This workshop was designed to allow students to select appropriate groups in order to achieve an assessed coursework task, and not to automatically work within friendship groups.

The aim of the workshop was to help students to think of themselves as a team with a job to get done; to get them to consider and analyse the factors which will lead to their success, and to choose their groups to allow them to be effective. Students are encouraged to think about the group productivity rather than achievement of individual tasks.

Students examine theory on getting results from people; characteristics of effective teams; and common behavioural types. Students then randomly form into groups and groups are paired, with each individual in the group being paired with a student from the paired group. One group is then given a practical task to undertake (e.g building a paper bridge from materials provided) and the students from the paired group observe the activity, with each student observing their paired partner. The observers note the individual and group behaviours and classify each member according to a theory of behavioural types (action; caring ;detail; co-ordinator; thinking), noting examples as evidence for their classification. The groups then swap with the observers performing a different practical task, and the first group observing. The paired students then give feedback to one another and the students agree on the behavioural type they feel best reflects them, and they wear a badge to indicate which type they are. Students who are classified as co-ordinators are then asked to select their groups in order to produce a team most likely to be successful in the task set.
Students are aware, from the theory session, that often teams have to come together with a less than ideal mix of characteristics, but that group members can be aware of deficiencies in the group and can use behavioural styles they do not usually apply in order to become effective team members. As part of the assessed work the group has to produce a rationale for the formation of their group; detail how they organised themselves in order to achieve the task and reflect on how well they worked together as a team and how they could make changes.