Notes on running better group work.
Short, practical pieces on forming student teams and running group projects that do not quietly leave people behind. Drawn from building and trialling Teamer.
All guides
- June 2026
How to form fair student teams
Why ad-hoc grouping quietly fails some students, and the principles behind teams that actually work.
- June 2026
What to actually ask in a team formation survey
The handful of questions that improve matching, and the ones that just add noise.
- June 2026
Group work and the students who get left behind
Group projects reward the well-connected by default. Here is how to change that without policing every team.
- July 2026
How many students should be in a group project team?
There is no magic number, but there is a range that works and a few reasons teams drift outside it.
- July 2026
Should students pick their own teams, or should you assign them?
Self-selection feels fair and saves you work. Here is what it quietly costs, and when assigning teams is the better call.
- July 2026
How to assign students to groups in a large class
Sorting a class list by hand does not scale. Here is a process that does, without turning into a spreadsheet nightmare.
- July 2026
How to run a team health check on student projects
Most struggling teams are quiet until it is too late. A lightweight check-in surfaces them while you can still help.
- July 2026
How to stop free-riders in group projects
Free-riding is usually a design problem, not a discipline problem. Here is how to reduce it before it starts.
Want the survey questions I start from?
Get in touch and I will send over the question set, or show you how Teamer would run formation for your course.
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