Classroom Teamwork Activities Bring Students Together

Classroom teamwork activities can overcome the stale feeling school can create as students make their way through the semester. But more importantly, it can help students learn to relate and support one another to achieve a common goal.

Things like peer interaction, applied concepts, and team building are pushed to the way side for the more traditional power point guided “chalk and talk” style of teaching. This educational style is still vital for the school experience, but teachers need to make sure that students are engaging with one another in meaningful ways and not necessarily just with their friends.

Odyssey Teams if often asked to facilitate teamwork activities in schools and universities, and many academic institutions order our DIY kits to do philanthropic give-back activities with students.

If you want to know more about Odyssey Teams’ programs, please reach out to us at learn@odysseyteams.com

Classroom Teamwork activities Are The Best Way To Build Interpersonal Communication

Breaking students up into groups and having them work together towards a common goal gives each student a chance to be heard. Without teacher involvement they solve the challenge by discussing various strategies, communicating their ideas, and putting their plans into action. This kind of team work is where students come to understand each other better and communicate interpersonally.

Classroom teamwork activities get students working together to make decisions based on creative thinking, communication, and collaboration. Here are three of these activities to get your classroom working together towards the common goal of teamwork.

  1. If You Build It…

This is the most flexible of the classroom teamwork activities. After you have broken the students into groups you give each one the same set of materials such as blocks, pipe cleaner, marshmallows, dried spaghetti, glue or tape. The goal is to work together in order to build. The end goal and parameters are both variables. Teachers can have everyone build a sturdy building or castle. See which team can replicate a famous statue, or build the tallest, most stable, structure. A variation on this game would be to have a community pile of materials for all the teams to use. There are several kits to use for this activity such as Odyssey Teams Helping Hands, or

. This game encourages communication and problem-solving.

  1. Minefield

Classrooms are generally smaller than your average corporate give back activity. So, you can employ games that require quiet and concentration. This game works in pairs. Teachers place various obstacles across an open area. (You may have to move some desks.) Then blindfold one student and the other student guides the blindfolded student through the minefield using just their voice. Don’t maintain time. The objective is cooperation and not competition. This activity incorporates communication and trust building.

  1. It’s A Mystery

This is one of the most enjoyable classroom teamwork activities for all ages. Teachers create a mystery and a set of numbered mystery clues. Give each student a set of clues that they can’t let each other read. They must present and then discuss their clues to one another. You can either imagine your own mystery or use these examples >Murder Mystery or Bank Robbery Mystery. This team building activity builds problem solving and communication.

Each one of these classroom teamwork activities requires no timer and one shouldn’t be used. Nor should you give out any prizes for fastest or strongest. Instead, the focus of the discussion should be on HOW the teams solved each problem. Take the time to highlight how each team went about its creative process in order to accomplish the goal. By pointing out these positive ideas students begin to flourish from the inside out.

If you want to know more about  classroom teamwork activities or if you want to bring Odyssey Teams to your school, please reach out to us at learn@odysseyteams.com