Forming Hetrogeneous Teams

What is the best team size for Cooperative Learning? Teams of four are magic! Teams of four allow for ¼ of the class to be actively engaged and participating at one time. More than four students on a team such as teams of five, six or seven deliver less active participation time per student. Teams of four double the lines of communication as illustrated below.

With groups of three there is always an odd-man-out with pair work. Groups of four allow pair work to be easily managed, The social aspect of a group of three is often a pair and an outsider. (For more info on team size see ‘Team Sizes’in Training Tips in the T2TUK Club area.)

What is the best team composition for Cooperative Learning?

For Cooperative Learning to effectively take place the class should be arranged into heterogeneous groupings. Heterogeneous means a total mix of ability, race, gender, culture, socio-economic, and character. Hetrogeneous teams produce the greatest opportunites: for peer tutoring and support, improved cross-race and cross-sex integration as well as providing peer role models for learning, behaviour management and classroom management. When students sit in mixed ability hetrogeneous teams there is no ‘top-table’ status and no ‘loser-table’ stigma. Therefore students experience equal status and improved self esteem.

How to form Hetrogeneous teams for Cooperative Learning?

The teams will be set up thus:

Therefore you need to sort according to ability first.

Setup:

• Set of index cards, 1 per student
• Class list
• Summative assessment

Steps:

1. Rank your class in order of highest to lowest achiever, based on the summative and or teacher assessment.
2. Divide the number of pupils in your class by 4. This will be the number in each group.
3. Start the grouping process at the top and create the High group first, then go to the bottom of the list and create the Low group. Divide the rest equally to form High Medium and Low Medium groupings. If there any odd numbers of pupils these can then be added to the High Medium or Low Medium groups.
4. Fill in the index cards for each pupil with their name, gender, group allocation, and any other relevant information pertinent to forming the groups. Keep as a record and to aid future team changes. (see illustration 1)
5. Spread the cards out and sort into rows (see illustration 2)
6. Once you have created the teams, according to ability, start looking at a mix of gender. If there is an imbalance note these 2 management points:
1. Do not put 3 girls with 1 boy - research indicates that the girls will ‘mother’ the boys.
2. Do not put 3 boys with 1 girl – research indicates that the girl will be ignored.

Then you need to look at a mix of race/culture/socio-economic and character. If a certain 2 individuals are not going to work well together initially, then keep them apart. Allow them more practice time at developing their cooperative skills before acknowledging that at some point they will be in the same team and will have to work together.

Change every 6 weeks so that every student has the opportunity to work with and support every other student in the class community over the academic year.

*Moral and Linguistic Research shows that we learn well from someone one level above or below our own developmental level.

(illustration 1)

Use this colour coding system to indicate groups:

• Blue –(High)
• Green – (High Medium)
• Yellow – (Low Medium)
• Red – (Low)

(Illustration 2)

(Illustration 3)

Shoulder and Face Partners