The course is a first-year honors sequence. It is four classes spread across two semester with the same students. It is unique in the Honors College for several things. It is based around Design Thinking being used to understand a problem and develop one or more viable solutions. It focuses on countries in the bottom half of the economic pyramid. It focuses on each student succeeding at developing a product to make life better in their selected countries. It meets on Wednesday afternoons at 3:00 for six hours at a time giving the professors all kinds of time to plan projects, field trips that would not be possible without the larger time block. The students share dinners approximately twice a month. The honors college generously provides for food from around the world and many subcultures in the US.

For years, this sequence has generated groups of students who were well bonded and who went forward to help each other in the remainder of their university careers.

Suddenly the impact of Covid on the developmental state of the students seemed to be evident. In 23-24 the class of students did not become one, they did not spend time together as much, or share in activities. There were many groups within the class but the larger sharing that had occurred in previous years did not appear to be present.
This is important as it impacts risk taking, learning interactions, the ability to accept criticism and give it as a friend who wants to help other friends do better.
In reviewing the class, it became evident that the professors had not tried to facilitate this. This became an important objective for the year 24-25.

The idea was simple enough that the students would be put into teams. The teams would change constantly. Teams would change in size and composition regularly throughout each weekly session with the exception of field trips. This included assigning students to dinner seating, and for small projects where previously they could find their own groups. Groups could be as small as three and as large as six – the class started with 22 students, a teaching assistant from the previous class and two professors. Quickly each student met everyone else in the class, collaborated with them, presented with, dined with them, created with them in two D and three D. It has changed the class.

The paper discusses theory, how, what was done, plus reaction from students from the past year’s class and the current class gathered by a student.

Keywords: Randomized Groups, Change, Risk Taking, Dinner in class.