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Team building isn’t just for the corporate workplace — it can also be used in the classroom to encourage collaboration, problem-solving and decision-making. And it doesn’t have to involve awkward activities such as a ‘trust fall.’ Engaging, relevant team building activities for students can energize your classroom and take learning to a new level.

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By accomplishing group tasks, students learn to listen, trust and support each other, while developing life skills such as communication and collaboration — skills that can’t be learned from a textbook, interactive or not. Learning to get along with peers, for example, isn’t something you can pick up through memorization.

Sara Keinath, Youth Leadership Educator at Michigan State University explains the value of team building activities for students: “Guiding group members through intentional games can help them improve their communication skills with each other, which will transfer to their work or club projects later. Many team building activities incorporate such skills as active listening, questioning assumptions, giving clear directions, problem solving or learning how to ask effective questions.”1

Facilitate your team building games and activities for students over the course of a semester (rather than a one-off event). Here are ten examples of fun team building activities for students you can use in the classroom that won’t make everyone cringe.

Students Activities. Student Bodies Discover Students talents, train student to be part of a team,Sport Activities Indoor and outdoor competitions and championships,Culture Activities Poetry,Writing story,Competitions,Seminars and Culture visits and other.

1. Spaghetti tower

Divide students into teams and provide them with ‘building’ materials, such as dry spaghetti, marshmallows, string and tape. Set a time limit for designing and building a spaghetti tower (one that’s structurally sound, of course). When their time is up, the tallest freestanding tower wins. There are several variations on this, such as building a pyramid with paper cups, but the idea is to promote communication and collaboration.

2. Scavenger hunt

Scavenger hunts aren’t just for kids. While this team building game requires some preparation, it encourages students to work together: planning a strategy, divvying up tasks and communicating progress. Divide the students into teams and set a time limit in which they have to find as many items as possible on a list you’ve provided. You can make this more challenging by providing clues or riddles rather than the names of items.

3. Pub quiz

You don’t need to hang out in an actual pub for this team building activity; the idea is to mimic a trivia pub night, fostering teamwork in a fun environment. The ‘host’ asks a multiple-choice trivia question, and teams are given 60 seconds to discuss and agree upon an answer. You can use generic quiz questions (from the board game “Trivial Pursuit,” for example), but you could also relate questions back to course material. The team with the most points wins.

4. Idea building blocks

Divide the class into teams and present them with a problem (again, this can be related to course material). One team member writes down a solution and passes the piece of paper along to the next team member, who builds upon that idea. The paper is passed around until each team member has added onto the original solution. When their time is up, a spokesperson can present their final solution to the rest of the group or to the class.

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5. Newspaper fashion show

While this team building game is ideal for art and design students, it can be used in any classroom; in fact, these kinds of games are good examples of how team building activities for students get them out of their comfort zone to exercise their creativity. Divide students into teams of six to eight, and supply them with newspaper, tape and scissors. Participants are given a time limit to design and create an item of clothing out of newspaper, which requires group brainstorming and delegation of tasks. One person in the group could ‘model’ the finished product when their time is up.

6. “Shark Tank”

Similar to the popular TV show where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of investors, this team building activity can be used in the classroom to encourage creative thinking and develop time management, presentation and public speaking skills. Each team of students comes up with a product, brand name, logo and marketing strategy, which is then presented to the ‘panel.’ Encourage feedback from the ‘sharks,’ or other students, in the class.

7. Pipeline

Teams are given the task of rolling a marble or ball from a start line to a finish line, without it ever touching the floor — or students’ hands. Each team member is given a PVC pipe (though they could also use paper and tape, or paper towel rolls). Allow five minutes of planning time, so teams can strategize how they will transport the marble as a group; if it falls to the floor, they must start over. This helps to promote problem-solving, communication and cooperation.

8. Classify this

Arrange random objects on your desk — anything from paper clips to an umbrella to jewelry (aim for about 25 objects in total). Teams of students must then categorize these objects on a piece of paper, even when no obvious connections exist. You can decide on the number of categories or let each team decide. When their time is up, a participant from each group presents their list and explains the logic behind it. This team building exercise helps students think outside of the box.

9. Goodie bag skits

This might take some students out of their comfort zone, but encourages teamwork and collaboration. Divide the class into teams of up to eight people and provide each team with a ‘goodie bag’ filled with random items. Set a time limit (five to 10 minutes) for each group to create a short skit, based on the items in the bag. Teams then present their skits, and a group vote can be held to declare the winner.

10. Deserted island

In this team building game, students imagine they’re stranded on a deserted island. After dividing students into teams, provide them with a list of items for survival. Participants must prioritize and rank those items — first on their own, and then as a group. Not only does this test their problem-solving skills, it helps them differentiate between the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective.

There are literally dozens of team building activities for students that can be used in the classroom — you can even ask students to create their own. By incorporating group activities into your teaching, you’re providing students with an opportunity to learn essential life skills they’ll carry with them long after they graduate.

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Reference

1. Keinath, S. (2018, October 02). Why is team building so important? Retrieved from https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/why_is_team_building_so_important

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As at any institution of learning, The Ogontz School provided a variety of activities to supplement the academic schedule. Excursions to Philadelphia for concerts, plays, and operas were regularly conducted, even for the younger children. There also were trips to nearby historic sites—Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Annapolis, and occasionally to New York. The Junior College girls looked forward to annual ski trips to Lake Placid and weekends in Atlantic City.

Bi-weekly entertainments were held on campus as well, usually featuring prominent figures of the day in the various arts. Poet Carl Sandburg was a repeat visitor, and Vachel Lindsey, William Butler Yeats, Hopkinson Smith, and Maurice Evans were among those who appeared at the school.

In the early days at the Jay Cooke estate there were several sororities (or secret societies) that recruited the most popular girls, but these were abolished as undemocratic in 1917. About that time a student government council was established. From 1884 until the school closed, those with a literary or business bent could work on the board of The Mosaic, the school’s periodical magazine. There was a Glee Club of course, and a Kin Club for those whose mothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and sometimes even grandmothers had attended the school. (At one point 55 percent of the student body belonged to the Kin Club.) All students were official members of the Christian Association. During the two World Wars there were Ogontz Red Cross chapters.

But it is student participation in dramatics and athletics that recurs throughout the century of Ogontz photographs, along with an annual event of note—the school’s opulent May Day celebrations.

MAY DAY

Once a pagan rite from Europe that welcomed the fecundity of spring, May Day was brought to this continent with the Pilgrims. It continued to be observed as a secular joyous occasion for several centuries. Though even public schools celebrated May Day with music and dance, at The Ogontz School it was a truly major event. Weeks of preparation went into the creation of May Day posters and costumes, rehearsals of dances, and selection of the May Queen and her attendants. The events of the day itself were presented to a crowd of family and friends.

Following the move to Jay Cooke’s Ogontz mansion, with its large amusement room/auditorium and elegant conservatory, the opportunities for various theatrical presentations became abundant. Early copies of The Mosaic cite an endless stream of musicales, recitals, and recitations. Shakespeare Night—and Browning, Burns, and Wordsworth Nights, to name a few—featured elaborately costumed tableaux of the authors’ works. German and French nights included songs and plays in the foreign tongue. Pantomimes, dramas in English, and even operettas were performed by students as well, with male characters identified by their gym skirts and tights, as no young lady of the time would don trousers, even as a costume.

Halloween was always a huge entertainment event at The Ogontz School—the night when seniors were first presented in cap and gown and the rest of the students got to wear costumes. Full mock weddings and regal coronations were played out during the festivities.

Poirots, gypsies, Indians, cowboys, shepherdesses, black-faced mammies with babies, and even animals are seen in the many photographs posed in the conservatory under the title “Minstrels,” offering permanent records of the many opportunities for dress-up and drama. After the turn of the century, the much-anticipated senior variety shows were still being referred to as minstrels.

Once the school moved to Rydal, the junior girls (meaning the younger ones, not necessarily the junior class) added their own annual plays. A natural rocky nook on the new campus was named the Junior Circle, and spring theatricals could be performed outside. There, Jeanne D’Arc and A Midsummer Nights Dream came to life.

The new school at Rydal had a fine auditorium, though. Large enough to seat the entire student body at once, it boasted a proper stage with dressing areas. Then there was the log cabin, a recreation center also known as the play house, where skits could be performed. Most of the theatrical photographs appear to be taken in the palm court, however. Some feature chic tap dancers reminiscent of Busby Berkeley and fur-wrapped debutantes with top-hatted escorts—now permitted to wear long pants. Of course, the styles kept changing with the times.

The school calendar for 1947-48 reflects the ongoing popularity of theatricals. It lists three Dramatic Club performances, an undergraduate review, a high school play, a high school junior play, and a junior college senior play. And this doesn’t include performances by the Rydal School children, who were encouraged to participate in dramatics as well.

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ATHLETICS

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The importance of “physical culture” was always an integral part of the school’s philosophy, from walking and calisthenics at The Chestnut Street Seminary, to the initiation of military drill in 1888, when the fields at the Ogontz Estate provided ample space. Beyond this, girls at Jay Cooke’s Ogontz were required to take at least one hour’s exercise in the open air daily. If weather did not permit, there was a gymnasium “fitted with apparatus adapted to Dr. Sargent’s method of physical training.” Special corrective exercises were given to those whose posture did not measure up.

In addition to the requirements, however, outdoor games were encouraged. Baseball, basketball, and field hockey were popular competitive team sports, even in those early times. Lessons in riding were available, as well as limited stabling for personally-owned horses. The estate’s “ruins,” a replica of English castle ruins, were eventually converted into a swimming pool.

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After the 1917 move to Rydal, athletics assumed an even greater role. The new campus had tennis courts and a large indoor pool “with violet ray purifier,” that made year-round swimming possible. The links and golf instructor of the Huntingdon Valley Country Club—adjacent to the campus in those earliest days—were at the disposal of the students at designated times. Later, after the Country Club moved, the school retained its own six-hole practice course.

Ogontz girls could ride steeds on the school grounds and surrounding country lanes, or they could hike, climb, cycle, or roller skate through them. Lessons were available for those interested in fencing, or in folk, tap, “aesthetic” or social dancing. Later, archery was added. Ice skating on “the lake” was eventually preempted by the creation of an outdoor skating rink near the play house.

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In junior college days, hockey and basketball became intermural sports, and competitions with other junior colleges were scheduled. Cups were awarded on Field Day for excellence in tennis, golf, swimming, diving, badminton, horsemanship, and the various team sports. Ogontz took pride in athleticism, and was generally a pretty healthy place to be.