Tips to Building Successful Teams
Answers to common questions about forming student groups
How this will help
Project-based team learning is a great way to engage students and help them build real-world collaboration skills. But organizing your students into groups that blend easily and productively can be a daunting task at the beginning of the semester.
Below are common questions about forming student teams, along with answers to help you create team projects that support your students and their learning goals.
How can I get to know my students at the beginning of the course?
A student survey at the beginning of the course may help you learn about your students and form teams more effectively. Consider including any of the following questions in your survey:
- Where will you be living this semester?
- What days of the week are you most available to meet?
- What time of day are you most productive?
- What concerns do you have about teamwork in this class?
- What are your priorities or goals for yourself in this class?
- How much experience do you have with [skill relevant to the class or project]?
You can also survey students about personality characteristics and working styles. Here is a sample survey for rating personality characteristics:
In some cases, students with similar characteristics do well in the same groups; other characteristics are better served by being spread out among the teams. These insights help you build cohesive and equitable teams.
Consider the following guidance for grouping students based on the survey sample:
| Characteristics | Grouping Type |
| Extroverted vs. Introverted | Group diverse |
| Precrastinator vs. Procrastinator | Group similar to maximize team happiness Group diverse to maximize team productivity |
| Belongingness | Avoid stranding low-belonging students on a team of high-belonging students |
| Controlling vs. Collaborative | Spread out controlling students |
| Self-censoring vs. Contributing | Avoid stranding self-censoring students on a team of high contributors |
How should teams be formed, and which factors should instructors consider?
Forming effective teams is the first step in setting students up for success on their team projects. Here are some strategies for team formation:
- Aim for diversity in skills, experiences, and perspectives.
- Aim for similarity in schedules and campus location (or time zone if students are remote) to reduce logistics issues.
- Grouping students with similar time management approaches and procrastination styles may reduce conflict within the team, though it may also reduce project quality.
- Consider outcome goals, academic strengths, and previous experience with the topic and skills when forming teams.
If you have students who indicated they don’t enjoy teamwork or have conflicts with others, consider assigning them to a team with students who:
- Have strong collaborative skills and patience.
- Share similar goals for the class.
- Are empathetic and adaptable.
In some cases, it may be better to let a student work alone on a project, especially if they have previously had difficult team experiences due to factors outside their control (e.g. cultural differences, neurodiversity, etc.).
How can instructors make structured teams (with roles) work well?
Planning and communication are key when designing and assigning roles for group work. Important considerations include:
- Clearly define roles and explain how each role benefits the team’s success. Team roles can include a facilitator to lead team meetings, a timekeeper to track deadlines, and a reporter to record team decisions.
- Ensure equitable distribution of the fun or exciting tasks, or tasks that help students build critical skills.
- Rotate roles if possible. For example, note-taking should be a duty each team member takes on, rather than the same person always doing it.
- Talk about different leadership roles and how to share them in a team. Students can be idea leaders, task leaders, social leaders, or organization leaders (or a combination of leadership types).
| Leadership type | Strength area | Common contributions |
| Social leaders | Help to create the necessary social bond and cohesion among teammates | – Facilitate conflict resolution – Amplify teammates’ voices and ideas to increase equity of participation and contribution – Foster an environment of shared respect for teammates and excitement over the teams’ work |
| Organizational leaders | Offer needed structure to the team and project | – Spearhead conversations about team policies and norms – Develop and implement approaches to project scheduling – Provide big-picture project oversight to make sure all aspects of the work are moving forward as needed |
| Idea leaders | Help get the team’s work off on the right foot and provide a boost when needed later in the project | – Model strategies for idea generation – Suggest alternatives when a solution isn’t working – Collect, evaluate, and prioritize feedback |
| Task leaders | Make sure that the team’s work progresses by using their skills and strengths to complete project tasks | – Demonstrate and teach skills to teammates who are motivated to learn – Outline tasks, objectives, and strategies to complete tasks with teammates – Set deadlines and guide teammates when there are gaps in knowledge |
How can instructors form equitable teams?
Instructors should create teams thoughtfully to reduce learner barriers and encourage a sense of belonging, particularly for students who may hold a marginalized identity. Important considerations include:
- When possible, avoid stranding students who may be underrepresented in their area of study on a team of all majority students. You can accomplish this by asking an open-ended question about how each student would prefer to be grouped.
- Allowing teams to self-select may help, but it may also create more homogeneous teams.
- Forming teams based on self-reported sense of belonging may help accomplish this (e.g. not stranding students who report a low sense of belonging on a team with all high-belonging students).
- Consult with expert resources on your campus to develop strategies that meet this goal while complying with privacy, legal, and ethical considerations.
For more information on team equity, see the scoping review conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, as well as a graphic illustrating their findings. They identified seven themes of team equity: alignment, dialogism, heterophily, participation, power, ownership, and risk.
References
Legal notice: Protected identity characteristics (race, ethnicity, sex, etc.) cannot be used to assign students to teams, and should not be collected in any team formation survey. The Tandem survey tool meets these guidelines. For more information, reach out to the University of Michigan Office of the General Counsel.
Moffat, A. D., Matz, R. L., Fowler, R. R., & Jeffrey, M. (2024). Facets of Team Equity: A Scoping Review. Small Group Research, 56(1), 32-70.
Resources
- Center for Research on Learning & Teaching
- Carnegie Mellon University – Possible Roles on Teams
- Office of Student Conflict Resolution – Tips and Tools for Constructive Conflict Resolution
