VCL Didactical Design Patterns

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* Role assignment within groups:
First the groups are assigned based on suitable criteria (independent of the role concept). Second, the instructor assigns a role to each participant in the group. This can be done deliberately or the roles can be drawn by chance. This approach is only suitable if it can be reasonably expected that the roles will have only a limited influence on the personal/group performance. This can be the case if the groups are homogeneous, the learners are meant to try new responsibilities outside their existing experience, or the role definitions are not particularly restrictive. This approach is fast and allows the group work to start immediately, but the assignment of roles by the teacher can be felt as uncomfortable by the learners.

• Free role-choice:
  This is a similar approach, but it takes the background knowledge and experience of the group members better into account than a simple role assignment. First the groups are assigned based on suitable criteria. Second, the teams are informed about the used role concept. Third, the teams are asked to negotiate the role assignment within the team. This requires extra team-building time, because teams need time to negotiate, but the team members can be expected to receive a role that is more in-line with their own preferences, though the free choice of the role is restricted by the already existing group. The negotiations provide a better sense of control and are a useful team-building activity.

The next two approaches (Team assignment based on role preference and Free group formation based on role preference) assume that the role assignment takes place before the team assignment. The team assignments also rely strongly on the role concept. These approaches increase the probability that the roles match the participants’ preferences and that each team has a comparable expertise. On the other hand, the approaches require more time.

• Team assignment based on role preference:
  In this approach the participants are informed about the intended role concept and are asked to state their role preferences. This can take place e.g., by stating role priorities or by providing information about background knowledge and previous experience. The teams and roles are then assigned by the instructor, who tries as closely as possible to respect the participants’ preferences. Teams are assigned following the role concept (i.e. the premeditated number of different roles in each team). It is also possible to place restrictions on the role preferences, e.g., by allowing student groups to select only certain roles (e.g., participants from one institutions can only be project managers or IT experts). This approach requires time for the explication of role preferences, but as the role and team assignment is done by the teacher, little time is lost once the preferences are known.
• Free group formation based on role preference:
  This approach places the decisions connected with role and team assignment into the hands of the participants. In the first step, the participants describe their role preferences or their background (again, restrictions may be placed). In the second step, the instructor selects team leaders (corresponding to the total number of participants and hence the number of possible teams). The team leaders then access the role preferences or information about the other participants and contact them directly to “recruit” them for their teams.

The team leaders recruit their teams based on the role concept in order to gain the necessary expertise for their team. The participants are free to accept or decline the team-leaders requests. In the end, the instructor may need to assign “unclaimed” participants or make minor adjustments to the groups. Further restrictions (such as number of different institution affiliations, e.g., such as having no more than two team members form the same institution) can be further introduced. More complex possibilities of revealing role preferences, such as the creation of profiles, writing application letters, providing a CV etc. can be used to make this phase more interesting. This approach of role and team assignment can be very time consuming (two to three weeks), but the intensive occupation with the role and team choice leads to a high level of identification with the role and the team.

Especially if roles are drawn or assigned by the instructor, participants may feel unhappy with their lot. This can be further influenced by the team structure. In this case, it can make sense to allow the team members to swap roles within a set period of time (i.e., before the group work begins). Though this option still restricts the role choice very much, it can give students comfort, lead to a better alignment between roles and backgrounds, or simple provide grounds for discussion and hence team-building.

If the participants are asked to reveal their role preferences, especially if they are expected to create more elaborate profiles or applications, it can be worthwhile to have a look at participants who provided only very little or no information and who do not respond adequately to requests. Experience has shown that such behaviour is an indicator for later free-rider behaviour. Assigning such participants to groups should thus be done with caution.
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