Overview:

Securing student buy-in is essential for successful teamwork. Students may be skeptical or resistant due to past negative experiences, unclear expectations, or not understanding the value of group work. Proactively addressing these concerns helps students invest emotionally and academically in the project.

Why It's Important:

When students understand the purpose and benefits of teamwork, they are more likely to engage, collaborate, and persist through challenges. Buy-in reduces resistance, fosters positive attitudes, and sets the stage for effective team dynamics.

Recommended Strategies:
Approach
When to Use
Notes
Announce team projects early
First day of class or before
Include in syllabus to set expectations and reduce surprises

Be transparent about purpose and expectations

 

Explain the "why" of teamwork
Project introduction

Clearly explain the goals, relevance to course outcomes, and what effective teamwork looks like 

 

Connect teamwork to professional practice and employability. Provide a job description or announcement examples that list it as a required skill or aptitude
Investigate student attitudes
Project launch

Use surveys or discussions to surface prior experiences and concerns; use this feedback to shape team norms 

(See Team Formation Survey example below)
Address perceived "costs"
Early and ongoing
Discuss challenges like coordination, motivation, and groupthink; validate concerns and share strategies to overcome them
Generate excitement
Throughout project
Showcase past successes, offer choices in project elements, and invite alumni to share positive experiences

 

Additional Tips and “First Week Activities” for Buy-In

  • Use a syllabus statement to clarify teamwork expectations.
  • Facilitate open conversations about what students want from each other and the instructor about resolving conflict, providing feedback and monitoring progress, disagreeing respectfully, maintaining fairness and equitable distribution of work, ways to communicate and coordinate work.
  • Display and discuss the results of a survey (see Team Formation Survey example below) for prior teamwork experience and attitudes towards teamwork through a team contract. See example Team contracts below. Team contracts can help build trust through normalizing good teamwork practices and reduce anxiety with protocols for managing conflict and workload.
  • Build-in opportunities for students to reflect on and evaluate their teamwork progress
  • Mini Team Challenge (low stakes)
    A fun, (“build a tower,” “solve a logic puzzle”) warms up teams, builds trust, and reduces anxiety.
  • Clarify in Team Projects
    Students often don’t know what support they can expect.
    Add language like: “The instructor acts as a project coach, not a referee. Students should attempt to resolve issues following the conflict ladder before requesting instructor mediation.”
  • Add a addressing the “big fears”:
    • “What if a teammate doesn’t do their work?”
    • “What if we all get the same grade?”
    • “What if I hate group work?”

 

See One Drive Folder for Sample Team Contract

See One Drive Folder for Sample Team Formation Survey