SFA Team Projects and Classroom Exercises

Team Member Roles

I use the team roles listed below for a few courses. For class sizes from 20 to 40 students I used primarily 4 memebers in each team.

Time Keeper - The time keeper has the responsibility of keeping track of time, as well as keeping the team moving so that they can finish the task at hand. The time keeper is also responsible for making sure that team members are on time.
Recorder - The recorder is the person responsible for doing the writing of the team whenever group work is being done. This should maximum participation by the rest of the team, since no one else needs to worry about it.
Gatekeeper - The encourager/gatekeeper has the task of giving encouragement to all the other team members. The person also has the responsibility of maintaining a balanced level of participation for all the members. They will encourage the silent members and try to hold back the verbose, dominate members.
Facilitator - The facilitator is responsible for leading the discussion, keeping focus, and moving the meeting along.
Optimist - This is someone who tries to maintain a positive frame of mind and facilitates the search for solutions. (This team member is present only if the team has 5 members instead of 4.)

There are lots of articles about team building on the internet. Here are a few search suggestions:

I have a few fun exercises that I use for social events.
There are also team building exercises listed below. These exercises are using during the first week of class.

Team Building Exercise
- Battery Building Stage 1: Voltaic Stack (battery) with coins, salt, and water
- Battery Building Stage 2: Battery building with lemons, paper clips, brass brads, nails and screws
SFA Robot Rovers