In this teaching tip, we describe our approach to elevating the quality of group work in an information technology (IT) project management course by implementing three practices of experiential and peer learning that work more effectively when combined. The first practice addresses slacking in group work by applying a flipped classroom style that…

Graduate students face many challenges, and mentorship literature calls for adoption of various types of student supports. This Design Case (a form of scholarly writing focused on reflections on lived experiences) tells the story of the development of a "research family" as an alternative to a traditional research group from the…

Compared to more complex personality assessments, Wired That Way by Marita Littauer, presents four personality types that students find easy to understand and internalize: Popular Sanguine, Powerful Choleric, Perfect Melancholy, and Peaceful Phlegmatic. Students' awareness of their own and their peers' classification in this comprehensive…

This article describes how, the authors, as members of an action research writing group, responded to a comment about feeling vulnerable in risking bringing their work-in-progress to the group and in giving feedback to colleagues by adopting a cooperative inquiry approach to explore vulnerability and risk in the group. In cooperative inquiry group…

Three staples of management and organizational behavior classes are units on creativity, problem solving, and group decision making. This article presents an experiential exercise in creative problem solving in which the participants attempt to create a cartoon caption both individually and in small groups. The cartoons all come from "The New…

This article shares an approach specifically for fostering equitable small-group, student-to-student discourse (S[superscript 3]D). The S[superscript 3]D approach is a two-phase process focusing on implicit strategies. Phase 1 involves assessment of current small-group discourse through three lenses: group dynamics, discourse quality, and teacher…

This conceptual article examines the role of team-building in outdoor learning, reviews group development theory in relation to teamwork, and outlines the Behaviour Analysis model as a tool to facilitate team-building. Working with this foundation, the theory and model are combined with discussion about team, leader, and facilitator behaviours at…

This single-class activity augments the popular desert island activity to include a secret insider who aims to influence their group covertly. The motivation for this augmented activity is twofold: (1) to highlight and dispel notions of invulnerability to groupthink and (2) to provide an opportunity to engage in small-group decision making. To…

Effective collective learning demands that educators be fully present and actively engaged--both mentally and physically--during professional learning community (PLC) meetings. When teams build norms that explicitly support a culture of presence, honesty, and continuous reflection, they create an environment where every educator can contribute…

Ha and Kim (this issue) qualitatively portrayed how a marginalized student's attempts to position himself as an accepted member were constrained or afforded by other members in the small-group argumentation activities. From a framing perspective, the authors described the features and changes of the marginalized student's participation in…

Inclusivity and diversity are critical to maximizing team performance. This activity incorporates a popular party game that connects students with the learning objectives, demonstrating the vital roles inclusion and diversity play in the success of a business and the importance of building skills for maximizing teamwork. With little instruction to…

Considering the expansive context of the international Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community, SoTL scholars may wish to reflect and identify what exists for building and nurturing fellowship, and how they may be enacted in practice to benefit others. In this reflective article, we draw on our experiences as International Society…

Course: Small Group Communication. Objectives: Students will identify their personality traits; synthesize the relationship between personality, small-group interdependence, and grouphate; and apply collaborative skills and knowledge of individual personality differences in building small-group success.

Imagine two groups of students in your physics class or lab. In Group A, the students each take on a different task but invest an equal amount of time, energy, and effort in what they do. For example, one student might be the note-taker, while another operates the calculator, computer, or experimental apparatus, and a third keeps everyone on track…

Group improvisation encourages students to improvise in a collective setting to build confidence in their individual and group improvisational skills. In this article, I describe group improvisation methods that offer an accessible entry into creative music-making for learners in secondary school instrumental ensembles. Instructional…