Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Team building

20 minutes

Find Out: What makes a great team?

25 minutes

Take Action: Recognising positive attributes

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will...

identify that successful teams feature individuals with different skills
identify and describe the skills and attributes of themselves and their classmates.

Success criteria

Students can...

deconstruct the roles within a team and relate those roles to achieving a goal
recognise their own strengths
provide evidence of having demonstrated their strengths.

Tune In: Team building

Step 1

Split the class into small groups of 3–5 students. Give each team the same set of basic materials (such as 10 sheets of paper, 1 metre of tape, and scissors).

Step 2

Explain that their challenge is to build the tallest free-standing tower in 10 minutes. Teams should first spend 2–3 minutes discussing a design before starting construction.

Step 3

At the end of the time, measure each tower’s height and check if it can stand on its own for at least 5 seconds. Ask each team to share what worked well, what challenges they faced, and what they’d do differently next time.

Find Out: What makes a great team?

Step 1

Start off by showing the students this clip from Marvel's Avengers (2012). No context is needed at this stage, we want to get the kids hooked right off the bat!

Teacher note: This movie is rated M. The clip below is set to start around 18 seconds in to skip past characters fighting aliens. There are some loud noises in this scene so please be mindful of students who may be sensitive to this and check the volume before hitting play.

Avengers (2012): Avengers assemble battle of New York - JCR Movie Clips (youtube.com/watch?v=NFCmzN_Uzo4&t=18s)

Step 2

Ask students to pick their jaws up from the desk after viewing one of the most incredible scenes in modern movie history. I mean, "that's my secret, Cap...I'm always angry"? Genius. And don't even get me started on the effects and the character-building up to this point.

Step 3

Hand out the Student Worksheet, explaining to students that this lesson is all about recognising that the best teams work well because they recognise each other's strengths and use those strengths to effectively develop solutions to problems. This is true of teamwork in the classroom and in the workplace. Your class's social enterprise is the perfect blend of the two!

Rewatch the clip from Avengers, this time asking students to think carefully about the team they see in the clip using the following prompts (also found on the Student Worksheet):

What are some of the challenges evident in the scene?
How does the team tackle these challenges?
Does each member of the team contribute to the solution?
What strengths does each team member contribute?
Does each member of the team have the same strengths?
What might happen to the team if one or more members of the team were removed?

This is a modified version of a Parts, People, Interactions visible thinking routine.

Step 4

Ask students to write another example of a team in the space on the Student Worksheet provided. For the team, students should ask themselves:

What is the goal of this team?
What are the different roles in that team?
How do the different roles contribute to achieving the team's goal?

Step 5

Ask the class to share their examples of teams and their roles.

Take Action: Recognising positive attributes

Step 1

Provide each student with a copy of the Skills Assessment Sheet, explaining that they will now be looking at their classmates and themselves to identify their strengths, skills and attitudes. Later, students will need to use these skills to run a social enterprise that solves social issues!

Step 2

Before going into the skills assessment, it's important to reinforce with students they don't need to be good at everything!

Explain: Their strengths may be someone else's least strong qualities and vice versa - making them a well-rounded group of humans that, collectively, have many, many strengths and few weaknesses. We call that the power of teamwork!

Step 3

Using the Skills Assessment sheet, students will think about their partner’s strengths, skills, and attitudes, ticking any they think their partner demonstrates. Students should put a question mark in the box of any skills they're unsure of. Once complete, they should swap with their partner, underline any they agree with and discuss any with question marks with their partner. At the end of this activity, they should have a good idea about their strengths, skills and attitudes.

Step 4

On the Student Worksheet, ask students to write down what they believe are their top three strengths, skills, or attitudes and provide an example of when they have demonstrated the attribute. Students will need to keep these qualities in mind in future lessons, so remind students to keep the Student Worksheet and the Skills Assessment Sheet safe (you might want to collect these in for later, especially if there are forgetful kids among the group!)

Step 5

Remind students that in later lessons they will be working as a team to form a social enterprise. Behind successful social enterprises are successful teams made up of many individuals each with their own unique set of skills and abilities. A mix of skills makes the whole team stronger.

Learning support: Some students may have a tough time with their self-esteem and recognising their value. Working with someone they trust and having your input can help a great deal in redressing the balance and encouraging these students.

Learning extension: Students requiring extension could look at the Skills Assessment and rate themselves 1-3, where 1 = not at all like me, 2 = a little bit like me, and 3 = a lot like me for each skill. These students could pick two or three skills they would like to improve on and come up with ways to progress from "not at all" to "a lot like me".

Reflection

Step 1

Looking at their list of skills, what teams do the class think they would be a good addition to? For example, a student who is good at identifying and solving problems may make a great member of the student council at your school.

Ask students to share what they believe are their top strengths, skills, and attitudes to be with the people at home. What skills do their parents or caregivers have that make them good at what they do? For example, parents who stay at home to look after the kids are great at multi-tasking. Any students who know teachers at home will know that teachers are also great at multi-tasking, showing empathy, resilience and creative ways to make report-writing fun.

Social Enterprise Education - Identifying Skills and Teamwork

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