student collaboration

Student Collaboration and Negotiation

Young people have not been well prepared for adult life today unless they are comfortable and well practiced in addressing collaboratively the kinds of problems and objectives that 21st century life poses. – Kuhn

Collaboration is a near-ubiquitous buzzword in the world of business. Workspaces are designed to foster collaboration. Software companies promote the ways their programs facilitate collaboration — often across the continent or around the globe.

Collaboration is considered one of the key skills for 21st century learning. In fact, the P21 Framework for 21st Century Learning  identifies Collaboration as one of four essential learning skills (along with Creativity, Critical Thinking and Communication) for the 21st century workforce, noting that “the importance of cooperative interpersonal capabilities is higher and the skills involved are more sophisticated than in the prior industrial era” (Dede, 2010, p. 2).

Classrooms can be laboratories for student collaboration — places where students learn to tap each other’s strengths, contribute to shared goals, and solve problems together. In the process, students not only develop important skills for work and life but they also deepen their relationships with each other and internalize learning more fully.

Learning to collaborate with peers (and others) is a skill that will be valuable throughout life. Researchers have tended to highlight the importance of collaboration for learning and for future workplace success. In addition, this relationship skill is also important in many other areas of life, including family relationships, friendships and civic participation.

 

What Is Collaboration?

There are many ways people work together. But what does it mean to collaborate? Researcher Friedrich Hesse and his colleagues describe collaboration as “the activity of working together toward a common goal.” It includes the following components:

  • Communication, or exchanging knowledge and ideas to increase shared understanding.
  • Cooperation, or dividing responsibilities so that everyone is contributing their best.
  • Responsiveness, which implies active, insightful participation.

 

Teamwork: A Key Skill to Future Employers — A Global Perspective

A global study of business leaders concluded that “effective collaboration, crucial in almost every sector, is a difficult habit to acquire as an adult.” Instead, it is an essential skill that young people need to develop as they are growing up.

A survey of business executives from 25 countries, including the United States, found that they see teamwork as a top skill needed for their employees. Here are the percentages for each skill named by these leaders as one of the three “most critical” skills for employees in their organizations today. (Other options include literacy, numeracy, and digital literacy, all of which ranked lower.)

 

When asked what schools can do, experts interviewed for the study emphasized “group discussion, giving students the opportunity to work things out for themselves, while also learning how to respond to the differing skills and opinions of their peers.”

 

Collaboration: A Key Skill to Future Employers — A National Perspective

A survey of 400 employers by the Conference Board and its collaborators found that employers say “teamwork and collaboration” is one of the four most important “applied skills” for entering today’s workforce. (The other three are professionalism/ work ethic, oral and written communications, and critical thinking/problem solving.) In fact, these skills are more important to employers than basic knowledge and skills, such as reading comprehension and math.

In this study, collaboration and teamwork included:

  • Building collaborative relationships with colleagues and customers
  • Being able to work with diverse teams
  • Negotiating and managing conflicts

Three out of four (75 percent) employers said collaboration/teamwork is “very important” for high school graduates. Almost all of them (94 percent) said it was very important for four-year college graduates. Sixty-one percent of employers indicated that new employees with high school diplomas were “adequate” in this essential skill.

 

Collaboration: A Primary 21st Century Skill

Collaboration is often identified as a primary skill for success in the 21st century. It both involves how students learn (through working together) and an outcome of learning that prepares students to be successful in today’s diverse, global society. According to proponents of 21st century skills, collaboration emphasizes:

  • Being able to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams
  • Being flexible and willing to make necessary compromises to achieve a shared goal
  • Sharing responsibility for collaborative work
  • Valuing the distinct contributions of each team member

 

Cooperation Trumps Competition Promoting Student Achievement

Students tend to learn and achieve more when they are motivated with cooperative goals that involve a lot of collaboration, as opposed to goals that encourage competition or individual achievement. In a cooperative classroom, students have “a vested interest in each other’s learning as well as their own.” In these settings, teachers:

  • Encourage students to set mutual, positive goals and rewards together.
  • Creating assignments that require combining the resources of different members of a team so they recognize and value each other’s contributions.
  • Ensuring that each group member has a specific role.

This overall conclusion is based on an analysis of about 150 studies from around the world. This kind of collaborative learning also tends to create more positive student relationships, which also contributes to higher levels of achievement.

 

Making Group Work Work

A five-year study by the University of London found that effective group work in classrooms could be effective in raising student achievement, increasing student engagement and reducing classroom management challenges. The study was prompted by the reality that “Pupils often sit in groups, but they only occasionally interact and work as groups.” In addition, teachers are often skeptical about the value of group work, so they are less likely to use it.

Here are some factors that made group work effective:

  • Group work builds on positive relationships. Design activities that help students develop skills for listening, sharing and respecting each other’s ideas, building respect and trust, and giving helpful feedback.
  • Small groups are usually best, often starting with groups of two or three. As group skills grow, groups can get a little larger, depending on the complexity of the task.
  • Have groups sit close together (e.g., around a single table) to reduce the overall noise level in the classroom.
  • Provide opportunities to reflect on and practice group skills, including debriefing after each session.
  • Operate as a “guide on the side” for groups by asking open-ended questions, making general suggestions, and encouraging students to get the information they need independently.

 

 

Collaboration Isn’t Magic

Though collaboration is generally effective in encouraging learning, researchers note that it does not benefit every student all the time. Some students learn more when working alone, at least sometimes. It is also less effective when the goal is rote learning or when one person dominates the team. It’s most effective with conceptually oriented assignments, when students listen to each other, give feedback and, in the process, sharpen each other’s thinking.

 

 

How Do Friends Help Each Other Learn?

Helping students collaborate for learning has the advantage of tapping the ways students motivate each other through their relationships. Researchers suggest that peers motivate each other academically because:

  1. Good friends know what each other needs and can do. So they can be better at working together and pushing each other.
  2. They can expect more from each other because of their mutual commitment and trust.
  3. Their caring, close bonds give them confidence to take risks in experimenting and solving problems.

Student Collaboration

 

Group Learning that Teaches Collaboration — and Really Works

Some teachers shy away from cooperative or collaborative learning methods. They point to times when groups haven’t worked well. They have seen some groups (or some students in groups) not putting in much effort, relying on others to take care of what’s needed. Or they’ve seen cases where students end up learning less, not more, than if they had worked alone.

However, researchers have learned a lot about what makes collaborative learning work best. Here are some insights from this research to try in your classrooms.

Meaningful

Simply assigning students to work together is rarely productive. The power comes in having a real problem to solve or question to answer. Collaborative learning works when students recognize that they need each other to accomplish a task.

Conceptual

Rote learning or highly structured problems with correct solutions can often be solved more effectively independently. Problems that lack a single, correct answer lend themselves to collaboration.

Build trust

Students will open up when they know it’s safe to do so. Group ground rules are an important first step. In addition, structure the collaborative process to build their confidence as they start with simpler questions or problems and build to those that are more challenging, controversial or self-revealing.

Consensus

Performance improves when students are urged to work on a problem until everyone agrees with the solution, rather than relying on persuasion.

Participatory

Each and every student has something to contribute and has a meaningful role. Clarifying the roles and expectations up front makes success more likely.

Interactive

The best collaborative experience involve participants directly working together, engaging each other’s thinking, and listening and responding to each other. It is undermined when participants work in parallel and ignore or dismiss each other’s contributions.

Conflict

When students begin to recognize the legitimacy of other’s perspectives, they tend to see conflicts as mutual problems that need to be solved for everyone’s benefit. These differences in perspectives and opinions push students to think harder to reach agreement.

Scaffold

Some students may be less eager or able to contribute to a group process. For example, they may be shy or lack confidence. Set up processes that help them be successful. For example, you might offer sentence starters that help them articulate an idea to the group. Or you might use a talking stick so that others know not to interrupt.

 

Jostens partnered with Search Institute to provide research-based data and advice for dealing with common school challenges. Over the past 30 years, Search Institute has studied the strengths and difficulties in the lives of more than five million middle and high school youth across the country and around the world to understand what kids need in order to succeed. Like Jostens Renaissance, Search Institute focuses on young people’s strengths, rather than emphasizing their problems or deficiencies. Visit SearchInstitute.org to learn more.

This month’s content focuses on this important skill for all areas of life. Click the below image to download a guide with research, tips, and activities:

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