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Use short team building activities as a teaching strategy when you want to actively engage your students and provide brisk pacing and variety in classroom activities. There are many ways to use these in your classroom. You can use them as warm-up activities or as a way to energize students and add physical movement when students have been engaged in a task for long periods of time. You can also use them as closing activities that give students an opportunity to reflect on new material and how it relates to what they have already learned. Lastly, you can use them to introduce new learning material, for providing guided or independent practice, class or team building, and feedback or assessment.

Below are some team building ideas. It is easy for these activities to become an entire lesson and take up a class period. Try to stick with the suggested time frames.

1. Turn to Your Neighbor and . . . (3-5 minutes) "Turn to your neighbor and see if he or she agrees with the statement I have written on the board. If there is a disagreement, how can you use last night's assignment to prove the point?"

2. 3-2-1 (3-5 minutes) At the end of an explanation or demonstration, pass out index cards and have students write down
a. 3 important terms to remember.
b. 2 ideas or facts they would like to know more about.
c. 1 concept, process, or skill they think they have mastered.

3. Ticket to Leave (3-5 minutes) Pass out a printed "ticket" about the size of a half sheet of notebook paper. Ask each student to jot down two additional questions about the topic you just investigated. Collect the tickets and use them to review the topic.

4. A Note to a Friend (5-10 minutes) Have students write a note to a friend that explains the process, rule, or concept they have learned about. Have students share their notes.

5. Sort the Items (5-10 minutes) Have students place ideas, concepts, or statements in categories that you provide. For example, you might ask "Which statements were based on fact?" and "Which statements were based on inference?"

6. Jumbled Summary (5-10 minutes) Write key words or phrases from an explanation or introduction in random order on an acetate sheet or on a page to be photocopied. Following the presentation, ask pairs to "unscramble" the terms and reorder them in logical sequence as a knowledge check.

7. Prediction Pairs (5-10 minutes) Divide the class into pairs and have students work in pairs as they listen to a short story you are reading aloud. Read a short passage, then pause to ask the prediction pairs to state "What will happen next?" and "What are your reasons for this prediction, based on the story so far?"

8. Alphabet Summary (5-10 minutes) Give each student a different letter of the alphabet and ask students to think of one word or idea beginning with that letter that is connected to the topic just concluded. Use the responses for a whole class discussion review.

9. Think-Pair-Share (5-10 minutes) Distribute index cards to students, and ask them to think about what they have just heard. Have them write down three statements about it on the index card and exchange their responses with a partner. Have the whole class debrief on the topic. Ask for frequently mentioned ideas or terms.

10. Draw a Picture (5-10 minutes) Ask students to work in pairs to create a graphic summary of how they would organize information, reach a conclusion, or interact differently based on the demonstration you just gave.

11. Three-Person Jigsaw (15 minutes) Have each student in a trio read a separate page or a portion of a longer selection. Then ask him or her to teach the main points to the two other members of their study group. Finally, have each student quiz the other members to make sure everyone knows all parts thoroughly.

12. K-W-L (15 minutes) Before a film, lecture, or reading, have students work in groups of three to write down what they already know about the subject and what they want to learn about the subject. Then show the film, deliver the lecture, or engage the group in the reading. Have each trio:
a. circle the "known" information that was covered.
b. put asterisks next to the questions that were answered on their list.
c. add other things they learned as a result of the film, lecture, or reading.

13. Inside-Outside Circles (10-20 minutes) Organize students into groups of six, with three students standing in a circle and facing out, and three students forming a circle around them, facing inward. Each student should face another student. Direct each pair to exchange information related to yesterday's lesson, the unit so far, etc. Provide questions to stimulate dialogue. Ask students in the center circle to rotate, so that they face a new partner, and have them choose a different topic for exchange.

14. Four Corners (15-20 minutes) State a situation or dilemma, then ask students to go to one of four corners of the room marked Strongly Agree, Agree, Strongly Disagree, Disagree. Have students exchange their opinions and present their view to the other three corners. (This works particularly well in social studies, language arts, or science courses where students encounter controversial issues.)

15. Numbered Heads Together (10 minutes) Assign teams. Give each team member a different number. Ask a question or present a problem, and allow teams time to agree on the correct answer. Then select a team and call a number at random. Have the student with the number answer the question and explain why the answer is correct. (If the group has not been able to arrive at a joint answer, the team must "pass" until it is called upon again.)

16. Send-a-Problem (10-20 minutes) Assign teams. Have each student on a team make up a question or review a problem and write it on a flashcard. Have the author of each problem/question ask the question of his or her team members. If the group cannot agree on an answer, have them work on the problem until everyone agrees. After the team has reviewed their flashcards, have them pass its stack of review questions to another team to review.

17. Timed-Pair-Share (5-10 minutes) Have students pair off according to some specific, predetermined criterion. For example, have students who did not see the televised debate last night pair off with someone who did. Then give explicit directions to the pairs for some task. For example, give partner #1 two minutes to explain why he or she believes candidate A or B carried the debate. Give partner #2 two minutes to ask questions about other aspects of the debate.

18. Appointment Calendar (5-10 minutes) Distribute to each student a sheet of paper with the face of a clock printed on it. Next to each hour place a horizontal line. Direct students to identify three different learning buddies with whom they can confer during the lesson: one at 9 o'clock, one at 12 o'clock, and one at 3 o'clock. Have pairs write each other's names in the spaces provided. As the lesson unfolds, have students meet with their 9 o'clock learning buddy to review the major ideas just covered, their 12 o'clock buddy to compare their reasons for disagreeing with the author's point of view, and their 3 o'clock buddy to cite specific evidence that supports their viewpoint.

19. Idea Spinner (5-10 minutes) Construct a "spinner" made from cardboard marked into four quadrants: summarize, explain, predict, and evaluate. After you present new material, call on different students and use the spinner to frame questions based on the information presented. For example: "What was the main idea in . . ." (summarize) or "What do you think would have happened if . . ." (predict).