Collaboration Skills

Following are resources for teachers who are building students collaboration skills:

1. The file “Collaboration Norms Described” gives an overview of what good collaborators do.

2. The file “Collaboration Norms Poster” can be useful to display on the whiteboard when groups are collaborating and have already discussed the norms.

3. An important part of developing collaboration skills is the student evaluating and recognising the level of their own collaboration skills development. The file “Collaboration Skills Self Assessment_Linfield Learning Characteristics” provides a sequence of rubrics that can be used by students to self-assess where they are up to in the different aspects of collaboration skills development. Print out a copy for each student, before a collaboration activity and ask them to realistically self-assess where they are up to along these skill progression grids; then self-assess again after a collaborative activity for the opportunity to reflect and re-evaluate. Most students (and adults) overestimate their skill levels. 

The rubrics can be useful for students to then consider what they have to learn, and how they have to behave to move higher up along the progression grid and become better collaborators (Lindfield Learning Village, n.d.).

4. There is a great webpage called “The Four Biggest Pitfalls of Collaborative Grouping (And How to Avoid Them). This has descriptions and videos of what to do when collaboration does not work well -this is a valuable opportunity because nearly everyone has an experience of a collaborative group not working well. Having strategies to respond well is invaluable. Break the students up into groups, share the following web address with them, and have each group summarise and report to the class one of the potential pitfalls and strategies to deal with this: https://spencerauthor.com/group-collaboration-next-level/

Direct download Norms of Collaboration Annotated: click here.

Direct download the Norms of Collaboration poster: click here.

Direct download Collaboration Skills Self Assessment, this is an excerpt from the Linfield Learning Characteristics (Linfield Learning Village, n.d.): click here.

Reference List:

Lindfield Learning Village, (n.d.). Learning characteristics wheel. Lindfield Learning Village. https://lindfieldlearningvillage.schools.nsw.gov.au/about-us/learning-characteristics-wheel.html