During the first week of school team-work, communication, and collaboration was a large focus of activities and discussions. The photos above highlight a few key activities.
- Team-Building: Early on, our classroom had discussions about what made successful teams. Through a "team player personality quiz" students concluded that it takes different types of team members to make a group successful. After determining which team member they were, students were organized into groups and had to work to complete a puzzle as team. We discussed how effective teams have team members who contribute in different ways.
- Buddy Interviews: As part of a "Get-to-know-you" activity, students held interviews with each other learning more about their classmates. They also had the opportunity to practice "Respectful Listening" which was a communication skills discussed previously in class. After interviewing each other, students took what they learned about their buddy to compose "Buddy & Me" papers. Their writing will be posted to their blogs early next week!
- Communication Rally: We spent one classroom period talking about different communication strategies (i.e., making eye contact, asking open-ended questions, speaking slowly with an enthusiastic tone, etc.) and then students had to practice these strategies in action! They were given the following task to complete: You and a partner will have to use effective communication skills to accomplish your task today. Each team will be given to sets of shapes which are identical. The first person will need to create a unique arrangement that includes all of the shapes given. Then, they will need to communicate specific directions given to the other partner as to how to arrange the shapes to match the design created by the first partner. The goal of your task is to communicate effectively!
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