Students build the habits, language, and routines needed for successful project-based learning by working through a shared classroom challenge that depends on listening, role-sharing, and revising ideas together. Over the week, they identify individual strengths, use those strengths in fast team tasks and a mini-challenge, and turn what they learn into a classroom problem-solving toolkit with roles, sentence stems, and a clear process for group work. The experience helps students practice collaborative discussion, respectful performance and rehearsal habits, short-cycle research and observation, and evidence-based reflection so they can create a classroom culture where everyone contributes to solving everyday problems.

Students will collaborate in teams to create and test a shared contract, using discussion norms, respectful feedback, and clear speaking and listening moves to make group decisions and include every voice. They will apply simple problem-solving and planning skills to an everyday classroom challenge by identifying team strengths, assigning roles, testing ideas in a mini-challenge, and revising their strategies and scorecard criteria based on evidence. Students will conduct brief research through observation of peers and short mentor examples to define effective group performance expectations, then use reflection and self-audit to evaluate how well their team followed its agreements. Students will communicate their learning through a short skit and presentation that shows how their group used different strengths to solve a classroom problem and set goals for improving collaboration next week.

Students will create quick teamwork artifacts throughout the week, including strength maps, mini-challenge planning notes, and a draft Team Collaboration Contract with four shared ground rules. Each team will also build and revise a simple self-audit scorecard after testing their contract in a short classroom challenge. By the end, teams will produce a classroom problem-solving toolkit that includes agreed roles, helpful phrases for discussion and feedback, and a step-by-step plan for handling group tasks. For the showcase, they will present their contract, scorecard, and a short skit that demonstrates how their group used different strengths to solve a realistic classroom problem.

Begin with a Mighty Mix-Up Relay: teams rotate through 3–4 fast, hands-on challenges such as building the tallest paper tower, creating a frozen tableau of a classroom conflict, or completing a silent shape-making task. After each round, students briefly identify which strengths showed up, which roles helped, and what communication moves made the group more successful. Close with the essential question and introduce the week’s goal: each team will create a classroom problem-solving toolkit with agreed roles, helpful phrases, and a step-by-step plan for handling group tasks.

End with a Next-Step Showcase where each team presents its classroom problem-solving toolkit, including agreed roles, helpful phrases, and the step-by-step plan it created for group tasks. Teams also share their collaboration contract and self-audit scorecard, then perform a short skit showing how they used different strengths to solve a realistic classroom challenge. Classmates act as the audience, offering warm feedback, compliments, and one suggestion for how the team could strengthen its collaboration next week. Close with a brief gallery walk so students can notice patterns across teams and collect ideas to carry into future classroom routines.