It’s important for you as a new teacher to understand class dynamic: students simply work better under competition. Which is why I almost always opt for team work; with the exception of some worksheet based activities which even then I usually put students into at least pairs. Pairs work great for putting less capable students with more capable students to even out work progress and also to get the better students something to do as often they excel and finish the work in lightning speed – remember your class is only as fast as your slowest student. Putting your best and your worst together help the worst to get better and help the best to work harder.
But teamwork is where true class energy lies. It’s important also to always mix the teams up every time, this way every student in the class gets to know everyone else, no one is singled out and no one is left behind.
Putting students into teams is an art form in itself. The usual way I create teams is by first selecting team leaders; these leaders change every time a new team work based activity begins. You could simply ask who wants to be a team leader and the first to raise their hands become the team leaders. Or you can make it more exciting. You can get all the interested candidates for being a team leader to roll a die and the two who have the highest number become the team leaders. But my favorite way of choosing team leaders, and also the kids’ favorite way, is by ‘guessing the number’. I will write on the back of a piece of paper or the whiteboard a number from 1 – 10 or from 1 – 20. Then going one by one, students guess which number I wrote, the student who guesses correctly becomes a team leader. Depending on how many teams you choose to have, you repeat this step. The team leaders then play rock paper scissors to decide who goes first, the winner then chooses one student to be in their team, the next team leader then chooses another student and so forth.
Team based activities help motivate students and create a purpose to complete an activity.
For the younger ones (3-5 year olds), it’s often vital to secretly rig the game so that both teams end up equal otherwise much despair and animosity will be felt from the losing team. But for older students, winning and losing is a vital lesson in life.
