group contracts | Mike Kaechele

One reason why a large subset of students struggle in school is that they lack organization. These are the kids who do their homework but never turn it in. It is probably “lost” somewhere in their backpack. At the end of the year when these students clean out their lockers, they are full of papers everywhere that may or may not have been graded. Sometimes we forget to have a growth mindset about these kids.

Lack of organization is not a character trait that is permanent. It is a skillset that all students can learn.

In PBL, we use tools from the business world such as scrum boards (also known as kanban boards). They can take on many forms depending on the age of the students and the technology available. The basic format is four columns: To Do, Doing, Need Support, and Done.

Initially, tasks from the Need to Know list are added to the To Do column, assigned to group members, and due dates are negotiated. As students engage in a task, they move it over to the appropriate column to track progress. Scrum boards can be created online in a business tool such as Trello (student template) or on a shared spreadsheet (see below). That way everyone, including the teacher can monitor progress.

Free Download of this Google Sheet Template

For younger students or as a no-tech option, students can use sticky notes on poster paper. Another option is to create a scrum board chart on a bulletin board. No matter which format you choose, scrum boards are a great tool to teach students how to manage both their work and themselves. They give structure to goal setting and help students manage stress by creating a realistic timeline, instead of cramming it all in at the last minute.

Another version from Kent Innovation High

Student roles, group contracts, and scrum boards help students learn how to interact with each other in productive ways and invoke teamwork for successful completion of their goals. Let’s consider how these tools work together. We combine group contracts with scrum boards to make student warnings based off of work completion rather than personality conflicts. Instead of “You are annoying. I can’t stand you so I am giving you a warning,” I teach students that warnings are based off from the scrum board.

“We’re friends, but you committed to having this task done by today and it isn’t completed. I am sorry, but I am giving you a verbal warning. And just so you know, it is really stressing me out because I care about this project and want to do well.”

The last sentence, where students express the stress and emotion that they are feeling (Self-Awareness) is key. Many times the other student may not care as much about the work personally, but will be motivated by social pressure not to let their teammates down.

Many students are uncomfortable giving a classmate a warning. One strategy I use is sentence stems and roleplaying. Students rehearse how they would handle situations by acting out scenes based on persistent issues in class. This is a safe way for them to practice and feel comfortable using effective communication to share feelings and solve group conflicts.

I like to use triads where one student takes the role of the challenging behavior and one student is enforcing the contract while the third student observes and gives feedback afterward. Choose three common situations from your class and rotate roles so everyone has a chance to practice using the sentence stems with contracts. Another variation is to have another teacher or two visit your class and the adults role play for students.

This does not have to be focused on behavior. Some colleagues of mine roleplayed how to have a five minute academic discussion so that students could see how to build off from other people’s comments and opinions.

Modeling is just as important for SEL skills as it is for content.

Try launching you class with a daily scrum meetings to teach students to track and assess their progress on their self-selected timeline. The most compelling form of evaluation is self-assessment. When a student honestly and accurately analyzes themselves, it is powerful! They can check in on their group contracts and determine whether or not they are being an effective team member. Scrum boards and contracts enable student growth in goal setting and organization leading to success that builds both their abilities and their confidence.

Questions? Interested in SEL and PBL Consulting? Connect with me at michaelkaechele.com or @mikekaechele onTwitter.

When first shifting to PBL, you will quickly discover that coaching students how to function in groups becomes one of the primary teacher roles in the classroom. Students, and let’s be honest adults, don’t just naturally get along all of the time. Reflect on your last family gathering as proof. Everyone is unique with strengths and weaknesses that play out in interpersonal relationships. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills of relationships and teamwork must be taught, practiced, and assessed constantly.

Another huge shift in PBL is turning more responsibility over to the students.

Remember, whoever is doing is learning.

So if the teacher is the only one planning and organizing, then they are actually stealing an opportunity away from their students to practice those skill sets. What better way for students to learn Self-Management than to project manage their own projects!

Everyone who has ever been a part of a group project knows how rare it can be have an equal amount of participation and equal distribution of work among the members. You have probably had the experience of being the workhorse who gets things done. Worse yet, you may have been on the receiving end of a phone call from an angry parent who thinks that their student is doing everything while the rest of the group slacks off. So how do we create a safe environment where equal work is the norm, and all students develop the skills to do their part?

In PBL, we use group contracts to facilitate students working together. Students should set goals as a team and learn to hold each other accountable for completion. Each team is given a template (free download below) to fill out. Students list their strengths, SEL goals, and contact information. They draft agreements for how they will work together, expectations, and restrictions for the group.

When I introduce group contracts for the first time, I explain their purpose in great detail. I ask students to reflect on previous experiences of working in groups and what makes a group effective or ineffective in achieving its goals. Those reflections become the agreement section of the contract.

I always tell the story about the student who volunteered to write the contract for his group. It ended up being thirty pages long, and everyone signed it. When the project was over, the teacher told this group that they had done such a good job that they were awarded twenty points extra credit. The contract writer immediately interrupted, “I get all of the extra credit. It’s on page 23 of the contract.” The teacher honored the contract.The truth is, that story is fabricated, but I tell the story to make the point that students need to take the process seriously.

At the secondary level, students who don’t pull their weight with the group can be fired. The contract has a minimum, three-step process before firing someone:

Verbal warning (documented)
2nd warning and teacher conference
Fired

When a student is fired, they are removed from the group and must start the project over by themselves. They are not allowed to take any resources from the group, but must start from scratch. Students do not get fired more than once, and what normally happens is that once students receive their first warning, they start contributing to the group.

By the time we launch our second project, I spend very little time on creating new contracts. I always have students reflect on the last project for what worked and didn’t in their groups. Then we talk about how lawyers do not write contracts from scratch. They copy and paste. So I have them pull out the previous contract, make a copy, and modify it based on their reflection.

We talk about how worthless the contract is if they don’t use it.

The rest of the year is spent on coaching students how to use these tools effectively to complete their work and get along. This is the challenging, but rewarding work of the PBL teacher. This is the pulse of PBL.

Questions? Interested in SEL and PBL Consulting? Connect with me at michaelkaechele.com or @mikekaechele onTwitter.