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1) Have students pick partners so they can work with people that they trust.
2) Have students set clear goals and divide the work up fairly. Have them report to you as the teacher how they are dividing up the work.
3) Grade students on individual aspects as well as collaborative aspects of the group project

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Group projects have a bad reputation among students-but educators can change that.

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1) Have students review their partners/group members
2) Have clear goals set for each member
3) Have specific performance grades set for each member

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Want to know how to measure employee accountability? So how do you diagnose and fix these problems?
If your team's workload is piling with unfinished tasks, you're receiving several calls from frustrated customers, or your meetings are transforming into frequent arguments - your organization could be struggling with poor accountability.

By measuring employee accountability.

In this article, we'll define employee accountability and highlight how you can measure it. We'll also share five smart tips to help you create an accountable work environment.

This Article Contains:

(Use the links below and jump to a specific section)

Let's dive right in.

What Is Employee Accountability?

Accountability is the willingness of employees to take responsibility for their decisions, actions, behavior, and performance.

In other words, if an employee says they'll do something, they'll follow-through and get it done - no matter the circumstances.
But why should you hold people accountable at the workplace?
An accountable employee is likely to build trust amongst their team members.

Employee accountability at work helps:

Improve employee performance.

Boost employee engagement and involvement.

Increase team morale and satisfaction.

Create a workplace culture of learning and continuous improvement.

To reap all the benefits, you'll have to measure accountability to see whether employees are responsible for their work.

How To Measure Employee Accountability?

Measuring accountability doesn't require tons of empirical research!

Here are five easy to measure team accountability at the workplace:

1. Define Accountable Behavior

Before you set up an accountability system, you'll have to define what metrics or behaviors you want to track.

The term 'accountability' could refer to outcomes and results. For example, the number of billable hours, the number of deals made, etc.

Accountability could also refer to the repercussions of your team's poor performance.

For example, you may set monthly sales goals for your team members of around $42,000.

If your team isn't able to follow-through and reach those organization goals, they would be held accountable and will have to face the consequences.

These could include:

Not giving them a quarterly bonus.

Offering them special training.

Asking them to work overtime to meet their sales objective.

Based on your definition of accountability, you'll have to set overarching goals for your entire organization.

2. Create SMART Goals And Measure Results
'Increase the number of potential leads by 15% before July 2022.'
One of the best ways to promote and measure personal accountability is by creating goals for each employee. They'll have clear expectations of what they're supposed to achieve and might be more motivated to work.

However, you can't set just any goal - you'll have to ensure that it's a SMART goal.

SMART is an acronym for:

Specific: Must be written clearly, so they can't be misinterpreted.

Measurable: Can be measured with numbers, figures, currency, etc.

Achievable: Shouldn't exceed the capacity of an engaged employee or team.

Relevant: Should align with the core values of the individual or business.

Time-bound: Should be achieved within a time frame.

Here's an example of a SMART goal for your team:

With a goal in mind, your team members would know where to focus their efforts, rather than just doing busy work with no fixed purpose.

And you can measure their progress by setting up regular follow up meetings. Or you can have staff members report when they've hit a certain milestone.

3. Set Up Performance Metrics

Performance metrics are used to measure how well your team members are doing their jobs.

They also provide hard performance data, which can be used to set benchmarks that employees need to reach. This way, you can motivate employees to boost their own performance.

While you can set objective performance measures like attendance, the number of deals closed, etc., you might have to do a subjective performance evaluation as well.

Evaluate your team on soft skills like leadership, innovation, teamwork, resilience, people management, and contribution to team morale.

Use a rating scale from 1-10 to see how well your employees show these characteristics during a period. Then, you can assign a final rating to the overall performance of each employee based on your previous expectation of them.

This accountability system will help you see which employees can live up to their usual performance standard and which employees need additional training.

4. Hold Employee Reviews

You may have set SMART goals and performance metrics for your team - but are they really productive?

To test their effectiveness, you'll have to host an annual performance review for every employee.

Before the review, list down the objectives you had set for each employee last year, their current job role, and their actual outcomes.

During the review, ask your employee how they think they've performed. And also, ask them to share the reasons behind the good or bad outcomes.

Based on their responses, you'll have to determine whether you need to reassess the team member's responsibilities and duties.

For example, let's suppose a marketing team member was accountable for addressing customer complaints on Facebook, but they could not do so due to a heavy workload. In this case, you can shift this responsibility to a virtual marketing assistant.

5. Use Engagement Surveys

Employee engagement surveys are a great alternative to the annual performance review - as they are more personalized and yield deeper insights. Additionally, they help you decode your employee's feelings towards workplace accountability.

Here are a few questions you can include in your survey:

A. Do You Know How Your Work Contributes To Our Organizational Goals?

This survey question addresses accountability at an individual level.

If you receive a lot of negative responses, you might have to:

Determine whether employees feel that they have control over their work.

Help them set up a key performance indicator (KPI) that aligns with overall business goals.

B. Do You Regularly Ask Your Manager for Feedback?

If the answer is mostly yes, you can assume that continuous improvement is one of your organization's core values.

If the answer is no, you'll have to investigate why employees are hesitant to ask questions. It could be that they don't care about their work enough or that they perceive the leadership team as unapproachable.

C. Are You Working Towards A Career Plan?

This question helps you identify ambitious employees.

They usually focus on continuous learning and development - which means that they would look for opportunities to take up more responsibility.

D. Do You Ask For Necessary Resources So You Can Meet Goals?

An accountable workplace culture is one where employees can make decisions around their work. If most of the responses are 'yes,' your employees proactively request leaders for resources such as software, additional team members, technical training courses, etc.

E. Do You Think We Hold Our Leadership Team Accountable For Company Performance?

Successful leaders often do what they say.

This is an important question because employees learn by example.

If they feel the managers break the rules and face no consequences for their actions, then the staff members won't want to hold themselves accountable.

Ideally, these survey questions should reflect what you consider as accountable behavior - allowing your employees to understand what your organization values most.

5 Easy Ways To Improve Employee Accountability

Here are a few things you can do to create a culture of accountability within your organization:
So what can you do here?
1. Address Poor Performance

It's natural for employees to make mistakes from time to time.

Here are a few reasons for poor performance:
"(employee name) I see that (issue) happened recently. What do you think went wrong here?"

Lack of training.

Poor time management skills.

Communication issues due to remote work.

Personal issues that might be affecting work, etc.

Whatever the reason may be, you have to address the issue as soon as possible. If you're unable to confront the problem, it will only get worse over time.

Firstly, remember you need to focus on the performance issue and not the employee.

You'll have to assume that most team members want to do great work and are not just creating problems on purpose.

Here's how you should address the employee:

Continue to ask why the team member did the tasks in a certain way.

Some examples of questions include:

"Did you come across technical difficulties?"

"Can you walk me through the process you followed, step-by-step?"

"Would it help if I join your next team meeting?"

By adopting a mindset of curiosity - you can diffuse any tensions that might arise while addressing their mistakes. Additionally, the employee can accept that they have made an error and would be able to fix it based on your feedback.

2. Show Empathy

Your employees might not fully understand the impact their behavior has on the rest of the team.

As a manager, you should be kind and find the cause of their behavioral issues and offer solutions.

Let's assume an individual employee signs out an hour early day - often without finishing their tasks. After speaking to them, you find out that they volunteer for a nonprofit organization after work hours and have to leave early to beat the traffic.

So you'll have to explain why they need to deliver their work on time.

You can then ask them to either come to work an hour earlier each day or work remotely over the weekend to submit their deliverables. This way, you'll be able to maintain the team member's self-esteem by showing your concern for their and your company's needs.

3. Provide Progress Updates

After the goal setting process, your employees would need to know if they're moving in the right direction towards their individual goals.

That's where progress updates come in.

Use them to provide information and feedback to team members in order to achieve their set goals. Here are a few ways to share updates:

Use customer or employee surveys.

Host weekly project update meetings.

Have one-on-one meetings between employees and managers.

You can even provide updates with the help of project management software. Tools like ClickUp automatically generate status reports that show how many tasks an employee has completed.

4. Reward Employees For A Job Well Done

Whenever an employee achieves their goals or goes the extra mile to score deals, sales, etc., don't forget to reward them for their success.

Let's take a look at a few innovative reward and recognition systems:

Offer quarterly bonuses or profit-sharing options.

Give employees a day or week off.

Send out gift cards or vouchers.

Give away free tickets to virtual concerts or shows.

Ask employees to choose which jobs and responsibilities they'd like to pick up.

Use social media to publicize an employee's achievements, etc.

These incentives will motivate employees to work harder and knock it out of the park every time.

Additionally, by offering rewards, you send out a signal that you value your employees greatly. This way, your employees would be less likely to leave to find greener pastures.

5. Use Accountability Software

While it's easy to track the performance of one or two staff members, it can be hard to keep tabs on an entire team.

This gets even more complicated when they're working remotely, as you can't walk up to their desk to see what they're working on.

That's why you'll need an accountability software.

Accountability software can serve three key purposes:

Assign tasks, duties, and responsibilities to teams and ensuring that they follow-through.

Monitor your team's workplace activities to maintain public employee accountability.

Provide reports detailing employee metrics such as hours worked, productivity percentages, attendance, etc.

One of the best ways for holding employees accountable is by using Time Doctor.
Check out a few more handy tips on increasing workplace accountability.
What's Time Doctor?

Time Doctor is a robust time tracking and performance management tool used by huge corporations as well as SMBs. Its powerful features can help in holding employees accountable and boosting productivity across the entire organization.

Here's a quick peek into how Time Doctor helps improve employee accountability:

Interactive and automatic timers to track time spent on tasks.

Create and assign tasks and projects to an employee.

Comprehensive reports such as activity summary, hours tracked projects and tasks report, etc.

The 'Were You Working?' pop-up prevents employees from logging hours when they were inactive.

Create shifts and schedules to set work hours for every employee.

Attendance reports to see which employees are present, absent, or late.

Screencasts lets you see an employee's screen activity to see how they spend their work hours.

30+ integrations with powerful project management, CRM (customer relationship management), and software development tools.

Wrapping Up

Measuring accountability is not rocket science!

All you have to do is to set goals, measure them by using performance metrics and create reports to determine employee efficiency.

If your employees struggle to achieve goals, you can step in and address their performance and provide them with guidance. You can also use accountability software to track and boost your team's productivity over time.

By following the easy strategies and techniques we covered here, you'll be able to build a highly efficient and accountable workforce in no time.

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How To Measure Employee Accountability (2021 Guide) - Biz 3.0

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Want to know how to measure employee accountability? So how do you diagnose and fix these problems? If your team's workload is piling with unfinished tasks, you're receiving several calls from frustrated customers, or your meetings are transforming into frequent arguments - your organization could be struggling with poor accountability.

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One of the biggest fears new instructors have is that no one is going to speak up in class. And, in fact, many teachers are frustrated by the fact that students often do not respond to their questions or seem unprepared for section. Here are several tips on how to get students involved in discussion under the following headings:

Set the Stage
Help Students Prepare
Promote Student Thinking
Demonstrate Your Interest
Work with Everyone

Set the Stage

Explain How You Evaluate Participation

Having section participation count in the course grade acknowledges the value of student engagement during section. In many sections the participation grade constitutes a substantial portion of the overall course grade (10 to 20%), but students may be unclear or concerned about how their participation grade is calculated. To help ease students' concerns (and to keep your own criteria clear), you need to explain explicitly what counts as effective participation. Remember that effective participation does not need to be limited to talking in section meetings. You can expand the definition of participation to include speaking with you during office hours, responding on line to others' posts in bCourses, or taking part in virtual chat rooms.

Your faculty instructor may have criteria, or you can generate your own, or you can define participation in dialogue with the students. Consider not only quantity of talk but quality of engagement. Once you have established criteria, you need to keep detailed records of students' participation in each section meeting.

If time permits, you may want to send each student brief feedback about their participation grade in the middle of the term. This serves two purposes: it encourages those who are doing a good job, and it alerts those who are not that they need to modify their participation if they want to improve their grade by semester's end.

Encourage Early Discussion

Try to get everyone talking in the first couple of section meetings. Once students "break the ice," they'll be more likely to share ideas throughout the semester. Introduce activities in which students get to know each other, so they feel more comfortable voicing ideas in front of one another.

Suggestions for icebreakers appear in the Pre-semester Preparation chapter of this Teaching Guide.

Make Your Section Goals Clear

While remaining flexible to the unpredictable turns that classroom conversations can take, you should come to section with a lesson plan that articulates your main goals and the activities or questions you have planned to meet those goals. Some GSIs like to provide their students with the goals, or the "take-home message," at the beginning of class, in a handout or on the board. This will make section feel more focused and productive. Students participate more when they have a sense of what to expect. Also, prioritize the goals you set for a class session and be realistic. Planning only two or three goals and creating activities that promote discussion, debate, and deep learning is more effective than tackling many goals in a superficial way.

Create an Inclusive Space

It is important to establish an inclusive space in the classroom so that students feel comfortable expressing their viewpoints and ideas. Critique ideas, not people. Let students know that stereotyping, homophobia, racism, sexism, etc, are offensive. While it may occasionally be appropriate to address offensive language privately outside of class, it is usually best to address the issue in class to clarify expectations for all students. Students should know that they can contact you outside of class if something in section makes them uncomfortable or is upsetting. Don't ever dismiss students' concerns or feelings. You can find more on this topic in Module 1 of the GSI Professional Standards and Ethics Online Course.

Help Students Prepare

Ask for Written Responses or Free-Writes

Consider asking students to write a response to a question you pose. Then you can choose to call on a couple of students to read their response. This will give everyone time to prepare something. This is a great opportunity to involve students who participate only minimally or not at all. Call on someone who does not speak up much or who may seem disengaged.

Set Pre-Discussion Assignments

Students will be more willing to actively discuss the material in section if they have had the opportunity to think about it before class starts. To this end, GSIs can devise assignments that hold students individually responsible for engaging with the material before coming to class.

For example, have your students write responses to questions you give them in advance. Asking students to post their responses and read those of their colleagues in bCourses before coming to class is a great way to get them to come prepared to section. Online discussions can facilitate in-class discussion. (See Teaching with Technology.) You can also have students keep a reading "journal" (one page of free-form response) that they need to hand in or post electronically. Alternatively, select specific passages in a text that are central to the text's argument and ask students to come prepared to work with those passages. You can also ask students to identify the paragraph or section of the reading that confused them the most or the one they found most useful in understanding the overall message of the reading. Or you can have students fill out a worksheet before coming to class.

All of these small assignments will encourage broader participation in class. Giving assignments ahead of time requires that you keep at least a week ahead on the readings, and that you develop a system of grading pre-discussion assignments (usually by a check/check-plus/check-minus system).

Create Group Assignments

Instructors can devise assignments to facilitate more group involvement. Organizing students into small groups and giving them explicit instructions will get more students involved. You can have the groups report their findings back to the rest of the class. Once students have formulated and discussed their ideas in a small group, they may feel more comfortable sharing with the rest of the class. (For more group work suggestions, see Group Work and Classroom Activities.)

Create Roles for Students

Instructors can ask two or three students to lead or facilitate part of a discussion one week. Be certain to give students guidelines and a format, as well as some moral support. (If you have a large section you may need to make the discussion leader groups larger in order to ensure that all students have the opportunity to present a question or issue for discussion.)

You can also create other roles for students such as a summarizer or a recorder to recap the key points made in the day's section. You might also establish an observer whose role is to comment on the discussion. Be sure that students who facilitate discussions understand that they must involve the other students and avoid giving a presentation.

Promote Student Thinking

Avoid Programmed and Yes-or-No Questions

To encourage discussion, ask broad questions - "how" or "why" questions that require the students to think through a process, evaluate information, predict outcomes, form opinions, etc. Avoid "programmed" questions, in which you answer the question yourself before students have a chance to respond (e.g., "Why doesn't the moon have an atmosphere? It's because it has weak gravity, right?"). Questions with a simple "Yes" or "No" answer can also cut off discussion. For more on asking good questions, see "Asking Questions" (Davis 2009, 118-26).

Give Time to Think

It often happens that a GSI asks a complex question that students need time to consider before responding to, especially if it embeds multiple questions or pulls in a new perspective. If no one answers your question right away, resist the urge to answer it yourself or move on after just a few seconds. Around eight seconds is considered a fair amount of time to wait for students to formulate a response.

Rephrase the Question

If no one responds to your question after eight seconds, try rephrasing it. If you still get no response, don't be afraid to ask the students why they didn't respond. Was the question vague or unclear? Do they see connections with the reading? (And yes, it is okay to ask your students if they did the reading.)

Invite Student Questions

Remind your students that there are no "stupid" questions - if they have a question, chances are that someone else in the class has that question, too. Never assume that something that seems easy to you will be easy to your students. "What questions do you have?" usually gets a better response than "Do you have any questions?"

Ask Them to Respond to Another Student's Comment

Involve more students by asking questions that agree or disagree with a comment: "How do the rest of you feel about that?" "Does anyone who hasn't spoken care to comment?" "Is there anyone else who agrees or disagrees?" Discussions run best when the students are responding to each other. Try to keep your talking to a minimum and encourage students to respond to each other's comments, to look at each other, and (when possible) to use each others' names. Think of yourself as a discussion guide rather than a leader.

Don't Be Afraid to Say You Don't Know Something

You are not responsible for knowing everything! Far from undermining your authority, admission of ignorance about something shows that you are not defensive about your knowledge. It also imparts the important lesson that part of wisdom is knowing what you don't know. Use the knowledge gap as a learning opportunity. If the problem is one that can be speculated about, ask students to consider how one might arrive at an answer. Tell the students you will look up the information (and be sure to do so). Alternatively, for accessible facts, ask a student to look up the information after class and report back online or in the next session.

If a question leads too far off topic, you can suggest that the student speak with you about it in office hours or via email.

Demonstrate Your Interest

Give Nonverbal Support

Keep eye contact with students while they are talking. Nod along so that they know you are listening. If they feel as though you're interested in what they have to say, they may volunteer more often. If a student who is rarely involved contributes to the discussion, give the person a smile or a nod to let them know that what they have to say is important.

Move Around the Classroom or Lab

Sitting behind a table for the whole class can lower energy - both yours and the students'. It also gives the students sitting next to you more of your attention. You will find students regularly sitting far away from you either to avoid participation or to divert attention from their lack of preparation. Try varying where you stand from class to class, or move around the room during class - get up to write on the board, to work with students in smaller groups, or to show interest in a quieter student's contribution.

Tactfully Correct Wrong Answers

While it is crucial that students distinguish between correct and incorrect answers, instructor disapproval or a put-down will discourage people from sharing again. If a response is off track, try to coach the student toward the right answer or approach. Provide hints or suggestions. And say something positive about the aspects of the response that are insightful, original, or creative. Try things like "Good - now let's take it a step further"; "Let's go back a step - tell me more about xyz"; "Keep thinking about it."

Bring Students' Outside Comments into Class

If a student makes a good comment in office hours or on a paper, check with the person to see if you can bring it up in class. Then, in your next meeting, say: "Anna, you were saying something about that in office hours yesterday; would you mind repeating it for the class?" You might consider using this technique with students who otherwise do not speak up much. Be sure not to single out the same person repeatedly.

Work with Everyone

Be Aware of Who You are Calling On

Research studies show that many teachers, without realizing it, respond more favorably to male students than to female students. Be sensitive to this and be certain that you're communicating equally with male and female students and with students from all backgrounds. Call on them equally, make eye contact with them all, and support them all. If you are concerned that you may not be calling on people equally, you might find it helpful to keep track of whom you call on in class, either on your attendance sheet or a class roster. You can also ask a colleague or GSI Center consultant to observe your class and take notes.

Participation is Not All Oral

Students who remain silent during class discussion are not necessarily shy or reserved. Silence is a behavior, not a character trait, and there may be many reasons a student chooses not to participate orally in a particular class or social environment. Get to know your students through other venues such as office hours, email, and their homework for the course. Learn about the ways they do go about participating in the class - perhaps through reflection, or writing emerging thoughts and questions in their notes, or formulating careful contributions to an online discussion forum. Learn to acknowledge the ways they participate, and - especially if the course requires or highly values individuals' oral participation - also let them know that the entire class would benefit from hearing their thoughts in discussions.

Engage Your Students

One way to get students engaged is to connect with their daily lives or interests. This fosters intrinsic motivation, as does giving them an intriguing problem to solve using course material.

Not every student becomes intrinsically motivated in every class; having participation in section count in their course grade creates an extrinsic incentive to show engagement.

Limit the Contributions of Students who Dominate

Make sure to wait after you ask a question to give all students an opportunity to think about your question. Don't just call on the first hand that goes up. Provide six to ten seconds of "wait time" before calling on someone. Though this may seem long and drawn out to you, keep in mind that students and teachers have different timing needs, and most students need time to think before they can respond.

You can also have students write down a response to your question before you ask for oral contributions. This gives everyone time to think. You can then choose a couple of people to respond who don't speak up much.

Consider calling on students who don't raise their hand. Let students know at the beginning of the semester that you will be doing this. Some students may want to contribute, but might be more inclined to wait for a good opening or invitation.

Working in small groups is also a good way to distribute turns at talk, but you may need to take steps to prevent one or two students from dominating the group discussion. One way to do this (as discussed above) is to assign roles to students in the groups, e.g., recorder, summarizer, time keeper, etc. Assign a dominant student a specific role that limits participation, such as summarizer.

If the problem continues, you should speak to the student outside of class. Be certain to let the student know how much you value his or her participation. If the student's comments are good, let the student know, but point out that not all students are getting the opportunity to participate. Normally you will see a remarkable difference in the very next section meeting if you do this. If not, speak to the student again.

To nip this type of behavior in the bud, set discussion guidelines early in the semester that stipulate that no one person should dominate the discussion and that all should have the opportunity to participate.

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One of the biggest fears new instructors have is that no one is going to speak up in class. And, in fact, many teachers are frustrated by the fact that students often do not respond to their questions or seem unprepared for section.

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Use these five best practices to help your students build a valuable 21st-century skill.

iStock.com/Christopher Futcher

Most of us who teach believe in the power of collaboration and frequently engage our students in collaborative activities. But how many times have we put students in groups only to watch them interact with their laptops instead of each other? Or pursue their own individual goals instead of consult with one another? Or complain about a lazy teammate?

Promoting real collaboration is hard to do well-and it doesn't just happen on its own. If we want real collaboration, we need to intentionally design it as part of our learning activity. These are five strategies to encourage effective collaboration.

Create Learning Activities That Are Complex

Students need a reason to collaborate. If the assignment is too simple, they can more easily do it alone. At most, they may check in with each other or interact in superficial ways. The real reason to collaborate is because the task is complex-it is too difficult and has too many pieces to complete alone.

Complex activities are challenging, engaging, stimulating, and multilayered. Complex activities require "positive interdependence" (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 2008), a situation in which attaining the goal, completing the task, being successful, and getting a good grade require that the team work together and share knowledge.

One way to do this is through rigorous projects that require students to identify a problem (for example, balancing population growth in their city with protection of existing green spaces) and agree-through research, discussion, debate, and time to develop their ideas-on a solution which they must then propose together.

Prepare Students to Be Part of a Team

Help students understand the benefits of collaboration and what successful collaboration looks like.

Guide students through the stages of team building (forming, storming, norming, and performing).

Give students time and opportunities within the activity to develop leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management skills.

Establish expectations and norms for working together.

Design, or have students design, protocols for handling conflict disagreement so they can resolve issues within their teams.

Teach students active listening skills.

Collaborative groups can't be assigned-they have to be built and nurtured. Students often need to learn how to work effectively with others and as part of a team. We have to help students understand the what, why, and how of collaboration. We can do this in several ways:

Minimize Opportunities for Free Riding

Create small groups of no more than four or five people. When there is less room to hide, nonparticipation is more difficult.

Ensure a high degree of individual accountability (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 2008) by assessing students both individually and as a group. For example, at the end of the day give students an individual quiz based on the intended outcome of their collaborative activity.

Design meaningful team roles that relate to the content and to the task. Roles like time keeper are episodic and don't intellectually engage students in the content, and this can encourage free riding. In contrast, more meaningful roles such as manager, monitor, and leaders for each subtask of the activity give students ownership in the process and allow the teacher to assess students based on successful completion of these roles.

Have students evaluate their own participation and effort and that of each team member and triangulate those assessments with your own

When students complain about collaborative groups, it often has to do with the free riding of one member who lets others do all the work and then benefits from the group grade. We can eliminate free riding in a number of ways:

Build in Many Opportunities for Discussion and Consensus

Many group projects are based on efficiency, dividing labor to create a product in the most effective way possible. This focus on the product means that we often ignore the process of collaboration. Rich discussions that connect students with the experiences of others, that engage them deeply in a shared intellectual experience, and that promote coming to consensus are essential to collaboration.

For instance, students can come to consensus around a solution or decision where they must defend or propose a common vision or develop a set of beliefs or principles. This focus on discussion and consensus builds both academic and social skills-students learn to defend their ideas through evidence and analytical reasoning, to negotiate meaning, and to argue constructively.

Focus on Strengthening and Stretching Expertise

The challenge of designing good collaborative activities is ensuring that all students, even those who struggle, play an important role. Collaboration should not just strengthen students' existing skills but ensure that their interactions stretch existing knowledge and expand one another's expertise. If, for example, a student is much stronger in one skill than her peers in her group, she can teach others and her grade can be contingent upon how much her peers learn.

In collaborative activities, we want to ensure that students don't just occupy the same physical space but that they share an intellectual space-that they learn more, do more, and experience more together than they would alone. As teachers, we can promote real collaboration by shifting our role from instructor to coach-promoting team autonomy, checking in on students and providing instant feedback, and helping them increasingly learn to work together productively to attain a common goal.

Reference:

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (2008). Cooperation in the Classroom.

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5 Strategies to Deepen Student Collaboration

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Use these five best practices to help your students build a valuable 21st-century skill.

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Implementing Group Work in the Classroom | Centre for Teaching Excellence

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Group work can be an effective method to motivate students, encourage active learning, and develop key critical-thinking, communication, and decision-making sk

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Taking Responsibility | Sam Montag | TEDxTheWestminsterSchools

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Social Reciprocity: The Science of Giving

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The nine Belbin Team Roles; their strengths and weaknesses, and how to use the nine Belbin Team Roles when working with a team. To find out your Belbin Team Role profile you need to complete the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory and ask for feedback from those you work with. This generates a Belbin Team Role Report which can be use in a myriad of ways.

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Teamwork Theory

Tuckman's Stages of Group Development
Probably the most famous teamwork theory is Bruce Tuckman's "team stages model".
First developed in 1965, Tuckman's model is widely known as a basis for effective team building. Yet how many people really know how to use it? Below we explain Tuckman's model before offering some fresh insights on how to take it further.

Tuckman's model is significant because it recognizes the fact that groups do not start off fully-formed and functioning. He suggests that teams grow through clearly defined stages, from their creation as groups of individuals, to cohesive, task-focused teams.

Tuckman's Teamwork Theory

Tuckman describes working with a team of social psychologists, on behalf of the U.S. navy. The team studied small group behaviour, from several perspectives. In doing so, Tuckman reviewed 50 articles on group development and noticed that there were two features common to these small groups: the interpersonal or group structure, and the task activity. From this he identified that groups evolved into teams via four common stages.

Firstly an orientation, testing phase which often led to a period characterized by a degree of conflict. This then generally resolved itself, leading to a more socially cohesive phase. Finally, groups settled to a functional phase, during which they focused on role-relatedness. To summarize these four phases, Tuckman coined the oft-quoted terms: "forming", "storming", "norming" and "performing".

Tuckman's teamwork theory is best illustrated on a graph which shows the link between group relationships (the horizontal axis) and task focus (the vertical axis). The optimal or "performing" position is reached when relationships have developed within the group and it has started delivering with a clear focus on the task.

However, Tuckman's ideas clearly indicate that it takes time to reach the "performing" stage, and it's normal for these teams to go through ups and downs as they develop relationships. Particularly in the early period, which is perhaps why Tuckman called it the "storming" phase!

The 4 Phases of Tuckman's Teamwork Theory

Forming:

The initial stage of team development during which individuals have not yet gelled together. Everybody is busy finding their place in the team, sizing each other up, and asking themselves why they are here! Find out more in our articles: Team Building Techniques and Teamwork Tips. The first offers advice on starting a new team while the second will help you take over an existing team (perhaps a far more common situation).

Storming:

People begin to see themselves as part of a team. However at this stage they may challenge each other, and the team leader, about such things as what the team is doing, and how things should be done. As the stage title suggests, conflict and confrontation typify this stage, as differences surface. This may result in some loss of performance or focus on the task, as the diagram illustrates.

Norming:

This is the phase where team members start to come together, developing processes, establishing ground rules, clarifying who does what, and how things will be done. This phase is characterized by a growing sense of "togetherness". Find out more about both the Storming and Norming phases in our article: Team Building Concepts.

Performing:

This is the final stage where increased focus on both the task, and on team relationships, combine to provide synergy. Performance is delivered through people working effectively together. We have written two articles to further develop this stage. Team Building in the Workplace will help you build a performing team. Characteristics of Effective Teamwork will help you and your team sustain that performance.

Thinking about Tuckman's Model

The value of Tuckman's model is that it helps us understand that teams evolve. It also helps us to consider how they may encounter different problems at different stages of their development.

One limitation of the model may be that it makes team building appear too linear and sequential. Although it's a useful analytical tool, we must remember that some teams may "loop" around in their development.

For example, not all teams evolve smoothly through Tuckman's stages but may yo-yo between norming and storming until they either begin to function, or are disbanded! Regardless of limitations, all well-conceived models can be useful in helping us to understand and better manage our circumstances.

Adjourning

Tuckman's famous phases are part of a teamwork theory based on stages of team development. His theory may have gained popularity partly due to the catchy labels for each of his stages. Indeed, in 1977 Tuckman proposed an update to his model, introducing a fifth stage: adjourning. This was meant to reflect the period after a team disbands, having achieved its objectives or perhaps being broken-up for other reasons. The issues for managers here can include:

Capturing the knowledge/expertise of the team for future use or reference.

Dealing with any sense of loss amongst team members, where successful or well-established teams are being broken up.

Understanding the causes and ramifications of team dysfunction, where the team is being disbanded because it has not worked.

Beyond Tuckman's Theory

Tuckman's theory provides a useful and simple way to think about how we humans interact in team situations. Firstly by illustrating that it's normal for teams go through stages as they develop. Secondly, by highlighting the need to manage different aspects of team behaviour at each stage of that development. The beauty and usefulness of Tuckman's model is perhaps in its simplicity. Follow this for more information on this theory or click here to read Tuckman's original article.

Team development theories such, as Tuckman's group development stages, recognise that teams develop through different stages, from forming through to performing. Whilst these theories give a useful understanding of different team requirements at different times, there are a number of questions that aren't particularly well answered by the models. For example:

How should you lead at the different stages of a team's development?

How do you identify when you are progressing through a stage?

How does the team develop in the organisational setting?

How is it affected by other outside influences?

The theory of group stages alone doesn't answer these questions. To do so, and thus to build a more robust teamwork concept, ideas about team leadership and outside factors need to be introduced. We've done just this in our STAR team performance model. You can see how this model applies to group stages in: Stages of Team Development.

This is the first of ten articles in our teamwork series. But for some practical tips on using teamwork theory, look at our great-value guides (below), or at our Team Building Exercises for all team stages.

Team Building Exercises and Team Stages

Our e-guide: Team Building Exercises has been specifically designed to help you understand and use a team stages model. It contains a tool for each stage to help you build a high-performing team - as quickly as possible. The exercises in the guide are grouped according to our own team stages model. Remember, each team is unique and needs to be led through several developmental stages. These include:

If you're creating a new team or taking over an existing team

Exercise 1: Being a TEAM together
Exercise 2: True or false
Exercise 3: Who does what in a team?
Exercise 4: Getting the mix right
Exercise 5: Doing something for the first time
Exercise 6: Two years from now

If you're developing an existing team

Exercise 7: A clearer vision
Exercise 8: Mad, sad or glad
Exercise 9: Seeing the bigger picture
Exercise 10: Positive feedback
Exercise 11: Conflicting views

If you're team is already performing and achieving results

Exercise 12: Did you notice?
Exercise 13: Limiting beliefs

If you're trying to sustain good team performance

Exercise 14: Scarce resources
Exercise 15: Keeping going

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Teamwork Theory | Tuckman's Stages of Group Development - The Happy Manager

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Probably the most famous teamwork theory is Bruce Tuckman's 'team stages model'. Tuckman's model is widely used for effective team building.

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Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Learning Theory

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Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Learning Theory

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Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian teacher who is considered a pioneer in learning in social contexts. As a psychologist, he was also the first to examine how our social interactions influence our cognitive growth. He was convinced that learning occurred through interactions with others in our communities: peers, adults, teachers, and other mentors. Vygotsky sought to understand how people learn in a social environment and created a unique theory on social learning. He determined that teachers have the ability to control many factors in an educational setting, including tasks, behaviors, and responses. As a result, he encouraged more interactive activities to promote cognitive growth, such as productive discussions, constructive feedback, and collaboration with others. Vygotsky also stated that culture was a primary determinant of knowledge acquisition. He argued that children learn from the beliefs and attitudes modeled by their culture.

See also: Andragogy Theory - Malcolm Knowles

Vygotsky had a groundbreaking theory that language was the basis of learning. His points included the argument that language supports other activities such as reading and writing. In addition, he claimed that logic, reasoning, and reflective thinking were all possible as a result of language. This led to the development of instructional strategies to support growth in literacy as well as a reassessment of the classroom setup. Teachers were to encourage leadership in the classroom, collaborative learning, and thoughtful discussions. With the exception of independent tasks, which were also included, the goal was to create purposeful, meaningful exchanges between students. The role of the teacher was to facilitate learning by directing the dialogue and confirming contributions in an effort to further motivate the students.

See also: Social Learning Theory: Albert Bandura

The primary role of the teacher in the educational context is to act as a facilitator for learning. Guided exchanges, comprehensive discussions, and the creation of an engaging community are valuable strategies for cognitive development. Many educators have incorporated Vygotsky's ideas of social connection and small group learning in the classroom in an effort to see more growth.

See also: Inclusive Teaching Strategies

Fundamentally, Vygotsky recognized that social settings and learning were closely entwined. Therefore one must identify and implement strategies that are effective in a social context. It is also important to note that the culture of each individual is created by their unique strengths, language, and prior experience. One of the ways that students gain knowledge is when they collaborate with their peers or mentors on activities that involve problem-solving skills and real-life tasks.

Cognitive Development and the Social World

Vygotsky maintained that the social world is not only the interactions between peers and their teacher but also consisted of outside influences within the community. Prior knowledge, such as learned behaviors at home, impact learning in the classroom environment. As such, Vygotsky outlined three main concepts related to cognitive development: (i) culture is significant in learning, (ii) language is the root of culture, and (iii) individuals learn and develop within their role in the community. Culture can be defined as the morals, values, and beliefs of its community members, which are held in place with systems and establishments. Acceptable attitudes and conduct are communicated by the use of language. Culture is shaped over time as the result of specific events, whose messages are then conveyed to its members. Vygotsky explained that culture consistently affects cognitive development by affecting human behavior. He wanted others to realize that there is a complex relationship between culture and human development. It is a cycle; at the same time that the culture is influencing an individual, that individual is in turn creating culture.

See also: Massive open online courses (MOOCs), Definitions

Vygotsky used the stages of childhood development to further explain the relationship between culture and learning. As a baby, you display elementary functions designed for your survival: crying, a sense of your mother's scent, and familiar voices. These displays gradually fade out as a result of external stimuli: imitating, consequences, and conditioning by others. It is replaced with problem-solving skills such as reflection, bargaining, and reasoning. This higher-level thinking is influenced by cultural factors. The values and beliefs of a community, including models of acceptable behavior, create pressure for others to adopt the preferred attitudes and protocol of that society. Etiquette is communicated orally and by example.

Language is the basis of Vygotsky's ideas on social interaction. The development of speech occurs in three stages: external, egocentric, and inner speech. External or social speech occurs from birth until the age of three. Babies use language to communicate their feelings, express their emotions, and share simple words. They use language to state their needs and also respond to their parent's speech. You can begin to see the social influence on behavior as early as this stage based on the reactions to their demands. Even though babies use language to control their needs, the people around them express approval or disapproval based on their behavior. This leads to cognitive development within the individual. The next stage, egocentric speech, occurs between the ages of three and seven. As they begin to rationalize internally their actions or behavior, children begin to talk to themselves. This inner speech helps them control their reasoning and organize their thoughts. They continue to interpret meaning from the reactions of others, further integrating the cultural beliefs into their own cognitive development. Without language, Vygotsky believed that we would be limited to a more primitive function. Language is ultimately the tool by which we communicate the desired behaviors and therefore enable the development of a society and its culture.

See also: ADDIE Model: Instructional Design

Similar to inner speech is the idea of internalization. Internalization should not be confused with introjection, which involves minimal participation from the individual themselves. It is the conditioning put forth by others, for example, the consequences or reactions toward a behavior. Internalization is where the cognitive development of an individual is influenced by society as they adopt the morals and ethics of a community for themselves. They begin to view their culture's beliefs as their own. Internalization should not be confused with socialization, where individuals develop attitudes due to a need to belong to a community and not the actual obligation to do so. In Vygotsky's theory, internalization was important to social development. We can observe key skills develop on the social level then again within an individual as they internalize cultural influences. External influences are adopted as intrapersonal characteristics throughout the internalization process.

See also: Kirkpatrick Model: Four Levels of Learning Evaluation

It is important to note that the education system influences the thoughts and belief systems of the children within. One's teachers and peers directly affect cognitive development by the language they use and the interpretations they offer of cultural events. While Piaget believed that a child builds a unique view of the world, Vygotsky suggested that others within a child's social circle influence their perspectives, values, and attitudes. Individuals are actively engaging within their learning environments, continuously analyzing the reactions of others and modifying their responses as they adopt or reject accepted standards as their own. Both learning and culture are depended on the other: individuals are constantly determining what is acceptable in society, and the environment is continuously confirming what would be considered appropriate behavior. Vygotsky states that it is the combination of cultural influences and genetics that create one's personality.

Secondly, Vygotsky specified that the conclusions should be made based on the behavior of a student in a social setting. He did not place emphasis on intelligence itself. Instead, Vygotsky proposed the idea of the zone of proximal development, which distinguishes between what a child is able to accomplish independently and what they achieve under close guidance from a teacher. He maintained that learning occurred in the presence of tasks specific to the child's current ability under the supervision of a more competent person. In order to capitalize on this growth, Vygotsky encouraged testing based on the social context. He disagreed with the notion of independent intelligence assessments, preferring to focus on the potential of each student within the learning environment. The zone of proximal development is affected by the unique attributes of each individual, including personality, self-regulation, and previous knowledge. As the zone of proximal development cannot be clearly defined, it is challenging to explain the link between social interaction and learning. It does, however, support the argument for a more student-centered education system as well as the many factors that can influence potential outcomes.

Criticisms of Vygotsky

1. Observation and testing

Vygotsky's theories have been heavily criticized for his lack of experimental tests. He relied widely on observation of his subjects to prove his findings as he believed that social interaction was a key factor to learning. His vague definition of social interaction, in which failed to state the best methods to engage with others, allowed the criticisms to continue even after his death.

2. Active participation in the acquisition of knowledge

While some philosophers assume that learning occurs naturally and fluidly, Vygotsky believed that leaners actively engage in the acquisition of knowledge. The criticism of Vygotsky's theory is that it does not account for the slower rate of cognitive growth in some children. Both genetics and passive experience are thought to play some role as well.

3. Societal Influences

Criticisms about the vagueness of his theories are not limited to just the acquisition of knowledge. Others were also critical about Vygotsky's theory of language, which stated that learning comes from cultural influences. Vygotsky minimized the role of genetics and instead highlighted socialization as key to language learning. Although it is possible that Vygotsky just never elaborated on his theory in his lifetime, some observations are detrimental to his work. Even with consistent social support, some children are never able to develop cognitively until a certain age. Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, conducted a systemic study of cognitive development that offers some answers where Vygotsky could not. Piaget observed that children's learning occurred in stages, and they needed to reach the next stage, or milestone before they could understand some concepts.

4. Lack of Cultural Relevance

Even assessing Vygotsky's theory as a whole proved to be problematic. Vygotsky's theory revolves around the idea that social interaction is central to learning. This means the assumption must be made that all societies are the same, which is incorrect. Vygotsky emphasized the concept of instructional scaffolding, which allows the learned to build connections based on social interactions. In reality, only some learning activities place an emphasis on language, while other skills are acquired instead with hands-on practice and observation.

5. Guided Learning: Zone of Proximal Development

One of the most important aspects of Vygotsky's theory is also criticized: the Zone of Proximal Development. It is viewed as an attempt to make Piaget's theories trendy by rewording his ideas and presenting them in an alternate way. The concept of the zone of proximal development is not well understood and is criticized as an "umbrella term" under which many models of cognitive development could fall.

Overall, Piaget's work has been more heavily scrutinized than Vygotsky's. This is due to the ambiguous nature of Vygotsky's theories, which make them difficult to test and measure. In addition to these challenges, Vygotsky's work needs to be translated from Russian, which is time-consuming in itself.

See also: Fully and Partially Online Courses: Definitions

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Lev Vygotsky - Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development - Educational Technology

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Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian teacher who is considered a pioneer in learning in social contexts. As a psychologist, he was also the first to examine how our social interactions influence our cognitive growth. He was convinced that learning occurred through interactions with others in our communities: peers, adults, teachers, and other mentors.