Step 6: Using Contracts to Foster Inclusive Teams

Effective teamwork can be challenging and often requires careful planning and effort. Eric Mazur and his teaching team use a variety of techniques to help individuals come together to create a high-functioning team. At the beginning of each project, individuals share what has made for effective team experiences in the past, and students build on these principles to create a contract of how the team pledges to interact. At the end of each project, each team member evaluates the performance of themselves, their peers, and the group as a whole. Mazur’s teaching assistant explains that this feedback keeps team members accountable to each other while also building their self-efficacy by showing them “what kind of things they can work on, and what they did really well.”

Profiled: Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, teaches "Physics as a Foundation for Science and Engineering" to 60 students at Harvard College.