Planning and starting group work
The activities and templates in the table below may be useful for use in group administration, planning and organisational issues.
| Activity | Description |
|---|---|
| Starting up | Collecting information for the first meeting (contact details, aims, meetings, agenda items, resources) (Bingham & Daniels, 1998: 30) |
| Group establishment | A template for getting groups established (Black, 2005) |
| Initial learning contract | A group learning contract to set directions, meetings, ground rules, and monitoring processes (Bingham & Daniels, 1998: 27) |
| Snapshot | Ask students to develop and create a snapshot that dramatises their groups' vision. Report the snapshots to the larger group, place on wall, and identify common themes (Williams, 1993: 10) |
| Team charter | Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, UTS "Team charter" |
| Team review | Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, UTS "Team review" |
| Team meeting | Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, UTS "Team meeting" |
| First meeting | A sample structure for the first group meeting (Bingham & Daniels, 1998: 39) |
| First meeting agenda | An example agenda to follow in the first group meeting |
| Meeting checklist | Keep meetings focussed and on track with this simply checklist (Gibbs, 1998: 33) |
| Action plan | An planning sheet for allocating and acting upon tasks (Bingham & Daniels, 1998: 79, 86) |
| Jobs list | Two sample job list tables to divide up tasks amongst group members (Gibbs, 1998: 24-25) |
| Eventful happenings | Keep your group motivated by taking time to step back from the specifics of the task and sharing some 'off-task' time together (eg celebrate a milestone or birthday, reflect upon and recount a recent success, invite someone different to the group, go out together) (Williams, 1993: 69) |