
objectives for a particular module. |
