Example No. 2: Jim Morgan, Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University

• My teams in first-year engineering courses nominally have four members. I never have groups of more than four people.
• Heterogeneity: I select a success criterion (e.g., GPA) and choose one from each quartile. I pair women and members of any other underrepresented groups. I make a final adjustment to equalize the average "success ranking."
• I provide team training to help set expectations of team members.
• I use peer assessment to help teams reach a standard of performance (and an end-of-term peer evaluation that counts toward the grade). In my experience, peer evaluation helps with slackers (and with overachievers). Those who do more get more (up to 110 percent), while those who do less get less (down to 70 percent overall, plus the possibility of zero on individual assignments).