Tag: tips & tricks

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Competitive games to promote collaboration and teamwork

Competition is seen by some people in education, youth work and team building as a dirty word, but it definitely has its uses. With many groups and individuals it is a great motivating factor and can help you break down some people’s reluctance to join in. As long as you don’t dwell on the winners and losers and instead try to pull out the learning it can be very effective.

Many of the games I posted previously can also be used in this way if you just split the group into two or more teams, but these I feel work especially well with a competitive element.

Remember to get the most out of all of these activities …

Before the activity

  • Explain the rules as simply as possible.
  • Don’t give tips on how to complete the task.
  • Don’t explain what you want them to get out of it.

During the activity

  • Unless a judge is needed, you should take full part in the activity.
  • If everyone is struggling, pause the game and ask people what is going wrong; ask them what they could do to change it.
  • Stop the games while people are still excited, don’t wait for them to start dragging.

After the activity

  • Don’t make a big deal out of winners and losers – a quick cheer or round of applause is enough.
  • Draw out the learning through asking them to reflect on the activity, don’t tell them what you think the learning should be.
    • Ask those who succeeded: What worked well in your team? What did you do that allowed you to succeed?
    • Ask those who struggled: What would you differently next time?
    • Ask those who struggled but managed in the end: What do you change? Why? Did that work?
    • Finally, ask them what they learned through the activity – they may well come up with far more than you intended!

Shark infested water

Useful for

Co-ordination; helping each other out; playing to strengths; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. Split the groups into teams of at least 4.
  2. Give each team fewer pieces of paper than there are people (make it harder by giving fewer pieces of paper).
  3. Explain that this room is actually shark infested water. The paper is little moveable islands.
  4. They have to get their whole team from one side of the room to the other before the other team.
  5. If anyone steps in the water they have to start again.

Resources

  • Pieces of paper just big enough for two people to stand on
  • You can use chairs instead of paper, but be careful

Move the cups

Useful for

Co-ordination; taking things slowly; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. Place the hula hoops on the ground.
  2. Place three cups in the centre of each hula hoop.
  3. Place one elastic band/string contraption with each hula hoop.
  4. Split the groups into teams of three.
  5. Send each team to one of the hula hoops.
  6. Explain the rules:
    • Their hands can’t go into the hula hoop.
    • They can’t touch the cups.
    • They can only hold one piece of string each.
  7. Explain that they have to lift the three cups out of the hoop and stack them in a pyramid (two next to each other and one balancing on top).

Resources

  • Hula hoops
  • Plastic cups
  • Elastic bands with three pieces of 50cm long string tied to them.

See, run, do

Useful for

Communication; seeing things from others’ perspective; importance of everyone playing their role well.

Method

  1. Split the groups into teams of three.
  2. Get the teams to decide on one of them to be a ‘Seer’, one to be a ‘Runner’ and the other a ‘Doer’.
  3. Send all the ‘Doers’ to one end of the room and tell them each to grab a pen and piece of paper. They cannot move from there.
  4. Send all the ‘Seers’ to the other end of the room. They cannot move from there.
  5. The ‘Runners’ can go anywhere, but they can’t touch the pen or paper and they can’t see the picture.
  6. You are going to show a picture to the ‘Seer’.
  7. They have to get a copy of that picture across the room.
  8. After they’ve had a few minutes get them to stop and compare the picture to your original. Choose the one that’s most like a photocopy of your image. Concentrate on details like size, orientation, neatness, what’s coloured in, etc.
  9. Ask them what went well and what they could have done differently or better.
  10. Get them to stay in the same groups, but change roles.
  11. Repeat and then change roles one last time.
  12. Ask them which role was the hardest and which was most important.

Variation (without the ‘Runners’)

  • Try in pairs, with people sitting back to back – the one has to explain the picture to the other, who can’t see it.
  • In the first round show the picture very briefly.
  • In the second, give the ‘Seer’ the picture to study whilst she explains it.
  • In the third round allow the ‘Seer’ to see and comment on what the ‘Doer’ is drawing, but don’t allow the ‘Doer’ to see the original picture.

Resources

  • Blank paper
  • Pens
  • 3 simple pictures
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involver blog Resources

Games to promote teamwork, co-ordination, co-operation and concentration

The game was called 'Finding Nemo'. Basically everyone had to wonder around with their eyes closed calling 'Nemo' until they bumped into someone who wasn't calling out. They then had to stop and be quiet - they have found Nemo. Eventually everyone is still and quiet.

Yesterday I gave you some icebreakers to use with your school council, today I’ve got a group of team-building games for you to try. There are competitive games here: competitive games for team-building.

Remember to get the most out of all of these activities …

Before the activity

  • Explain the rules as simply as possible.
  • Don’t give tips on how to complete the task.
  • Don’t explain what you want them to get out of it.

During the activity

  • Unless a judge is needed, you should take full part in the activity.
  • If everyone is struggling, pause the game and ask people what is going wrong; ask them what they could do to change it.
  • Stop the games while people are still excited, don’t wait for them to start dragging.

After the activity

  • Don’t make a big deal out of winners and losers – a quick cheer or round of applause is enough.
  • Draw out the learning through asking them to reflect on the activity, don’t tell them what you think the learning should be.
    • Ask those who succeeded: What worked well in your team? What did you do that allowed you to succeed?
    • Ask those who struggled: What would you differently next time?
    • Ask those who struggled but managed in the end: What do you change? Why? Did that work?
    • Finally, ask them what they learned through the activity – they may well come up with far more than you intended!

Group juggling

Useful for

Learning names; Concentration; Focus on your task; Let people know what you’re doing; Stick to the agreed format.

Method

  1. Keep all balls hidden until needed.
  2. Throw a green ball round the circle, each person only getting it once.
  3. Remember the order and repeat in that order, adding in extra green balls as confidence grows, until all three are going round
    the circle.
  4. Explain that red balls go along the same route, but in the opposite direction.
  5. Discuss what needs to happen to make this work well.
  6. See if you can get 3 green balls and 3 red balls all going at once. When it’s working reasonably well, throw in some extra balls
    in a random order.
  7. Discuss what happened.

Resources

  • Space for everyone to stand in a circle.
  • In a bag:
    • 3 x Green balls
    • 3 x Red balls
    • Some other coloured balls

Group counting

Useful for

  • We all know where we’re going, but if we’re not careful we can’t get there.
  • Taking it in turns can help.
  • Did everyone get a chance to take part? Did some people dominate?
  • Using body language and non-verbal signals.
  • Having a chair person, especially one who directs rather than speaking.

Method

  1. Explain the rules to everyone:
    • As a group we need to count to 10.
    • No one person can say 2 numbers in a row (e.g. 2 and 3).
    • No one can say anything other than the numbers.
    • If 2 people speak at once we start again.
  2. As people find they can’t do it ask people to suggest rules.
  3. Try these out one by one and see which work.

Resources

  • None

Helium stick / lower the stick

Useful for

Co-ordination; all working at the same pace; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. Split the group into two. Get each group to stand in a line facing the other group.
  2. Get everyone to point out a finger.
  3. Place the stick so that it is resting on everyone’s fingers at about shoulder height.
  4. Explain that they have to lower the stick to the ground without any of them losing contact with it.
  5. Each time someone loses contact get them to start again.
  6. To extend or vary the game you can get them to raise the stick as well.

Resources

  • A long lightweight stick (bamboo cane, garden stick, tent pole or similar)

Turning the sheet

Useful for

Co-ordination; using your strengths; talking to one another; lateral thinking.

Method

  1. The whole group has to stand on the sheet.
  2. The aim is for them to completely flip the sheet over without any of them stepping off it.

Resources

  • A sheet or picnic blanket

Sharing crisps

Useful for

Compromise; the value of talking in small groups; when under pressure we can make decisions easily about unimportant things.

Method

  1. Ask each person to repeat and complete the sentence: my favourite flavour of crisps is …
  2. Put everyone in pairs.
  3. Give them five seconds to decide what crisps they would share.
  4. Go round to each pair and ask them to announce together: Our favourite flavour of crisps is …
  5. Add pairs together to make fours and repeat.
  6. Keep going until it’s one big group deciding all together.

Resources

  • None
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involver blog

3 tips to get staff on side with your school council

Last week I got an email from a teacher at a school I’d run training at recently (which shall remain nameless). We’d had a great day, the school council had come up with a real range of projects and great ways to communicate with the rest of the school. Unfortunately the email was not to tell me how well the students were getting on, but about the negative reactions from school staff. When minutes from the meeting were sent our staff comments ranged from sarcastic to deeply concerned. The posters the school council had put up explaining what they were working on were even taken down.

The school council co-ordinator asked me for advice. I’m sure she’s not the only one facing these problems, so I thought I would share what I told her with you. There isn’t a quick fix of course, but here are three things I suggest:

1. Explain the role of the school council

Make it clear to staff that the minutes are not what is going to happen, but what the students are taking on. In many cases they share the concerns of the staff and want to work with them to sort them out, that’s why their first step is often to meet with the relevant staff member. It’s not for staff members to give a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but to ask the students what the students will do to make this happen. For example, if students want more trips they should be told they need to organise them. They will need help with this and they won’t have access to the money, but it’s not for the staff member to do all the running, the whole point is getting students to make happen those things they are keen on. Students need to be clear in their own minds and especially in anything they commit to paper on the difference between what they are DOING and what they are ASKING FOR. What they are DOING will happen (with their effort) what they are ASKING FOR may not.

2. Minutes detail students’ plans of action

Recycling plan notes
Project planning notes made by pupils at a recent primary training day.

Ensure that what goes into the minutes is what actions the students will take. This way staff (and others) can see that these are issues of concern to students and that they are doing something about it. It helps where the minutes say more than ‘Meet with Ms X’, but also record what students are intending on suggesting, i.e. how they will help. The ‘school council ideas form‘ should help with this – the last section asks what the person filling it out will do to help – make sure no ideas come to the meeting without something here. Ensure those actions are clearly recorded in the minutes.

3. Attach prep work to the minutes

Something else to consider is the detail of the minutes. If either of the staff members mentioned above had seen the whole discussion they would know that the issues they raised were discussed. I suggest these very brief minutes as I think in general most people don’t read long minutes and it’s difficult for the secretary to take part if they are trying to record everything. However they don’t cover the detail of the discussion. Maybe if the ideas forms or project plans were attached to the minutes it would help those not at the meeting to see the thought that had gone into it without increasing the burden on the secretary.

Do you think these ideas might help in your school? Have you done anything else that has worked?

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School council welcome pack – helping new school councillors

As you might expect, as someone really interested in education, schools and community I’m a school governor. One of the things I’m doing in that role currently is thinking about how we make new governors feel supported and able to play a constructive role as soon as possible. So I’ve started re-writing our governor induction pack – this is basically a welcome pack for new governors. It’s lead me on to thinking about not just what information we give to new governors, but what mentoring and training we need to give them and what we need them to do to make the most of it.

How to be a SMART school councillor
You need to create a guide for your school on how new school councillors can do a great job representing their peers and making things happen. You might want to include one of these for some ideas on your roles, collecting ideas and running meetings. Please excuse the shameless plug ;)

It occurred to me that new school councillors could do with a similar sort of pack and that getting current school councillors to write it would be really useful to get your new school council off to a flying start next year.

Below is the process we are going through and how I think it could work for a school council.

  1. Get together a small group of current school councillors – ideally some who have been on the council for a while and some who are new.
  2. Write down a list of all the things you wish you had known when you became a school councillor.
  3. Write down a list of all the support that you have found useful in your role as a school councillor.
  4. Add in any support that you would have liked but didn’t receive.
  5. Write a short document (no more than a page) that will be the cover of your induction pack. This should tell new school councillors what support they will get and list all the useful information that you will put in the welcome pack. We have organised under these headings, they might work for you too:
    • What we’ll do to support you (the new school councillor)
    • What we need you to do
    • The documents attached (that will help you to understand your role and how our school and school council works)
    • Useful websites (or other sources of information)
  6. Now you’ve got to collect all that information together and work out whatever training, mentoring, etc. you have said you will provide.

Do you already have a school council welcome pack? What is in it or what would you put in it if you had one?

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involver blog

Student voice in your SOLE

In 1999 a group of educational researchers put an internet connected PC in the wall of a New Delhi slum. Then they left it alone. Children from the slum gathered around this ‘hole in the wall’ and, with no direction, taught themselves how to use the computer and browse the internet simply through their own curiosity.

When Dr. Sugata Mitra presented these findings online it was so compelling that his lectures went viral and Mitra was propelled to the status of a minor internet celebrity.

Now, after a decade of follow up research into the effectiveness of child led learning, Sugata is inviting educators from all backgrounds to take part in a wider experiment. By providing groups of children with a Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLE), the experiment aims to find effective ways of encouraging students to embrace their innate curiosity and use this as their incentive to learn in a broad range of environments, be it in the classroom or the home. This works by posing stimulating, profound or weird questions and letting the children approach the subject in their own way, with minimal outside interference.

At involver we are very excited about the ideas behind this experiment and we think it could potentially have far reaching implications for student voice. By allowing children to take charge of their learning it promotes a culture where they are not only encouraged but expected to contribute and be listened to. A SOLE might, for example, be a great way to get students to prepare a proposal to the school council: students would be responsible for the questions asked, and they would be free to answer them in innovative and exploratory ways.

Imagine the feedback you could receive by posing questions like, ‘why do people from all over the world come to our school?’, ‘who is school for?’, or even ‘what is learning?’, to a group of children, and then leaving them to discuss, explore and discover their own answers. We strongly encourage educators to participate in this experiment so education systems all over the world can benefit from the insights we may find in the results.

If you would be interested in learning more about Sugata’s research you can find his profile at TED.com, or to get involved with the SOLE experiment you can download the toolkit available with directions and advice on how to set one up.

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Tips for chairing meetings

A tipped chair
A different kind of chair and a different kind of tip, but you see what I’m getting at.

I’m currently mentoring the co-chairs of Haringey Youth Council and I came up with this list of tips for them, which I thought others might find useful.

What are your tips for making meetings run smoothly and involving everyone? Add them in the comments below.

Before the meeting

If at all possible make sure information goes out before the meeting, so you can spend the meeting discussing and making decisions, not listening to presentations.

Have timings for each item on the agenda. This will mean you can get through the whole thing as everyone knows when they need to draw the discussion to a close (or when you’re going to force them to).

Set up the room so that everyone can see one another and you can see everyone. There’s nothing more annoying than wanting to speak in a meeting but not being seen.

When any new people or visitors come to the meeting introduce yourself and welcome them.

In the meeting

Sit next to the person taking the minutes so you can check that you’re both keeping up.

When you want people to move to a decision, summarise what the decision is: don’t try to summarise the whole discussion.

Write up options and decisions so that everyone can see them. This helps avoid confusion and repetition.

When people put their hand up to speak, give them a nod and write their name on a list. This way they can put their hand down and concentrate on the discussion knowing they won’t be forgotten.

Add your name to the list when you want to speak, this will stop you jumping in.

If it’s important to the discussion that you hear from everyone, make sure you go round the whole group and specifically ask everyone for an opinion.

When people give opinions, ask them to explain their reasoning. This will move the debate forward.

Meetings should be about action – what you are going to do – so try to move the discussion into the future tense. Discussions in the past tense tend to be about blame, present tense tends to be about opinions, but future tense tends to be about action. It’s easier to find consensus over the what to do in the future than who to blame for what happened in the past.

If you think everyone agrees with an idea, check by asking if anyone wants to speak against it. If no one does, then you are safe to assume everyone agrees.

Be aware of jargon or ideas that people new to the meeting might not understand. You can either explain them or ask the person speaking to briefly explain the term for new members, guests, etc.