Aug 31, 2013 Team Tally Part Two: Back to School Version

On Thursday I shared one of my favorite methods for sparking conversation and building rapport in groups that I call “Team Tally”. This group commonalities questionnaire serves as a “get to know you” or group celebration activity that involves friendly competition between teams of students or colleagues. Groups talk through questions about their interests and experiences and come up with a cumulative score based on their group’s commonalities see August 29th post.

In today’s post I am sharing versions that I developed along with faculty at Mt. Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont – Molly Maish, Mike DiMaio, Amy Thivierge, and Mark Upright – to use during the first week of their advisory programs. The first is a general “Back to School” Team Tally with questions that help students get to know each other, initiate conversations about their experiences during summer break, and hopes and goals for the upcoming school year. I have used this tally during the past week with numerous school faculty, middle school, and high school students in back to school trainings and classroom sessions with great success. Click here for a PDF:Back_to_School_TeamTally.

The second version was created by the MAUHS team to focus on bringing Senior Seminar (advisory) groups together, build camaraderie between seniors through shared experience, and jump start reflective conversations about career exploration and the senior specific planning that groups will be focusing on this year.

Hopefully this post will inspire you to create your own team tally with questions to help your participants develop social connections with each other, create context for upcoming experiences, and begin to explore topics they will be covering in school or upcoming training sessions. Click here for a PDF: Senior_Team_Tally.

References: This activity was inspired by Karl Rohnke who put together a similar teacher teambuilding worksheet focused on common teaching experiences he called “Yeah Teachers” for a program we facilitated together. Over the years I have adapted the idea more broadly to groups of all ages. Funn n’ Games 2004 Karl Rohnke, Kendall Hunt Publisher.