The Aim

This week we had the task of running activities for a group from The Tangen School. The children would be aged 17/18 and would split into teams and compete in these activities. Having one group at the end victorious. All the activities had to revolve around team building in some way and obviously be associated with the outdoors. We had to use our organizational skills to formulate a timetable and scoring system so that each team took part in each activity and were marked out of a possible 10 points. Over the course of the week we had four different groups.

Team Building and Group Dynamics

The activities were designed to be fun but also challenge the teams and get them working together. All the activities were designed so that every member had to work toward the end goal. Tuckman (1965) is of the belief that in order to achieve high performance small groups need to develop over four stages. The first stage being ‘forming’, this is the amicable stage when the group start to form. The second stage is ‘storming’, this is when the group may start to clash as members assert their characteristics. Here the facilitator should encourage productive ‘storming’ by encouraging discussion and discouraging nasty behaviour. Thirdly is ‘norming’, this is when the group starts to work together. The group may bounce between ‘norming’ and ‘storming’ before finally settling at the fourth stage, ‘performing’. This is where the group work well and require little to no supervision (Tuckman, 1965). Another way of receiving high results is through team size, Wheelan (2009, pp. 247-263.) gives evidence that teams with fewer numbers produced greater productivity and group development than groups with larger numbers. Therefore, the session will use a small group to achieve greatest success and the facilitator will look out for the stages of learning and accommodate the group accordingly by stepping in and out when necessary to avoid negative outcomes.

Activity One – River Crossing
This activity had the group crossing ‘the river’. They had a set of planks that they had to set out accordingly in order to get to the other side. All members had to cross and help each other in order to accomplish the goal. The team had three minutes at the beginning to decide on how they were going to accomplish the task.

Activity Two – Jungle Swing
In this activity the group had to swing from one place to another however they couldn’t just reach in and grab the rope they had to use each other to lean in and grab hold of it. When all participants were across to the other side they then had the challenge of getting everyone to the other side by only using one arm. This challenge really needed great communication and encouragement between the group.

Activity Three – Slack Line
For this activity we rigged a slack line with a rope above so that the participants could grab on and walk along the slack line holding the rope. The group had to perform challenges such as getting every member on the slack line for 30 seconds, getting the group to go around each other on the slack line and managing to get round each other silently. Again, communication is vital to the success of this activity.

Activity Four – Shelter Building
For this, the teams had to build a shelter with materials provided in an allocated amount of time. The shelter had to be waterproof, windproof, fit the entire team inside and be a little bit creative.

Activity Five – Night Line
In this activity the participants had to guide a blindfolded partner around a course that followed a rope. The participants had to duck, step, avoid obstacles and trust their partners in order to get round. They had one go round talking to their partner and afterward they were timed and could only make certain noises. It was very amusing to watch but more importantly it built trust between the participants.

Activity Six – Orienteering
We set up some pictures in the woods that the participants had to find. They had an allocated amount of time to find them and had to communicate well and make quick decisions to accomplish the task.

Activity Seven – Sensory Obstacle Course
In this activity the participants were bind folded and were guided barefoot over different terrain; snow, grass, water, leaves, stones. They then had to decide between them what they had walked over. This activity was great as it was a bit different and got the participants using different senses.

Activity Eight – Fire Lighting
The team had to build a fire underneath a piece of string, if they burnt through the string then another piece was placed higher and the team scored more points.

What I learnt:

• Some tasks that seem very simple to certain people, are near impossible to others. As a facilitator you have to be sympathetic and patient when people don”t understand.
• The groups were quite shy at first but as the activities got going they really came out of their shells and started to have fun.

Tuckman, B (1965) ‘Developmental Sequence In Small Groups’, Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), pp. 384-399.

Wheelan, S. (2009) ‘Group Size, Group Development and Group Productivity ‘, Small Group Research, 40(2), pp. 247-263.