Working with classmates to study or complete an assignment or project benefits students in two important ways--students learn how to work well with others, and students learn from one another, especially when they have opportunities to work with classmates with different views and backgrounds. Collaborative Assignments and Projects are among the American Association of Colleges and Universities' (AAC&U) High-Impact Practices, teaching and learning practices shown to bring "significant educational benefits for students who participate in them - including and especially those from demographic groups historically underserved by higher education".

Building strong collaborative skills will help students succeed in their chosen careers, as strong teamwork skills are highly valued in the workplace. The National Association of Colleges and Employers' Career Readiness Initiative included Teamwork as one of eight vital career competencies.

The Collaborate Toolkit includes tips for teaching collaborative skills and a range of tools that can be adapted or used as-is. The ideas presented in the toolkit do not require an overhaul of your course or program. These are small changes and additions meant to be easily integrated into courses and activities. We approached creating this toolkit with equity and inclusion in mind but would always appreciate feedback and ideas on how to make these approaches work for all types of students that are in our courses.

The Tips for Teaching Collaborative Skills section is a list of best practices for teaching collaborative skills. When possible, the teaching tip links to an item in the Toolkit that can be adapted or used as-is. You are not expected to adopt all of these tips at once! Instead, consider adopting just one new practice.

The Assessing Collaborative Skills section suggests ways to provide feedback on the process of collaboration.

The Examples section is currently under construction. Come back soon to learn how Seattle Central faculty and staff are teaching collaborative skills in their areas.

Do you have ideas to add to the Toolkit? Please send a message to Emily Castillo at emily.castillo@seattlecolleges.edu.

1. Create a strong community

Groups that are cohesive and share a common goal are generally more productive and more enjoyable to be a part of. One way to build group cohesion is to establish group norms. Norms are the expectations group members have for one another. For example, we might establish norms about behavior during group meetings, methods of communication, and adherence to due dates. Group norms help group members understand expected behaviors and provide a path for handling conflicts as they arise (Linabary 2020).

Tools:

Establish Group Norms

Join the Building Community in the Online Classroom Learning Community to access faculty-created materials and ideas for building community in online courses.

Consider using strategies in the Building Community in Your Classroom Presentation by Libby Schoene, Abby Daane, and Rick Downs at Convocation 2023.

2. Discuss the Benefits of Collaborative Learning

Join the Building Community in the Online Classroom Learning Community to access faculty-created materials and ideas for building community in online courses.

Group projects are valuable learning activities, but a lot of students dread group work!

It is helpful to communicate with students about your goals for group work. Your goals for group assignments and projects may be for students to construct meaning together, to complete a larger task than students would be capable of on their own, or to help them build their teamwork skills. Communicate these goals clearly with students when you give them an assignment. Consider using the Transparency in Learning & Teaching  (TiLT) Framework to create assignments with clear learning goals. You can learn more about the TiLT framework in the Equity in Practice professional development program. 

Tool:

TiLTed Course Template Preview (developed by eLearning) Download Template

3. Design Effective Group Tasks and Projects

If collaboration is the goal of an assignment, project, or activity, you will need to carefully construct a task that can only be accomplished through collaboration. This can be done by drawing on students’ differing areas of expertise or by assigning roles that facilitate collaboration.

Tool:

Group Work Planning Considerations--Use this tool to help think through how students will work together on an assignment or task.

4. Assign Roles in Group Work

Assigning or asking students to select roles in group assignments helps groups stay on task, keeps students engaged, and encourages equal participation among members ("Using Roles in Group Work").

Tools:

The POGIL Project has developed the following group role cards to help students work effectively in groups. Each set of cards features four group member roles. The cards describe role responsibilities and provides some language group members can use in their interactions.

Group Member Role Cards Set 1: Roles include facilitator, reflector, presenter, and recorder

Group Member Role Cards Set 2: Roles include manager, quality control, public relations, and process analyst 

Group Member Role Cards Set 3: Roles include coordinator, encourager/cheerleader, spokesperson, and reader

5. Explicitly Teach Collaborative Skills

Research shows that students build collaborative skills by reflecting on their collaborative skills and using strategies to improve. We can help students in this process by explicitly teaching strategies for working with others and coaching them as they practice their collaboration skills (Lai, DiCerbo & Foltz, 2017).

6. Give students agency in collaborative work

We can offer students choices about the collaborative skills they want to develop, who they work with, and how they work with their groups.

7. Give students opportunities to reflect on their collaborative experiences

We build strong collaborative skills by reflecting on our experiences working with others. We can encourage students to consider what strategies they used in a collaborative task, Teachers and leaders are rarely able to observe a group as they negotiate, compromise, and handle conflicts. Students are best situated to assess their progress in building collaborative skills.

Tools:

Collaborative Skills Self-Evaluation Form 

Group Evaluation Form 

8. Offer Service-Learning in your course

Students in Service-Learning build valuable collaborative skills. Service-Learning students report that service-learning helped them build these collaborative skills:

• working with others
• taking initiative by suggesting new ideas or actions
• taking on leadership roles
• working with people who are different from them

Read more about student learning in Service-Learning in the 2022-2023 Service Learning Assessment Report.

We periodically review student work to ensure that students are learning the skills we’ve promised they would learn at our college. This is assessment. We assess students' work for two reasons:

1. To provide student feedback 
2. To ensure that our instructional methods are leading to student learning.

Assessment is often tied to grades, but it doesn’t need to be! You can assess student learning on ungraded assignments and activities.

Consider using multiple approaches to assessment. Not all assessments or assignments will work equally well for all students. It is important to provide opportunities for students to show what they know in different ways and not to "privilege specific ways of knowing or preferred ways to demonstrate knowledge" (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020)

Tips for Assessing Collaborative Skills

1. Assess the process of collaboration rather than the product. A successful group project or presentation might not indicate that group members successfully used their collaborative skills. We need to look into students' experience and process working with others to assess this skill.
2. Ask students to reflect on their experiences. Teachers and leaders are rarely able to observe a group as they negotiate, compromise, and handle conflicts. Students are best situated to assess their progress in building collaborative skills. Use the Self-Evaluation Form and Group Evaluation form to facilitate self-reflections.
3. Don’t grade students based on their self-reflections. In other words, don’t ask students to assign themselves a grade. Students cannot be honest in their self-reflections if their responses determine their grades. If you would like to assign points to incentivize students to complete the self-reflection, offer full credit for completing the reflection.

Documenting Student Achievement of the Learning Outcome

This rubric is used to determine individual students’ progress on this college-wide learning outcome: Collaborate: Work effectively with others to learn, complete tasks, and pursue common goals. Faculty may use this rubric to determine whether a student has demonstrated success in the learning outcome. Faculty document student success in Ensure Learning for the purposes of reflecting on student learning and considering ways to improve student learning in the future. The rubric is not intended for grading student work. 

Collaborate Rubric

Coming soon: examples of successful approaches to teaching collaborative skills

The Teaching Collaborative Skills Toolkit was created by a team of faculty from Seattle Central and South Seattle College in 2023. 

Team members met regularly in 2023 to discuss research about best practices in teaching and assessing collaborative skills and develop the toolkit. The group received funding from the Seattle Colleges District Faculty Development Grant and Guided Pathways. 

Team Members

Analea Brauburger, Spanish

Emily Castillo, Associate Director of Assessment & Research

Yvonne Chandler, Business & Technology Management

John Darin, Northwest Wine Academy

Daphne Guericke, English as a Second Language

Glenda Graham-Walton, Business

Marina Halverson, Biology

Emily Hudon, Seattle Colleges Institute of English

Shah Jingsong, English as a Second Language

Ben Machado, Biology

Elaine Ong, English as a Second Language

Liese Rajesh, Seattle Colleges Institute of English

Marjorie Richards, English as a Second Language

Karen VanGenderen, English as a Second Language

Heather Unwin, Northwest Wine Academy

Krysta Walia, Counseling