Pedagogy Resources for Essential Skill 8: Collaboration

To collaborate and work in teams, students need to understand the essentials of collaboration, what it means to be an effective team members, what they expect in team members, and how to manage conflict, including self-regulation. Teamwork and team building happens in higher education in academic/classroom settings and non-academic/extracurricular settings, including housing, student groups, athletics, intramurals, and employment, whether in an on-campus student worker position or an off campus job, all of which introduce and refine soft stills applicable to professional experiences.

Additionally, teamwork happens in both discrete and sustained settings – single assignments or group projects, as well as mentoring relationships, shared living arrangements, and other semester- or year- or life-long interactions. Thus, students must learn to flexibly respond to changing conditions and the dynamic nature of relationships.

Teaching Teamwork

Effective Teaming | Lafayette College
Guide created for and by students to facilitate group work and collaboration. Includes definitions and examples of what teamwork is and is not and provides guidance for effective team structures in student-friendly terms.

Overcoming the Barriers to Teaching Teamwork to Undergraduates in STEM | Life Sciences Education / American Society for Cell Biology
Highly informative article on teaching students in life sciences to work in teams. Includes definitions, competencies, evidence-based approaches, and methods of assessing teamwork.

Team-Based Learning Collaborative
Comprehensive, educator-driven, site dedicated to team-based learning practices at all educational levels. Some resources reserved for members; individual memberships are free.

In-Class Activities with Standing Groups or Teams | University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching
Article/site that distinguishes between teams as “standing groups” and “ad hoc” groups formed for individual projects or assignments. Provides design and assessment guidance.

Fostering Effective Group Work in College Classes | Tufts / Teaching @ Tufts
Blog post for educators wanting guidance for incorporating group work into curriculum. Includes a helpful list of additional resources at end of post.

Use Student Teams Effectively | Duke Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education
Practical guidance on incorporating teamwork to teach students to research and problem-solve collaboratively.

Group Work in Higher Education | University of North Texas Division of Digital Strategy and Innovation
Provides list of benefits of group work and thorough list of ways collaborative learning can be applied across disciplines.

Making Teamwork Work | Inside Higher Ed
Opinion piece on how to teach students to work in teams, focusing on people, process, and feedback.

Taking Collaboration Seriously | Faculty Focus / Teaching Professor
Blog post describing one approach, using AAC&U’s Teamwork Value Rubric, to resolving dilemmas that often accompany group projects and teamwork in higher education courses.

17 Tweaks that Make a Big Difference in Group Work | Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Article and podcast interview detailing instructional changes that can positively influence group work processes and outcomes.

Assessing Teamwork

AAC&U Teamwork Value Rubric
Description of and downloadable access to AAC&U’s Teamwork Value Rubric.

Teaching Essential Skills: Collaboration | University of Kentucky
Resource that includes teaching approaches and assessment strategies for teamwork.

Managing Conflict

Managing Classroom Conflict | Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation
Instructor guide for preventing and managing conflict in the classroom. Includes multiple lists of course structures and instructional actions.

Navigating Conflict: A Toolkit for Instructors | Ohio State University / Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning
Collection of resources to help instructors navigate conflict in academic courses.

An Experiential Exercise to Dramatize the Five Conflict Modes | Thomas-Kilmann Instrument / Kilman Diagnostics
Blog post describing group exercise to identify modes of conflict management and methods of interacting with group members who manage conflict differently. See post sidebar for long list of additional blog post content.

Learning from Conflict in the Classroom | New York Institute of Technology
Short blog post introducing direct method of helping students think about their comfort with conflict and methods of handling conflict in the classroom.

Helping Students Manage Conflict | Edutopia
Short article providing problem-solving questions for conflict resolution.

Conflict Management | Penn State University
Student-facing site helping students understand causes of conflict, methods for de-escalating, and scenarios that show conflict management practices in action.

Assessing Conflict Management

Conflict Management Styles Assessment | University of North Florida Dean of Students Office

Provides useful self-assessment for students to identify their preferred style for managing conflict.