3 Common Mistakes that Lead to Epic Fails in Collaborative Learning... and How to Avoid Them

by Allie Sheridan West

After reading that collaboration is the most effective technique to engage students, you just knew you had to try it in your classroom. You even spent all weekend planning the PERFECT group activity. The big day arrives and you divide the students into groups, anxiously awaiting the miracle of collaboration.

Instead, two students refuse to work together and one student has completely taken over his group. Another group is already on step 5 within the first three minutes (how?!!), their neighbors are talking loudly about the basketball game, and someone is definitely snoring. Quiet tears fall into your now hours old coffee. WHERE DID IT GO SO WRONG?

If this has ever been you, the frustration with collaborative learning is real (and really painful!), but it doesn’t have to be. The switch to collaborative learning in a classroom isn’t always seamless because students are learning HOW to learn in a group.  There are, however, a few common mistakes you can avoid that will make your transition to a collaborative classroom much smoother.

Mistake 1: You didn’t plan your groups 

Randomly assigning students may seem like the best, or easiest, way to populate a group with diverse learners. However, randomly assigning students does not take into account the knowledge we have of our students or their learning needs. Groups should be thoughtfully constructed, pairing students with complementary strengths and needs together. This allows groups to have the intellectual and emotional resources they need to build on each other and create a quality product. Don’t be afraid to mix ability levels, as each student will bring a unique ingredient to the group that will help each of the members grow;both you and their group members will be surprised what some students can contribute

Mistake 2:   Your students didn’t understand the TASK

As teachers we often equate well constructed steps, or directions, with a well-defined student task. In the case of collaborative learning this simply isn’t true. For example, directions for a collaborative task may look something like 1) Individually read your assigned paragraph 2) take turns discussing the major points of the article 3) decide as a group on the 3 most important points to present to the class. While these steps describe the procedure that students must follow to complete the task, it offers almost no guidance on HOW students should accomplish the task, or what a success looks like along the way. 

Collaborative learning tasks need to have clear objectives and methods for each stage of the activity, a specified “what am I doing right now and how am I doing it”, particularly while students are learning to embrace the collaborative method.  

Using phrases like “discuss” or “decide”  may be too open ended or vague for students just learning to work together. Consider giving them question stems to use or providing a round-robin format to make sure that all students are given an opportunity to participate. 

Examples:

• “What evidence can you present for/against...
• Compare/contrast _______ and _________
• To summarize this article I would say ___________
•  Create discrete steps and goals for each phase of the group work 

Examples :

• “after each member has typed two main ideas into the document”, 
• “circle share for 3 minutes straight, if a group member is struggling with something to to share then…”
• Model acceptable outcomes for students and provide clear exemplars of learning targets so that students understand how to meet the expectation.

Mistake 3: The students needed roles

Think about the last time you were put into a group with your coworkers with no clear guidelines or rules: the amount of time that was wasted waiting for someone to lead the task, the frustration with the SAME loudmouth dominating the conversation and the general discomfort you felt about being perceived as a control freak or, conversely, a non-contributor. All of these feelings are real for our students, and are often amplified by teenage self-consciousness

Students need to have specific jobs and responsibilities, and their role needs to be well-defined. Students are more likely to participate when they understand their role within the group, and how they are expected to contribute to the overall task. Having jobs  not only equitably divides tasks, but  may help shy students engage as they are given the authority to act by a title, and reign in students that tend to dominate social situations. Specifying  jobs also creates a system of mutual accountability; peers can help group struggling members get back on track instead of just tattling to the teacher.

Try roles like:

• recorder, 
• fact-checker 
• tie-breaker

A final thought:

None of these is the magic cure-all that will have your students waltz into the classroom day one, sit down quietly at their stations and begin having the discourse of Socrates or Aristotle. Like all great things, collaborative learning takes time for teachers and students alike to master. Be patient. Celebrate small victories. Course correct as needed. Learn from your mistakes and help the students learn from theirs. One day you won’t even remember crying into your cold coffee over the dumpster fire that was your first attempt at collaborative learning.

Ready to Try It?

We're always more likely to try something when we write an actual goal. Here are some to get you started:

• During the first quarter, I will use at least one collaborative activity with my students per week.
• During the first quarter, I will do a project-based learning project with students in which they collaborate.

Hampton City Schools Teachers

Do you work in Hampton City Schools? Great! Here are some ideas for how to give students choices using the Instructional Technique Library. (If you don't work at Hampton City Schools, you should. Look at all the fun we're having!)

• Show Don't Tell: Students work together to create gestures or pictures and then guess what other groups have represented.
• Thinking Maps: (and other graphic organizers): Students can work together to create graphic organizers on chart paper. Tip: Give each student a different color marker so that you can see who did what work.
• Socratic Seminar: Students work together to facilitate higher-level discussions around pieces of text.

Allie West is a teacher with Hampton City Schools who is currently working on her PhD in Educational Leadership at Old Dominion University.