Forming Student Teams to Incorporate Soft Skills and Commonality of Schedule

Abstract

It is widely recognized that students’ learning can be enhanced and facilitated when students have the opportunity to work together in teams. As a consequence, the pursuit of a methodology to form optimal student teams continues to challenge academics. Based on a review of related literature, we propose a model that includes new approaches to two team criteria. The first is a discrete optimization approach to commonality of schedule. To facilitate team meetings, we offer an exact formulation to ensure students on a given team share a minimum number of common time slots during which they are available. The second team criterion is sufficient soft skills. Using a unique text analysis approach, we ensure that each team includes students with adequate soft skills, such as leadership and interpersonal skills. Our analytic approach enhances the students’ learning experience and class performance and simplifies the faculty task of forming teams.