Teams & Groups Do Not Equal Hitchhikers

Based on the format of Oakley's (2004) Table 1, my progression of forms to use in a 10-12 grade physical education classroom setting would look as follows:

1. Form: Individual group member introductions & group formations

Time: First day of physical education class

Objective: Divide students into teams of 3 or 4, avoiding homogeneity in skill level

2. Form: Group policy-making and Division of duties

Time: Second physical education class

Objective: To get students to comprehend rules and conditions to abide by within their group, possible consequences of actions, and understand individual duties within a group framework

3. Form: Common group mistakes

Time: First week of physical education class

Objective: Promote groups to rework unsuccessful policies & promote awareness of more successful strategies

4. Form: Reflective Journaling

Time: Every 2 weeks of each semester

Objective: Students will reflect on group dynamic, successes, failures, how to become more effective as group, and how they plan to tackle what is to come next

5. Online Team Evaluation (for each group member)

Time: Middle and end of each marking period (quarter)

Objective: Provides students with opportunity to share honest opinions and, hopefully, engage in fruitful discussions afterward

6. Project Presentation

Time: Last week of 2nd marking period, 4th marking period

Objective: Reinforce knowledge of the roles of all group members, present an understanding of the content contained in the areas covered by other members

7. Summarization of Team Evaluations for Peer Rating

Time: End of each quarter

Objective: Acts as a final, overall evaluation of individual contribution to the group effort and as a means to adjust individual grades for effort by person

The 10-12 grade physical education classroom setting can, undoubtedly, serve to benefit students by allowing students to achieve higher grades, retain information longer, and acquire greater teamwork skills. Forming teams is vital to effective group work. At this grade level, it would work best to have the physical education teacher choose teams of three or four with diversity in their levels of skill and an ability to meet outside of class at common times. Although instructors may be inclined to have students choose their own groups, it is logical to conclude that students in this situation would opt to work with friends and teammates who share common methods of "cutting corners" on group work.

Ensuring that groups are, indeed, effective in progressing is essential. It may be helpful to have the groups establish policies and set of expectations by which they can and should abide. Especially useful, in this scenario, is for teacher to examine the team policy statements to get an idea of an overriding set of class policies for all groups to follow. Additionally, it would prove very useful for high school physical educators to hand back these sets of policies and expectations as a reminder to groups of the respective guidelines they agreed on.

Finally, physical educators would benefit from considering the use of peer ratings in their group work assignments. Instead of focusing on peer ratings that emphasize relative contributions, and thereby favoring students who excel academically, peer ratings ought to emphasize the concepts of teamwork skills. In this sense, the students who drag behind academically will not suffer from a low grade on any given group assignment. These ratings can be used in an online method where students post and discuss them anonymously. The ratings, since following a Likert scale, will then be used to form overall grades that take into account individual effort. Individual efforts would be weighted based on the Likert scale scores.