1 - Getting Started ~5 mins
Your group of 3–4 is already set for this stretch of work. Over the next six lessons that group will take a real community issue through design thinking: clarify it, ideate, develop a solution, plan how it could land, then present it. That work only holds if the team holds.
Today you are participating in settling how that team will work and writing the rules you will actually use when things get messy. The Group Norms page you leave with is not paperwork for the folder. It is the agreement you will reopen when someone misses a deadline or two ideas collide.
If you do not yet have a group, tell your teacher now and join the named group they give you before the next step.
2 - Key Terms ~5 mins
Three terms you will need before you write your Group Norms page. Read them once, then use them in your own wording when you draft.
| Term | What it means for you | Real example |
|---|---|---|
| Group norms | The working rules a team agrees before the real work starts. Your Group Norms page is the artefact this lesson banks; every member signs it. | A four-person group agreeing check-ins every Tuesday and a named process when someone cannot deliver |
| Roles | Named jobs inside the group so the load is shared on purpose. Each of you needs a clear job for clarifying, ideating and presenting, not only a vague “we’ll all chip in”. | Facilitator, note-taker, timekeeper, researcher |
| Decision-making | How the group chooses when people disagree. Write the method now so you are not inventing it mid-argument when you hit problem-definition or ideation in the next lessons. | Full agreement on the problem statement; majority vote on smaller task splits |
3 - Build and Sign Your Group Norms ~35 mins
This is the first of six lessons on the community design-thinking task. First the class builds one shared shape for a strong Group Norms page under four headings: roles, meeting cadence, how decisions get made, and what happens when conflict or a missed deadline appears. Your teacher drives that shared list on the board or projected screen. Keep devices down while the class shape is built. A line only goes up when the room can actually use it under pressure.
Timing inside this step: about 12 minutes for the class shape, about 20 minutes for your group page and signatures, about 3 minutes to save and check.
Then your own group of 3–4 writes its real one-page agreement. Use the class shape, not the class wording. Every heading needs a concrete line your group can follow next week.
Default save-and-sign path: one paper page with the four headings → every member hand-signs with the date → each of you photographs or uploads the signed page as Group Norms ClassName Date into your Strand 2.1 portfolio folder. Digital alternative: one shared document, full names plus date typed under a Signatures heading, each person exports or saves a PDF copy to the same folder.
This page runs with you through the next six lessons. ALT 3 is the later collaborative design-thinking portfolio task; when it asks how you worked together, this signed Group Norms page is early evidence of your process, and it can feed the Portfolio in Action AAC alongside the rest of your Strand 2.1 work.
Group norms shape, built together
4 - Think About It ~10 mins
Talk these through with your group before you pack up. The useful answer is the one you would still stand over in three weeks.
- Pick the line on your Group Norms page that would be hardest to keep. What makes it hard, and what would help you keep it anyway?
- Conflict is easier to handle when nobody is angry yet. Point to the exact sentence on your page that says what you will do first when two people want different directions. If that sentence is vague, tighten it now.
If you want a short portfolio note later, add two lines under your Group Norms page: the rule you most need, and why your group chose that wording.
5 - What You Covered ~5 mins
- You settled into a small group of 3–4 for the collaborative design-thinking task that runs through the next six lessons.
- You named what makes a productive group: clear roles, regular check-ins, a decision method, and a conflict process written before trouble starts.
- As a class you built the shape of a Group Norms page under four headings.
- Your own group wrote, agreed and signed a one-page Group Norms document and saved it in Strand 2.1.
- Next lesson you clarify the real community issue your group will take forward.
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