 |
Investigation
into the effectiveness of project work and
practical work if pupils are organised according
to Belbin Team Roles |
|
|
| |
 |
School:
Sexey’s School, Somerset |
|
Fellow: Tracey Coleman |
|
Email: tracey@colemant1.fsnet.co.uk,
tcoleman@sexeys.somerset.sch.uk |
|
|
|
|
Aims |
| |
|
| |
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. |
| |
|
| |
Progress on problems since last
report |
| |
|
| |
One of the problems highlighted
last time was the long term trialling of groups.
Since then I have had a group that I’m
teaching personally for a longer period of
time and also trialled some ideas with sixth
form groups. |
| |
|
| |
Suitable projects - I had originally looked
for longer term projects for pupils to work
on as this would give time for pupils to settle
into and develop their roles. I did vary this
and allowed groups to stay together for a
number of shorter pieces of work. |
| |
|
| |
Questionnaires - Having tried
out different version of the Belbin questions
I decided that this was too complicated for
the pupils to complete, time consuming to
analyse and difficult to subsequently communicate
to the pupils. I changed this approach following
some discussion work with pupils.
I set group work tasks for pupils to do. They
then of course arranged themselves by friendship
groups! I then gave pupils a list of qualities
and asked them to choose 3 strengths and three
weaknesses from the list. Before telling them
what the task was I gave them specific criteria
that would be important for the task. This
resulted in pupils analysing who had what
strengths within their groups. Within their
friendship groups they then recognised the
strengths of their group and that certain
skills were missing! Pupils then did some
re arranging amongst themselves. All pupils
recognised that some people wouldn’t
work well together regardless of whether they
had the right skills or not and were fairly
diplomatic about this process.
Once given the task or project I asked pupils
to divide up the task and match up the skills
required for each element of the task or project. |
| |
|
| |
Further discussions with groups
identified tasks and skills that would be
needed regardless of the type of task. We
called these “core team skills”
- such as organisation, planning, motivation,
supporting others, attention to detail, ideas,
monitoring progress, research, presentation.
Additional skills that were task specific
or unusual we called “specialist skills“-
as you can imagine there were a wide range
of these e.g. specific drawing skills or presentation
skills, developing IT resources, physical
strength;
We discussed ideas about developing our weaker
skills with a “coach” in the group
and whilst some were reluctant to try at first,
they appreciated the ideas and suggestions
given by other group members. |
| |
|
| |
Summary of progress and outcomes |
| |
|
| |
Despite a rather erratic start
to the project it gathered momentum towards
the end, but not in the way I originally anticipated!
My original resolution that my research would
be closely tied to Belbin team roles proved
too cumbersome and rigid to apply to my situations
and my efforts to make it “fit”
just resulted in frustration. I could clearly
see the problems I wanted to address, but
wasn’t getting anywhere fast so I decided
to change my approach. It didn’t really
matter to the pupils what the roles were called,
as long as the roles were filled and the group
worked well. I decided to try a less quantative
approach (very difficult for a scientist at
time) which gave me more flexibility and a
more user friendly approach. This was still
time consuming, but pupils found it easier
to access and allowed me to change the approach
slightly for each group. By the second or
third task, some older groups had caught on
and quickly came up with sets of skills needed
for the task and divided up the task according
to their knowledge of each other from previous
tasks. They recognised that some skills were
common to all tasks (actually not too far
away from the Belbin roles as it happened).
Pupils realised that if they divided up a
task by skills and worked to their strengths
they had more successful outcomes. |
| |
|
| |
Of my original aims: once pupils
had had one or two groups sessions working
in this way they worked more quickly and efficiently;
were confident in their roles and what they
were contributing; recognised the contribution
of others and worked more co operatively.
Where groups developed well, I spent less
time dealing with disputes and prompting them
into constructive work.
When we set up a “coaching” system
many pupils enjoyed trying out new roles.
Some pupils found that they hadn’t always
had the opportunity or confidence to try out
these other roles previously. Some vowed never
to try again, but other found skills and qualities
they didn’t know they had. This was
personally very satisfying to see.
As a teacher it wasn’t all perfect of
course, some groups took to this approach
well and others still resisted - but I figured
that I couldn’t win them all! |
| |
|
| |
Looking ahead I will continue to encourage
pupils to think about the task or project
skills needed, before automatically launching
themselves into groups with their friends.
Whilst many still find it hard to break the
peer pressure issues in groupings, they are
at least recognising their own strengths and
weaknesses and those of the groups in which
they may find themselves. |
| |
|
| |
As a teacher it’s made me think more
carefully about group work and its role in
the classroom. I believe that school isn’t
about where you just learn some facts and
how to pass exams. If pupils know themselves
well and are equipped to work with others,
then they have a head start in the workplace. |
| |
|
| |
Looking back at the project as a whole I
would probably do it differently if I had
to start again now, but that’s hindsight
for you. I did need to change my approach,
but I believe I still tackled some of the
issues I set out to investigate and that I
and my pupils have benefited from being involved
in the whole process. |
| |
|
| |
My thanks to all at Gatsby. |
| |
|
