Lesson plan
Working Effectively In Groups
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to work as a team through the human knot activity and generate teamwork guidelines for their class.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Gather students into a circle either seated in chairs or on the floor.
- Remind students about the circle guidelines they created: the raised hand attention signal and talking piece (every week each student rotates and brings in a talking piece that means something to them).
- Have the student introduce the talking piece for the week.
- Welcome each student into the circle using the talking piece (each student welcomes another student in the circle).
- Share that today during circle time, they will be learning how to work effectively as a team and understand what teamwork means.
Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling
(15 minutes)- Share with your students that this year, there will be a number of times when they will work in groups so it is important to learn how to work together.
- Introduce the concept of teamwork through sharing about your favorite sports team and how each member of the team contributes in different ways. If you don't have a favorite sports team talk about a play or orchestra—go over how each person plays a unique role and has a specific responsibility to the team.
- Pair students off and have each pair brainstorm 3–5 words that connect with teamwork.
- Have pairs share out and chart student answers.
- Have each pair join another pair and, using the words generated in the brainstorm, each group of four will come up with a definition for teamwork.
- Chart group definitions.
- As a class, come up with 3–4 guidelines for working as a team.
Guided Practice
(15 minutes)- Share that students will be testing out their teamwork guidelines through the human knot activity.
- Have students stand up in a circle. If you have a large class, create 2–3 smaller circles so circles are no larger than 10.
- Have everyone raise their right hand and grab the hand of someone across the circle from them. No one should hold the hand of the person standing next to them.
- Have everyone put their left hand up in the air and grab the hand of a different person.
- Ensure that everyone is holding the hands of two different people and double-check that they are not holding hands with someone directly next to them. The group should be all knotted up.
- Instruct students that their goal is to untangle themselves without breaking the chain. If the chain is broken they need to start over.
- Give students 6–8 minutes to untangle themselves.
- Stop students after 10 minutes, even if they didn’t end up in a circle from untangling their human knot, to debrief the process and reflect on how they worked as a team.
- Ask: Would you add any additional teamwork guidelines to the ones they generated before the human knot?
- Add additional guidelines if necessary.
Independent working time
(10 minutes)- Have the students remain in a circle and complete the Teamwork Reflection Questions worksheet.
- Support any students that need help.
Differentiation
- Enrichment: Advanced students will have more descriptive answers to the worksheet.
- Support: Struggling students may need to be paired with the teacher or teacher’s aide initially.
Assessment
(5 minutes)- During guided practice and independent work time, look to see who is in need of support. Sit closer to them and give clues and encouragement.
- Review what students detail in the worksheet as a class and add what teamwork looks like and sounds like to the teamwork guidelines.
Review and closing
(5 minutes)- Have each student share one takeaway from this lesson or one way they will practice being a good team member this year.