Looking for a way to manage large classes? Try the Team Management approach!

Art Lightstone

Note: This particular Team Management overview and program kit was originally published on newlearner.com back in 1997. The approach has since been adopted with great success within a number of schools and programs. Give this approach a try if you find yourself looking for a new way to manage large numbers of diverse learners within your classroom.


Overview:

As education budgets shrink and class sizes expand, teachers may at times wish to explore new ways of managing large numbers of students. Although I have the privilege of working in an environment that maintains a reasonable cap on class sizes, I have none-the-less found a "Team Management" approach to be quite effective within my Grade 9 classes. As a teacher of business studies, I have been quite pleased with how effective this approach has been at encouraging students to take an active role in managing their behaviour, as well as providing them with actual experience in team management. I invite other educators to examine this program and consider incorporating it within their regular class routine.

Logistics:

• At the beginning of the course the class is divided into four or five management teams of equal size.
  
  
• Each team is provided with a Management Binder. This binder includes attendance sheets, a duty roster, management reports, and a cover page that highlights the our management credo: "Leadership is... service, caring, fostering success."
  
  
• Students rotate through a duty schedule. This ensures that for every team, there will always be a manager on duty. 
  
  
• At the beginning of class, the manager on duty will take possession of the Management Binder. (Note: Bright coloured management binders can help teachers quickly identify which student is on duty for a particular team on any given day.) The manager will then take attendance for her group, followed by a quick inspection of the management report completed at the end of the previous class. By examining last day's report, the manager will gain a quick understanding of where her team members stand with respect to the material currently being covered in the course. If any of the team members are confused or have questions regarding a given topic, then the manager is to serve as an advocate for his team, and make these issues known to the course instructor.

• During class, the manager is responsible for the behaviour of her team members. If the course instructor has any concerns regarding a particular student's behaviour, then the instructor will address that student's manager. The manager has a fair amount of latitude with respect to how he can choose to respond to behavioural concerns. The manager has the freedom to walk around the class (even during lectures, seat work, group work, or class discussion) in order to interact with members of her team. The managers are to utilize their interpersonal skills in order to encourage their team members to stay on task. If necessary, a manager can issue up to two penalty marks against each team member within a given class.

• As the end of the class approaches, managers must complete a brief report which records any penalties that have been issued, an explanation for any penalties that have been issued, a brief description of how each team member performed during class, and a quick note indicating how each member responded to the class material. If there are any concerns or points of confusion, then these are are recorded.
  
  
• At the end of the class, the managers have a quick meeting with the course instructor. At this time the course instructor records any penalties that were issued by the managers. The instructor also awards each manager a mark out of ten for his performance as manager. If a team performed well and the manager served as a positive role model, then the manager will receive a high mark. However, if a team failed to stay on task, and the manager did little to rectify the situation, then that manager's mark will reflect the team's poor performance.

The Management Meeting

The management meeting at the end of the class is a great way to collect formative data to guide the programming for the next class, and it's also a great way to collect evidence of observations and conversations. Not only do the managers record observations for their teams, but the teacher can just focus on four to six managers on any given class, and has the opportunity to have a conversation with this smaller group at the end of the class. 

The Management Binder:

The Team Management binder is comprised of five resources, organized in the following order:  

1. Team Management Credo
2. Duty Roster
3. Attendance Sheet
4. Conduct Report (Front of report)
5. Achievement Report (Back of report)

The binder generally requires only one Duty Roster and one Attendance Sheet per term. However, it requires a separate reporting sheet (two-sided, with the Conduct Report on the front and the Achievement Report on the back) for each class. 

The entire binder kit can be downloaded as a PDF below. Feel free to use this kit and adapt it to your needs. As always, I invite you to let me know how this approach works for you and your students.

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