Rigor, Relevance, & Relationships

Team Building for Career Readiness

How instrumental are a student's people skills in predicting their future career success? Recent results from a study say that such skills are primary. According to data collected by the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 and analyzed in 2008 by sociologist Christy Lleras at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, social skills can be a better predictor of future earnings than standardized test scores. The study tracked 11,000 students from 10th grade until 10 years after their high school graduation. After analyzing the data, which appeared in the September 2008 Social Science Research, Lleras concluded that those pupils who teachers described as conscientious, motivated, and able to relate well to peers and adults earned an average $3,200 more yearly than those with equally good test scores but poorer social skills.

The instructional strategy often referred to as team-based learning is one way to help students tackle their people skill challenges before they ever set foot in the workplace. By encouraging team learning in the classroom, FACS teachers give their students the opportunity to hone their people skills to work together harmoniously and productively in a situation where everyone must pull their own weight to achieve ultimate success. Such skills are central to the teamwork practices that often form the foundation of workplace achievement.

A well-designed team learning activity provides students with the face-to-face interaction, group processing, and individual accountability that mimic the workplace environment. The following six strategies are designed to help students use such activities to improve their teamwork skills:

1. Teach students how to cooperate. Team-based learning defies what most students have been programmed to do: work as an individual. You can help by explaining and modeling the specific skills students need in upcoming activities, whether they include listening, sharing information, or reaching consensus. Be sure to give students the chance to evaluate their group's success using criteria that are based on the skills that were taught.

2. Use the subject and task to guide the type of group you will use. Team learning is most successful when the size and organization of the team fit the type of work that needs to be accomplished. For example, a two-person team may be appropriate for conducting a nutritional analysis of a recipe for a Culinary Arts class, whereas a group of three or four might be more appropriate for an observation project in a Child Development class.

3. Assign students to heterogeneous groups. Most experts agree that groups should contain a mix of different ethnicities and genders. You also should take into consideration how each student's personality and social skills will contribute to the group. By choosing the composition of the group yourself, rather than allowing students to do so, you can stretch students beyond their social comfort zone. You also can help create a successful group dynamic. Frequently change the group composition to allow students to experience different group dynamics and academic levels.

4. Give students explicit instructions for each activity to jump-start cooperation. Write on the board the first three or four steps students will take once formed into groups. This will help get students on task immediately. Monitor their progress throughout the class to make sure they know what they should be doing and to answer questions. Make yourself available by circulating from group to group during the activity

5. Hold each individual student accountable for participation and learning in group work settings. This can be achieved by assigning both a group grade and an individual grade. Make sure students know that they will each be held accountable for the material learned in the group work. Have students document their participation in the group and submit it to you.

6. Plan and organize transitions to group work. Transitions in any lesson can introduce an element of chaos if not planned and organized. Make sure students understand your expectations for an orderly and quick transition into groups. Assigning a role (leader, note taker, monitor) to each student on a team is an effective classroom management technique.

This material was adapted from McGraw-Hill Companies' Teaching Today Web site. For more information, go to http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com.