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If only a few students participate by volunteering answers, asking questions, or contributing to discussions, class sessions become to some extent a lost opportunity to assess and promote learning. You can improve student participation in your course by devoting time and thought to shaping the environment and planning each class session. Furthermore, the way in which you interact, both verbally and non-verbally, communicates to students your attitude about participation.

The goal of increasing participation is not to have every student participate in the same way or at the same rate. Instead, it is to create an environment in which all participants have the opportunity to learn and in which the class explores issues and ideas in-depth, from a variety of viewpoints. Some students will raise their voices more than others; this variation is a result of differences in learning preferences as well as differences in personalities. For example, some students who do not speak often in class are reflective learners, who typically develop ideas and questions in their minds before speaking; others are shy students who feel uncomfortable speaking in front of groups (at least initially). Many students who frequently volunteer to contribute are active learners, who typically think while they speak. The instructor's goal is to create conditions that enable students of various learning preferences and personalities to contribute. To reach this goal, you will need to take extra steps to encourage quiet students to speak up and, occasionally, ask the more verbose students to hold back from commenting in order to give others a chance.

Reserve a classroom that will accommodate the kind of participation you have in mind. Starting on the first day of class, arrange the room in a way that encourages active engagement. When it is time to reserve a classroom, keep in mind not only the number of student chairs you will need, but also whether these chairs should be moveable. If you lead frequent discussions, consider moving the chairs into a circle or "U" to ensure that students can see, and speak to, one another. If you are teaching in a large lecture hall, consider asking students to move so that they are concentrated near the front of the room. Move the chairs back to their standard configuration at the end of class (in University-managed classrooms, see the diagram posted near the door).

Make clear from the beginning your expectation that students will participate. On the first day of class, explain what you see as valuable about class participation. Indicate that you want to do all you can to ensure that the classroom dynamics and activities support full participation, including calling on students who do not raise their hands and sometimes asking frequent contributors to allow others to have a chance. Ask students to inform you if you can make any changes to improve the classroom dynamics and rates of participation.

On the first day of class, give students a clear idea of what to expect regarding participation. If you plan to lecture each day with pauses for questions and discussion, do so on the first day; if you plan to lead more extended discussions, then do so on the first day.

Consider whether you will assign a grade to students' performance in discussions so that they understand the importance of participating. If you do plan to grade participation, inform students of the specific criteria that you will use. For example, will you evaluate the frequency and quality of their contributions, as well as how effectively they each respond to others' comments? Will you include in each participation grade the student's performance on informal writing, online discussions, minor group projects, or other work? Grading student participation is especially important, and usually essential, in discussion courses (see Teaching with Discussions).

Learn and use students' names. Students will be more engaged if they believe that you perceive them as individuals, rather than as anonymous members of a group. Encourage students to learn one another's names, as well; this strategy will increase the possibility that they will address one another by name and direct their comments to one another, not just to you.

In a discussion course, assign to your students some of the responsibility for increasing participation by all. For example, on the first day of class, you might tell students your goals for class participation (e.g., informed and lively discussions in which everyone participates) and ask them to come up with a list of guidelines that will help the class reach this goal. Typically, they will generate excellent guidelines such as "do not interrupt others when they are talking" and "critique the ideas; don't criticize the person." Post this list on the course Web site and hand it out in class. Students who feel invested from the beginning in making the discussions successful will be more likely to work together to increase participation.

Consider requiring students to lead discussions or to submit discussion questions before class. Provide guidance and assess student performance on these tasks (assigning a score, for example, that forms a part of the class participation grade.)

In discussion courses in which you are having trouble getting students to participate, consider asking students to submit anonymous comments on class participation as well as suggestions on how to get more people involved; often, they will let you know that there are problems with the classroom dynamics that you may not see yourself (such as that some students resent the "domination" of discussion by one or two others) or that the structure of the discussions has become too predictable or formulaic.

Use a variety of teaching methods, including lectures, discussions, and small-group work. If you are teaching a lecture course, set aside time during each lecture to ask and answer questions, to ask students to solve a problem, or to discuss an issue. Pause every 15-20 minutes for this purpose. When students learn to expect these opportunities for discussion or questioning, they will listen more actively to the lecture. If you lecture for 45 minutes before you pause for questions or discussion, your students will have been taking notes for so long that they may find it difficult to switch modes quickly. Furthermore, they may well have forgotten questions, comments, or unclear concepts from the earlier parts of class (see Teaching with Lectures).

If you are teaching a discussion course, integrate short lectures into the lesson plan in order to introduce concepts, clarify and order ideas, and help students make connections. Use small-group discussions, informal writing assignments, and online discussions before or at the start of class to prompt students to think about the discussion topic. These strategies can be effective ways to provide reflective learners and shy students a means of developing ideas that they can then contribute to the class discussion. Commenting on the insights that quieter students contribute in small-group discussions and on informal writing assignments and online discussions can encourage them to speak up in the larger group; you might comment on a student's written work, for example, "this analysis is insightful; the entire class would benefit from hearing your ideas more often" (see Teaching with Discussions).

Organize each class session to include opportunities throughout to ask and answer questions; prepare initial and follow-up questions ahead of time. Use questions to assess student learning, to signal to students which material is the most important, and to help students advance their knowledge and thinking. (For a discussion of strategies for formulating questions, see Asking Questions to Improve Learning). Encourage students to ask questions throughout the class (approximately every 15 minutes), not just at the end.

If grading student participation, plan to give students a preliminary participation grade, as well as a brief written evaluation of their performance. If you will grade class participation, give students preliminary grades as early as 3-4 weeks into the semester and at midterm so that they will know where they stand. Your written evaluation can be designed to encourage the quiet students to talk more often and the verbose students to hold their comments to give others a chance to participate).

Use verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage participation. Do not rely on the same volunteers to answer every question. Respond to frequent volunteers in a way that indicates that you appreciate their responses, but want to hear from others as well. Move to a part of the room where quiet students are sitting; smile at and make eye contact with these students to encourage them to speak up. By the same token, when frequent volunteers speak, look around the room rather than only at them to encourage others to respond (see below).

Reduce students' anxieties by creating an atmosphere in which they feel comfortable "thinking out-loud," taking intellectual risks, asking questions, and admitting when they do not know something; one of the best ways to do this is to model these behaviors yourself.

Give students time to think before they respond to your questions. Do not be afraid of silence. Give students 5-10 seconds to think and formulate a response. If 10-15 seconds pass without anyone volunteering an answer and the students are giving you puzzled looks, rephrase your question. Do not give in to the temptation to answer your own questions, which will condition students to hesitate before answering to see if you will supply "the answer." Patience is key; do not be afraid of silence. The longer you wait for students to respond, the more thoughtful and complex those responses are likely to be.

Often, there is at least one student in every class who will quickly raise her or his hand to answer nearly every question. If you consistently call on this student, those who require more time to formulate answers will simply learn to wait for this student to answer. (See Asking Questions to Improve Learning.)

Listen fully to your students' questions and answers; avoid interrupting. Resist the urge to interrupt when you think you know what the student is going to say or ask. Often, well-meaning and enthusiastic instructors make incorrect assumptions and leave their students' actual questions unanswered or misrepresent what the students had planned to say.

Provide specific, encouraging, varied responses. Point out what is helpful or interesting about student contributions. Pick up on comments that were made but not discussed. Do not use the same, standard praise to respond to every comment. When students hear "good point" again and again, they start to lose motivation. Ask follow-up questions to prompt students to clarify, refine, and support their ideas. When a student gives an incorrect or ill-conceived answer, respond in a way that challenges the student to think more deeply or to reconsider the evidence. The best way to shut down participation, and learning, is to embarrass a student.

Repeat student responses to summarize or clarify ideas. Use this strategy when a student's comments are vague or "all over the map," but do not over-use it, leading students to rely on you to "translate" or validate their ideas.

Redirect comments and questions to other students. Encourage students to respond to one another, rather than merely to you. When a student is speaking, look around the room, not just at the student who is speaking; making eye contact with other students lets them know that you expect them to be listening and formulating responses. Provide students with a model of civil discourse by demonstrating respect for, and interest in, the views of others. Learn to limit your own comments. Particularly when facilitating a discussion, hold back from responding to every comment; otherwise, students will learn to wait for you to respond rather than formulating their own responses.

Place the emphasis on student ideas. Encourage students to share their ideas and use those ideas (with attribution) whenever you can. Referring back to a comment made by a student in an earlier class demonstrates that you have thought about and appreciated what your students have to say.

Active student participation does not happen naturally in university courses; it must be carefully planned and encouraged. Set aside time throughout the semester to assess student participation in your course and to develop strategies for improvement; administer midterm student evaluations to help you with this process. Consider asking a colleague to observe your class; often, outside observers can discern patterns that hinder participation but that may not be apparent to participants. Take notes during and after a semester so that you have a record of what went well and what you would like to change the next time you teach the course in order to increase student participation.

References

Davis, Barbara Gross. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

"Questioning Strategies." Center for Teaching Excellence. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://cte.illinois.edu/resources/topics/methods/strateg.html.

"Encouraging Interaction in Science and Engineering Classes." The McGraw Center. Princeton University. https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/661.

"Facilitating Discussions in Humanities and Social Science." The McGraw Center. Princeton University. https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/656.

McKeachie, Wilbert, et al. McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. 12th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

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Increasing Student Participation - Center for Teaching and Learning

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If only a few students participate by volunteering answers, asking questions, or contributing to discussions, class sessions become to some extent a lost opportunity to assess and promote learning. You can improve student participation in your course by devoting time and thought to shaping the environment and planning each class session.

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Promoting Effective Classroom Participation 

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Promoting Effective Classroom Participation 

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Classroom participation is a feature of many course designs. It can result in insightful comments and interesting connections being made by students, and can foster a high level of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom learning environment. However, poorly managed participation can also lead to instructor frustration and student confusion. Below are strategies to consider using to make your classroom participation more effective.

What does "participation" mean?

Be clear with your definition and intention. Participation is often equated with discussion, which typically involves a lengthy conversation with the whole class. However, participation can also include short exchanges between instructors and students, or within small groups of students. If you include participation in your roster of assessments, you need to clearly communicate to your students what it will entail and why you are including a participation component. Do see participation as the outcome of student preparation? Are you interested in the quality of contributions or quantity? Does participation enable students to take risks and make errors as part of their learning? Does it increase their exposure to other ways of thinking? Does it enable them to demonstrate and develop their communication skills? Is it possible for a student to participate too much?

Seek consensus. While you can independently prepare a rubric that explains how you will assess participation, you may find that students will participate more enthusiastically if you ask them to help define what constitutes effective participation and then ask them to develop a rubric with you. Bean & Peterson (1998) suggest asking students to identify features of effective discussions they have experienced in the past, including the behaviours and roles of both the students and the instructor.

How do I encourage participation?

Foster an ethos of participation. Hollander (2002) discusses the need to present participation as a collective responsibility of the class rather than just an individual responsibility. In order to facilitate a conversation where connections are made, students need to view their participation as a contribution to a shared experience. Asking students to respond to a peer's response helps to facilitate a conversation. As well, positively reinforcing such contributions builds this sense of collectivism.

Teach students skills needed to participate. Students may not yet have the skills required to participate effectively. A discussion about characteristics of effective participation can reveal undeveloped areas in your students: ask them how they have participated in previous courses, and whether they could use some assistance.

Devise activities that elicit participation. Discussion-based activities such as case-study analyses, role playing, and jigsaws encourage students to talk with one another and with the instructor. To be effective, however, they typically require clear instructions, including timelines. With one-on-one exchanges, you can adopt a deep questioning approach, probing students about the reasoning behind their responses, sometimes doing so repeatedly to achieve greater depth ("Yes, but why do you think that?"). Participation can also be facilitated by certain learning technologies. For example, you can use clickers to collect students' responses to multiple-choice questions. You can extend the learning with clickers by having students first respond individually and then having them respond again after discussing their ideas with their peers. Some instructors, too, encourage participation via micro-blogging technologies such as Twitter: students have the option of participating verbally or of typing their contributions into a live Twitter feed.

Consider your position in the room. Moving away from the front of the classroom can sometimes promote better participation. If students perceive that all comments must be channeled through you, you become a gatekeeper for participation and it becomes harder to promote a sense collective responsibility. Try moving to the side or even the back of the room and see how students respond.

Ask students to assess their own participation. This strategy begins with having students set one or more goals for their participation at the start of the term. Hollander (2002) suggests that these goals need to be concrete and attainable in one term, and they should submit them to you in written form. At least once during the term, you should ask students to then assess their own participation: What is working well? What could be improved? What progress are they making on their goals? If you have developed a rubric for assessing participation, ask students to assign themselves a grade based on the rubric, a justification for the grade, and their plans to improve it if it falls below their expected level of achievement. Giving students a sense of responsibility for their participation can be very motivating.

Ensure that everyone's contributions are audible. In a large classroom, or even a small one with poor acoustics, it might be difficult for a student making a verbal contribution to be heard by a classmate on the other side of the room. This can detract significantly from the class dynamics, as students will become frustrated or cease to pay attention if they can't hear what is being shared. Frequently, students will need to be encouraged to speak loudly and clearly. Try reminding them that they should be addressing their comments not to you, who might happen to be standing close by, but to the classmate who is sitting farthest away. When a quiet student starts to speak, it's often helpful to resist your natural inclination to move closer, and instead to move to the other side of the room, so that the student is encouraged to speak more loudly. In some cases, you may need to reiterate a student's contribution, to ensure that everyone hears it.

Consider the use of an online poll before the class discussion. Students may be more willing to participate in debates and discussions if they can see that other students share their views. The results from a pre-class anonymous poll can be presented to students as a starting point or to set the stage for their in-class discussion.

How do I assess participation?

Keep written records. You need to develop a system that works for you. Some instructors use class pictures, name tents, seating charts, or attendance lists to keep track of student names so they can record participation each class. Teaching assistants may be needed to help record students' contributions if your class is large. In these large classes, it may be necessary to ask students to state their name before making their comment so that participation can be accurately recorded. A simple check mark system (one check for good contributions and two for outstanding ones) can be enough to record evidence of students' contributions. Such a system can be complemented by having students record their own contributions for submission after every class or as an aggregate every few weeks. Regardless of the system that you choose, you need one that is efficient so that the process of assessing student participation does not become too onerous for you or the students.

Consider the students' self-assessments. You should provide your own written feedback on their self-assessments. You may also want to meet individually with students whose self-assessment of their participation differs markedly from your assessment.

Use peer evaluation. In small classes, where students know one another's names, it is feasible to ask each student to evaluate the participation of everyone in the class; doing so not only gives you, the instructor, useful information, but also encourages each student to consider his or her participation in the context of the class as a whole. Even in large classes, students can reasonably be expected to assess the participation of classmates with whom they have worked closely, for example, in a small group or group-project setting. Having a clear rubric helps students make these peer assessments in an objective and "evidence-based" manner.

Support

If you would like support applying these tips to your own teaching, CTE staff members are here to help. View the CTE Support page to find the most relevant staff member to contact.

References

Bean, J.C. & Peterson, D. (1998). Grading Classroom Participation. In R.S. Anderson & B.W. Speck (Eds.) New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 74 (Summer), 33-40.

Brookfield, S.D. (1999). Discussion as a Way of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Davis, B.G. (1993). Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Hollander, J.A. (2002). Learning to discuss: strategies for improving the quality of class discussion. Teaching Sociology, 30 (July), 317-327.

Resources

Centre for Teaching Excellence teaching tips:

This Creative Commons license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Promoting Effective Classroom Participation. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.

This Creative Commons license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Promoting Effective Classroom Participation. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.

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Promoting Effective Classroom Participation | Centre for Teaching Excellence

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Classroom participation is a feature of many course designs. It can result in insightful comments and interesting connections being made by students, and can foster a high level of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom learning environment. However, poorly managed participation can also lead to instructor frustration and student confusion.

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Collaborative Learning Theory – E-Learning Essentials 2020

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Abstract

Collaborative learning and cooperative learning are two separate approaches developed independently by two groups of scholars around the same period of time in the 1960 and 1970 s. Due to their different origins and intertwined paths of development, they have their own distinct features while sharing many similarities. The relationship between collaborative learning and cooperative learning can be confusing. Therefore, this paper provides a brief historical review of collaborative learning and cooperative learning to identify the origins of each, where they diverge from each other, and where they are aligned. This paper examines the definitions of the two terms and compares their characteristics. This is followed by a discussion of their historical development in the last fifty years: early development between the 1960 and 1970 s; maturation in the 1980 and 1990 s; convergence in the mid-1990s; and the emergence of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) in the late 1980s. Finally, this paper summarizes the four paradigms of mainstream research on collaborative and cooperative learning, namely, the "effect" paradigm, the "conditions" paradigm, the "interaction" paradigm, and the "design" paradigm.

Keywords: Collaborative learning, Cooperative learning, CSCL, Historical review

Introduction

Collaborative learning is now used as an umbrella term for various instructional approaches to small group learning, including but not limited to cooperative learning, team-based learning, peer tutoring, study groups, project-based learning, problem-based learning, and learning communities (Koschmann, 1996; Smith & MacGregor, 1992; Udvari-Solner, 2012a). Notably, the relationship between collaborative learning and cooperative learning has been most confusing (Bruffee, 1999), "...more like an arbor of vines growing in parallel, crossing, or intertwining" (MacGregor, 1992, p. 37), given the fact that they were developed around the same period of time. Some scholars use the two terms as synonyms, some consider cooperative learning a subcategory of collaborative learning, others treat them as two ends of a continuum, with cooperative learning being most structured and collaborative learning being least structured, and still, others draw a clear line between the two (Barkley et al., 2014). There is a theoretical rationale to discriminate the two terms, but in practice, it is difficult to separate them because collaboration and cooperation often co-exist in many group work processes (Jeong & Hmelo-Silver, 2016).

According to Bruffee ( 1999), collaborative and cooperative learning are complementary and supplementary, and their differences can be mainly attributed to their different origins:

Collaborative and cooperative learning were developed originally for educating people of different ages, experience, and levels of mastery of the craft of interdependence. So teachers devising methods in each case tended to make different assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the authority of knowledge. (p. 87)

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a brief historical review of collaborative learning and cooperative learning to identify their origins, where they diverge from each other, and where they are aligned.

This paper is organized into five parts. The first part examines the definitions of the two terms and compares their characteristics. The next three parts outline the historical development of collaborative learning and cooperative learning in the past five decades, which can be roughly divided into three phases: early development between the 1960 and 1970 s; maturation in the 1980 and 1990 s; convergence in the mid-1990s; and the emergence of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) in the late 1980s. A timeline of their history can be found in the Appendix Table ​Table2. 2 . The fifth part summarizes the four paradigms of research on collaborative and cooperative learning, namely, the "effect" paradigm, the "conditions" paradigm, the "interaction" paradigm (Dillenbourg et al., 1996), and the "design" paradigm.

Table 2

Timeline of Collocative learning

1980s

(American Association of Higher Education) AAHE's Action Community on Collaborative Learning

1993

Bruffee book Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge

Timeline of Cooperative learning

1966

David Johnson began training teachers on cooperative learning

1978

Aronson "Jigsaw Classroom ", Journal of Research and Development in Education

1979

First IASCE (International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education) conference in Israel

Timeline of CSCL

1989

First CSCL workshop held in Italy by the NATO Special Program on Advanced Educational Technology. Follow-up workshops held in 1991 and 1992.

1995

First International Conference on CSCL held at the University of Indiana. Since then, the conference has been held biannually.

Definitions and Characteristics

It is challenging to define collaborative learning or collaboration, and there is no universal definition (Dillenbourg, 1999; Koschmann, 1996; Whipple, 1987). To Bruffee ( 1999), the most prominent collaborative theorist, collaborative learning "creates conditions in which students can negotiate the boundaries between the knowledge communities they belong to and the one that the professor belongs to" (p. 144). In this philosophical view, the notions of power and authority are challenged, with the assumption that knowledge is not transmitted from the professors to the students but socially constructed among people of a community (Bruffee, 1984, 1999). Thus education can be viewed as a conversation among people and a process of reacculturation (Bruffee, 1984, 1999). In light of Bruffee's conception, Panitz ( 1999) defined collaboration as "a philosophy of interaction and personal lifestyle where individuals are responsible for their actions, including learning and respecting the abilities and contributions of their peers (p. 3). Likewise, Oxford ( 1997) also acknowledged the philosophical orientation of collaborative learning. With a focus on the learning processes, Roschelle & Teasley ( 1995) defined collaboration as "the mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve the problem together" (p. 70). Due to its philosophical orientation, collaborative learning tends not to impose too much structure on learning activities (Bruffee, 1995, 1999), and the students "work together in small groups that are typically self-selected, self-managed, and loosely structured" (Davidson, 2021a, p. 12).

In contrast, the definitions of cooperative learning or cooperation are much less abstract. The most renowned cooperative theorists, Johnson & Johnson ( 1999), defined cooperative learning as "the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning" (p. 5). They emphasized interdependence in group work: students "can reach their learning goals if and only if the other students in the learning group also reach their goals" (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, p. 5). Cooperation can be defined as "a structure of interaction designed to facilitate the accomplishment of a specific end product or goal through people working together in groups" (Panitz, 1999, p. 3). Cooperation implies "the division of labour among participants, as an activity where each person is responsible for a portion of the problem solving" (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995, p. 70). Compared to collaborative learning, cooperative learning has a more practical orientation as "a set of instructional methods in which students work in small, mixed-ability learning groups" (Slavin, 1987, p. 3). Although with different goals and emphases, cooperative learning methods all tend to structure group interactions to ensure equal participation and individual accountability (Bruffee, 1995, 1999; Oxford, 1997; Sharan & Sharan, 2021). Most well-known small group learning techniques, such as Jigsaw, Think-Pair-Share, Three-Step Interview, Teams-Games-Tournaments, and Group Investigation, were invented by cooperative learning researchers; conversely, very limited specific procures can be attributed to collaborative learning (Davidson, 2021a).

Therefore, the key difference between the two approaches lies in that: "in nurturing educational rewards to be gained from self-governed student peer relations, [collaboration learning] sacrifices guaranteed accountability... in guaranteeing accountability, [cooperative learning] risks maintaining authority relations of traditional education both within each small working group and in the class as a whole" (Bruffee, 1999, p. 92). Many scholars attempted to differentiate collaborative and cooperative learning (Bruffee, 1995; Davidson, 2021c; Davidson & Major, 2014; Dillenbourg, 1999; Jacobs, 2015; Oxford, 1997; Panitz, 1999; Smith & MacGregor, 1992; Veldman & Kostons, 2019) (see Table 1 ). It is critical to note that these differences are generalizations of the two approaches, especially at their earlier stages. Both approaches can take varied forms, and many of the distinctions seem to be blurred after years of development.

Table 1

Aspects

Collaborative Learning

Cooperative Learning

Theoretical foundations

Social construction (Kuhn; Rorty)

Social interdependence (Lewin; Deutsch)

Cognitive development (Piaget; Vygotsky)

Behaviorist learning (Skinner; Bandura)

Constructivism (Piaget; Vygotsky)

Critical pedagogy (Freire)

Typical strategies / methods

Consensus groups (Bruffee)

Think-Pair-Share (Lyman)

Jigsaw (Aronson)

Group Investigation (Sharan & Sharan)

Jigsaw II (Slavin)

Student-Team-Achievement-Division (Slavin)

Team-Games-Tournament (Slavin)

Team-Accelerated Instruction (Slavin)

Learning Together (Johnson & Johnson)

Constructive Controversy (Johnson & Johnson)

Three-Step Interview (Kagan)

Inside Outside Circle (Kagan)

Rally Robin (Kagan)

Numbered Heads Together (Kagan)

Co-op Co-op (Kagan)

Peer tutoring (Bruffee)

Collaborative writing (Bruffee)

Reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown)

Learning communities (Smith & MacGregor)

Team-based learning (Michaelson, Knight, & Fink)

To sum up, collaborative learning was founded by humanity educators in higher education, based on theories of constructivism (Piaget and Vygotsky) and critical pedagogy (Freire), with the goal of shifting the structure of authority in education. Collaborative learning research typically involves qualitative approaches, whereas the practice of collaborative learning is typically based on the design of open-ended tasks for students to work together to reach a consensus and typically does not intervene in group processes or teach team-building skills. In contrast, cooperative learning was established by social psychologists and STEM educators to improve K-12 education in a culture of competition and individualism, based on theories of social interdependence (Lewin and Deutsch), constructivism (Piaget and Vygotsky), and behaviorist learning theories (Skinner and Bandura). Cooperative learning researchers typically use quantitative approaches to test and validate their theories. The practice of cooperative learning has typically been based on many ready-to-use methods to promote positive intercedence among group members. How these distinctions come into being will be made more apparent as we review the historical development of collaborative and cooperative learning in the next section.

With these differences in mind, it is important to remember that collaborative and cooperative learning share more similarities than differences (Kreijns et al., 2003). They both harness "peer group influence to focus on intellectual and substantive concerns" (Bruffee, 1999, p. 92) and are both student-centered pedagogies compared to traditional teacher-centered lectures. Fundamentally, they have some shared theoretical assumptions, such as: Learning is an active, constructive process; learning depends on rich contexts; learners are diverse; learning is inherently social; learning has affective and subjective dimensions (Smith & MacGregor, 1992).

Early Development in the 1960 and 1970s

Small group learning approaches such as collaborative learning and cooperative learning can be traced back to ancient times (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 2021). However, modern exploration of collaborative learning and cooperative learning began in the 1960s and emerged as fields of study in the 1970s. Around this period of time, there were probably many other educators who were practicing small group pedagogies without knowing or using the labels of collaborative or cooperative learning (Gamson, 1994).

Collaborative Learning with British Origins

Research on collaborative learning originated in Britain in the 1960s (Bruffee, 1984). At the college level, Abercrombie experimented with teaching medical students to make better diagnoses through collaborative learning at the University of London (Bruffee, 1973, 1984, 1999). For secondary education, the Curriculum Laboratory at the University of London Goldsmiths' College worked closely with local school teachers to promote collaborative learning with a strong political endeavor to establish democracy and humanity in education (Bruffee, 1984). Mason ( 1970) summarized the innovative work he and his colleagues in the Curriculum Laboratory did in his book Collaborative Learning, which was the first time this term appeared in the literature. Mason ( 1970) proposed to design a new educational system that could foster "authenticity in knowledge and in relationships" and "dialogue between pupils and collaboration," which he believed "can only happen if most work goes on in small groups, so conditions must also be sufficiently relaxed for teachers to allow groups to work much of the time without supervision" (p. 85). As a pioneer of collaborative learning, Mason ( 1970), however, deliberated not to give any definitions of collaborative learning, nor did he provide operational procedures for practicing collaborative learning.

In the early 1970s in the United States, a young American professor in English at Brooklyn College, Kenneth A. Bruffee, borrowed the term "collaborative learning" from Mason ( 1970), as he was trying to solve practical issues in his own teaching (Bruffee, 1984, 1999). Years later, Bruffee furthered the theorization of collaborative learning and became the leading collaborative theorist. Bruffee ( 1973) described his earlier attempts at collaborative learning in his literature and composition classes in the article "Collaborative Learning: Some Practical Models" published in College English, which became a major platform for many of the early discussions of collaborative learning.

As Bruffee ( 1973) observed, college students participated in a wide range of collaborative activities such as academic study groups, hobby groups, and political activist societies outside the classroom, whereas they were expected to work individually inside the classroom and collaboration was discouraged. At that time, the open admissions policy in his institution brought about dramatic changes in the campus demographics with more minority students and students of low achievement (Bruffee, 1999). There was a need to bridge the achievement gap and racial differences, forcing him to rethink the nature of knowledge, authority, and education. Drawing inspirations from Dewey, Vygotsky, and Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Bruffee ( 1999) started to experiment with collaborative learning in his department around the idea of knowledge communities and reacculturation, but he had not yet fully uncovered the connections between these ideas and collaborative learning until the 1980s.

Cooperative Learning Without a Name

In the meantime, the pioneers of cooperative learning, including David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson, Elliot, Spencer Kagan, Richard Schmuck, Neil Davidson, Elizabeth G. Cohen, Robert E. Slavin, and Shlomo Sharan, started their research careers on cooperative learning in the 1960 and 1970 s (Davidson, 2021a). The term "cooperative learning," however, did not appear in literature until around 1980; alternative terms such as "small group learning" were used before that (Davidson, 2021a). The recently published book Pioneering Perspectives in Cooperative Learning, edited by Davidson ( 2021b), invited these leading scholars to share stories about how they developed their unique approaches to cooperative learning.

Like Bruffee, Aronson ( 2021) invented the now famous jigsaw method in the early 1970s in response to critical issues caused by the socio-cultural contexts, i.e., the desegregation in public schools in Texas. Aronson ( 2021) implemented the jigsaw method among fifth-grade students. It was a success as students learned to appreciate each other's differences, became friendly to each other, and developed a positive attitude towards the school.

David and Roger Johnson from the University of Minnesota started to train teachers on cooperative learning in the mid-1960s during a time of competition and individualism within American society. In 1975, they published their masterpiece Learning Together and Alone (5th edition in 1999) (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). They grounded their research practices on social interdependence theory, cognitive developmental theory, and behavioral learning theories (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 2009). Social interdependence theory was developed by Morton Deutsch in the 1940s, which "grounds the entire field of cooperative learning" (Stevahn, 2021, p. 17). Deutsch's social intercedence theory was expanded by his student David Johnson (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 2009, 2021).

Social interdependence theory distinguishes three types of social interaction: promotive interaction (cooperation) from positive interdependence of individuals in a group; oppositional interaction (competition) from negative interdependence of group members; and no interaction (individualist efforts) from independence or no interdependence within a group. Although cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning can all lead to constructive learning, the Johnsons argued that cooperative learning should be "the basic foundation of instruction, the underlying context on which all instruction rests" (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, p. 11). The cognitive-developmental perspective of cooperative learning is rooted in Piaget's "conceptual conflicts" and Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development" (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). The behavioral learning theories by Skinner and Bandura support the use of extrinsic motivation as incentives for students to learn together "since it is assumed that students will not intrinsically help their classmates or work toward a common goal" (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, p. 186).

Further, Johnson and Johnson ( 1999; 2009; 2021) identified five core elements of productive cooperative learning: (1) positive interdependence (achieved by sharing goals, resources, roles, workload, and rewords); (2) individual accountability and personal responsibility; (3) promotive interaction; (4) appropriate use of social skills; and (5) group processing. Besides building a comprehensive theoretical framework and practical guidelines for cooperative learning, the Johnsons applied their cooperative learning methods in the classrooms and conducted empirical research to validate and refine their theory (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 2009, 2021). Many other cooperative learning scholars also conduct quantitative research, as most of them are well-trained social psychologists (e.g., David Johnson, Slavin, Sharan, Aronson, Kagan, and Schmuck) or STEM educators (e.g., Roger Johnson and Davidson).

A community of cooperative learning scholars was formed in the late 1970s. Initiated by Shlomo Sharan, the First International Convention on Cooperation in Education took place in Israel in 1979, and the International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education (IASCE) was founded. The IASCE was active for four decades until its closure amid the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (Davidson, 2021a).

Coming of Age in the 1980 and 1990s

In the 1980 and 1990 s, both collaborative and cooperative learning witnessed substantive growth and gained wide recognition. However, they did not develop in the same fashion or at the same pace. Having established solid theoretical foundations in the 1970s, cooperative learning has flourished in research since then and was widely adopted at all educational levels by the 1990s. Theories of collaborative learning were not established until the early 1980s, and up to that point, research on collaborative learning was lacking (Bruffee, 1986; Smit, 1989). However, collaborative learning became "a conscious and well-developed set of practices carried out by a growing number of practitioners from many disciplines" in the 1990s (Gamson, 1994).

The paths of collaborative and cooperative learning started to cross around the mid-1990s as scholars attempted to differentiate the two approaches (Bruffee, 1995; Dillenbourg, 1999; Oxford, 1997; Panitz, 1999; Smith & MacGregor, 1992). In 1995, four scholars (two representing each approach) (Matthews et al., 1995) co-authored an article, "Building Bridges between Cooperative and Collaborative Learning," published in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, emphasizing the similarities of the two approaches. This can be regarded as a critical moment for reconciling differences between the two approaches. Moreover, the field of instructional design and technology began to adopt collaborative learning as a research paradigm, using the term "collaborative learning" to broadly characterize all approaches (Koschmann, 1996).

Towards a Theory of Collaborative Learning

Bruffee first presented his theorization of collaborative learning in 1984 (Bruffee, 1984), with important extensions to the theory in 1986 (Bruffee, 1986), culminating in the publication of his book Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge (first published in 1993; second edition in 1999) (Bruffee, 1999).

Bruffee ( 1986) introduced social constructionist theories and how they shaped his understanding of collaborative learning. Based on Vygotsky's idea that learning happens when social interactions are reflected and internalized by the learner, Bruffee ( 1984) argued that our thought or knowledge is not a given attribute but a social artifact constructed in the process of social interaction among communities of knowledgeable peers. Collaborative learning reflects the process of socially justifying our beliefs as we learn: "...by challenging each other's biases and presuppositions; by negotiating collectively toward new paradigms of perception, thought, feeling, and expression; and by joining larger, more experienced communities of knowledgeable peers through assenting to those communities' interests, values, language, and paradigms of perception and thought" (Bruffee, 1984, p. 646). In these knowledge communities, the teachers' traditional role as the authority of knowledge was deconstructed, and a teacher's responsibility was shifted to introduce the new members (students) to the community (Bruffee, 1984, 1986, 1999). In collaborative learning, authority is distributed among group members, fostering interdependence on each other (Bruffee, 1999). For the students, learning comes from joining a new community with a culture different from their own, which happens when they have conversations and negotiate the boundaries of different communities (Bruffee, 1999). Therefore, learning or education is a process of reacculturation, which is fundamentally collaborative (Bruffee, 1984, 1986, 1999).

Bruffee ( 1984) admitted that collaborative learning was challenging to implement and that there was no one approach or "recipe" to practicing it. But he believed collaboration was essential for students to engage in intellectual pursuit through social interaction (Bruffee, 1984, 1999). Although there was no single approach, Bruffee ( 1999) gave examples of collaborative learning, such as consensus groups, peer tutoring, and collaborative writing. Additionally, Wiener ( 1986) proposed a series of elements for practitioners to consider when evaluating collaborative learning, e.g., task design, student behavior, teacher's behavior, group formation and management, and final product. However, there was a lack of evidence-based research on collaborative learning (Smit, 1989). Instead, collaborative learning scholars had to draw upon evidence from cooperative learning (Bruffee, 1986). Udvari-Solner ( 2012b) held a critical viewpoint that "[r]esearch regarding collaborative learning strategies is generally subsumed under broader investigations of collaborative learning. If collaborative learning strategies are held distinct from cooperative learning, it is difficult to find studies that have extensively investigated the use of one particular strategy."

Cooperative Learning Flourishing with Research

Most prominent cooperative learning scholars are well-trained phycologists (e.g., David Johnson, Aronson, Kagan, Schmuck, Slavin, and Sharan) or have a background in STEM education (e.g., Roger Johnson and Davidson). They conducted much quantitative research on the effect of cooperative learning in the 1980 and 1990 s. Johnson & Johnson ( 1999) asserted that "Cooperative learning can be used with some confidence at every grade level, in every subject area, and with any task.... The research on cooperative learning has a validity and a generalizability rarely found in the educational literature" (p. 192).

With a massive body of empirical research, meta-analytical studies were conducted to examine the overall effect of cooperative learning and identify conditions for successful cooperation (Johnson & Johnson, 1981, 1983; Slavin, 1983, 1999). According to Johnson & Johnson ( 1999), compared to competitive learning and individualist learning, cooperative learning can enhance student achievement, promote critical thinking, foster positive attitudes towards the subject area, increase interpersonal skills, decrease attrition rates, and improve students' self-esteem. Slavin ( 1983) focused on incentive structure and task structure, and his review of the literature revealed that group rewards (instead of individual rewards) and individual accountability (achieved by task specialization and division of labor) are critical to improving students' achievement. Although there are conflicting results in the research, Slavin ( 1990) summarized what was in agreement:

There is agreement that-at least in elementary and middle/junior high schools and with basic skill objectives-cooperative methods that incorporate group goals and individual accountability accelerate student learning considerably. Further, there is agreement that these methods have positive effects on a wide array of affective outcomes, such as intergroup relationships, acceptance of mainstreamed students, and self-esteem. (p. 544)

Technology and Collaborative/Cooperative Learning

With the development of personal computers and the Internet, interest in supporting collaborative and cooperative learning with technology has been growing since the 1980s. The Johnsons and colleagues conducted several studies on computer-assisted cooperative learning in the late1980s (Johnson & Johnson, 1993) confirmed the media myth (i.e., technology is only a vehicle of delivery and what matters is the instruction strategy). They suggested that developers need to have a good understanding of the five elements of cooperative learning to create effective cooperative learning experiences. Likewise, Bruffee ( 1999) pointed out that software developers and educators should collaborate to design "genuinely interactive" software, which might be particularly useful for distance learning by offering online learners similar experiences to residential college students.

Collaborative learning/cooperative learning was neglected by instructional technology for over two decades until the emergence of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) (Dillenbourg et al., 1996). In 1989, the first workshop on CSCL, sponsored by NATO, took place in Italy, marking the beginning of CSCL as a field of research in instructional design and technology (Koschmann, 1996). It is self-evident from its name that the underlining model of CSCL is collaborative learning, but the term is used as a global description for various small group approaches (Koschmann, 1996). Furthermore, CSCL researchers learned to incorporate the strength of cooperative learning because they recognized the importance of structure (scripting) in the complex interplay of technology and collaboration and tried to strike a balance between scripting and over-scripting (Dillenbourg et al., 2009). In this sense, I argue, CSCL is where collaborative learning and cooperative become reconciled.

The first International Conference on CSCL was held at the University of Indiana in 1995 (Koschmann, 1996) and has been held biannually ever since. One of the earliest technological tools developed for collaborative learning is the Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE) or Knowledge Forum (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006, 2010). CSILE was created for a university course in 1983, then implemented at all levels of education. It later evolved to become Knowledge Forum, a widely used web-based tool to support asynchronous discussion using multiple representations of understanding such as texts and graphical notes (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006, 2010).

The Evolution of CSCL in the 21st Century

In 2006, the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) founded the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL), which has become a significant forum for the research community of CSCL and contributed to the establishment of CSCL's "centrality to education for the future" (Stahl, 2015, p. 339). After over 30 years of development, CSCL "reached its adolescence" (Wise & Schwarz, 2017, p. 424) but has not become a mature research field because the CSCL community has not agreed upon a theory or framework to guide the research in CSCL (Wise & Schwarz, 2017). CSCL scholars (Dillenbourg et al., 2009; Stahl, 2015; Wise & Schwarz, 2017) have discussed trends in CSCL research as the field has evolved. Among these trends, there is one prominent continuing thread of CSCL research, namely collaboration scripts, which are structured scaffolding strategies or mechanisms to engage students in productive interactions (Fischer et al., 2007). Research has shown that collaboration scripts can promote knowledge gain and acquisition of collaboration skills (Radkowitsch et al., 2020; Vogel et al., 2017). A possible explanation was that "collaboration scripts or prompts facilitated elaboration, elicitation, and knowledge externalization, and sustained in-depth discussion, which in turn promoted high-level thinking and knowledge acquisition" (Chen et al., 2018, p. 831).

As a relatively newly-established area, the CSCL community has endeavored to demonstrate the effectiveness of CSCL. Numerous studies have been devoted to this end, but results have not always been positive, perhaps due to all of the complexities of CSCL. In response, some scholars have conducted meta-analyses to examine the overall effectiveness of CSCL in different dimensions (Jeong et al., 2019; Radkowitsch et al., 2020; Sung et al., 2017; Vogel et al., 2017). For example, Chen et al. ( 2018) conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis, covering 356 peer-reviewed CSCL articles published between 2000 and 2016. They examined the effectiveness of three features of CSCL (collaboration, computer use, and supporting tools and strategies) on five types of learning outcomes: domain-specific knowledge, higher-order thinking skills, students' perceived satisfaction, group task performance, and social interaction. Their meta-analysis (Chen et al., 2018) showed an overall positive effect of CSCL on all types of learning outcomes. Group awareness tools stood out as the most valuable in all learning outcomes and collaboration scripts were frequently used as an instruction and guidance strategy. Despite the overall encouraging findings, Chen et al. ( 2018) warned that CSCL was not a "panacea" and that the design of CSCL environments should be aligned with learning objectives, learning needs, and learning activities. Careful design of CSCL environments is needed to support positive interactions (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995), for example, by scaffolding students to construct shared knowledge and by structuring collaborative learning activities (Dillenbourg et al., 2009).

Four Research Paradigms

In the past five decades, there has been a proliferation of research on collaborative learning and cooperative learning. Dillenbourg et al. ( 1996) outlined the evolution of research on collaborative learning, which was used as an umbrella term, and proposed three paradigms to categorize different research orientations: the "effect" paradigm, the "conditions" paradigm, and the "interaction paradigm." Each has roots from different theoretical perspectives of collaborative learning. Building upon their taxonomy, I introduce another term-the "design" paradigm to describe the design-based research in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) that has emerged in the last twenty years. Thus, together there are four paradigms of research on collaborative/cooperative learning. To follow suit with Dillenbourg et al. ( 1996), the term "collaborative learning" is used to cover both collaborative and cooperative learning in this section. Dillenbourg et al. ( 1996) cautioned that this classification does not mean one paradigm is better than the other because all research paradigms are needed. However, it is important to note that there is not a clear line distinguishing one paradigm from another, given their shared theoretical underpinnings.

The "Effect" Paradigm

This paradigm seeks to answer whether collaborative learning is more efficient than learning alone Dillenbourg et al. ( 1996). Researchers usually conduct experiments with control groups (working alone) and condition groups (working collaboratively) in the classrooms or laboratories to test their hypotheses. The dependent variables are usually individual learning outcomes, such as achievement, critical thinking, attitudes towards subject area, social support, self-esteem, and social skills (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 2009). While there are mixed results in this type of research, meta-analytic studies have demonstrated an overall positive effect of collaborative learning (Johnson et al., 2000; Slavin, 1980). However, Dillenbourg et al. ( 1996) argued that negative results or even results showing no differences should not be neglected entirely because "[s]ome negative effects are stable and well documented, for instance, the fact that low achievers progressively become passive when collaborating with high achievers" (p. 8). Furthermore, collaborative learning should not be treated as a "black box" because collaboration does not happen just by putting students into small groups (Dillenbourg et al., 1996. Collaborative learning per se does not enhance or inhibit learning achievement (Slavin, 1983). The better question to ask is perhaps what conditions make collaborative learning more efficient than working alone, which is the focus of the next paradigm.

The "Conditions" Paradigm

This research paradigm looks into the specific conditions that might promote collaborative learning. The research methods are similar to the first paradigm; however, researchers systematically investigate a wide range of variables, including group formation, type of tasks, communication medium, and collaboration contexts (Dillenbourg et al., 1996). For example, heterogeneous groups with varied expertise levels are generally more productive than homogeneous groups, but they have different effects on high- and low-achievers Dillenbourg et al. ( 1996). A meta-analysis by Slavin ( 1983) focused on incentive structure and task structure. Results showed that in K-12 settings, group rewards (instead of individual rewards) and individual accountability (achieved by task specialization and division of labor) are critical to improving students' achievement (Slavin, 1983). The "conditions" paradigm helps researchers and educators better understand the mechanism of collaborative learning compared to the first paradigm. Nonetheless, in natural classroom learning environments, the condition variables inevitably interact with other variables to impact the dependent variable, resulting in contradicting research findings (Dillenbourg et al., 2009). Some researchers explained the inconsistencies in terms of different researchers using different cooperative learning techniques, learning settings, experimental designs, learner attributes, and subject matter. However, interaction among these attributes was seldom considered (Webb, 1982). Effective collaborative learning comes from productive group interactions, and thus research should focus more on "the more microgenetic features of the interaction" (Dillenbourg et al., 1996, p. 12). Hence the third paradigm is the "interaction" paradigm.

The "Interaction" Paradigm

This paradigm divides research questions stemming from the "conditions" paradigm into two sub-questions: what conditions trigger what interactions and what effects do these interactions entail (Dillenbourg et al., 1996). The key to these questions is to identify "variables that describe the interactions and that can be empirically and theoretically related to the conditions of learning and to learning outcomes" (Dillenbourg et al., 1996, p. 12). Consequently, research becomes more process-oriented, and as a result, many researchers turn to qualitative methods such as discourse analysis and conversation analysis to identify moments of collaboration with the group as the unit of analysis (Stahl, 2006). The most studied interaction variables are explanation, argumentation or negotiation, and regulation (Dillenbourg et al., 2009). For example, Webb ( 1982) revealed that giving and receiving elaborate explanations (instead of simply the correct answers) were positively correlated with individual learning gains and that off-task and passive behaviors had a negative correlation with learning outcomes. On the other hand, many process-oriented studies in the "interaction" paradigm seem to answer only one of the two sub-questions (Dillenbourg et al., 1996). In other words, the relationship between conditions of learning and learning outcomes is not always made clear by researchers. One of the challenges of the interaction paradigm is the difficulty in data analysis and interpretation because there is a lack of theoretical frameworks to analyze interactions "due to the fact that the Piagetian and Vygotskian perspectives ... are simply too global to allow proper explanation" (Dillenbourg et al., 1996, p. 17).

The "Design" Paradigm

I offered "design" as a fourth paradigm to describe a unique strand of CSCL research that focuses on the design and development of "conditions in which effective group interactions are expected to occur (Dillenbourg et al., 2009, p. 6). It is easy to identify the three previous paradigms within CSCL literature (Chen et al., 2018; Radkowitsch et al., 2020). However, the CSCL community has a tradition of conducting design-based research (DBR). Researchers and practitioners collaborate to study educational phenomena in authentic educational contexts by testing and refining design principles through iterative design (Stahl & Hakkarainen, 2020). DBR is theory-driven and practice-oriented because it aims to bridge the gap between theory, research, and practice (Wang & Hannafin, 2005). A successful DBR project is the already mentioned Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE) (later known as Knowledge Forum) (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006, 2010). Through the iterative design efforts to innovate means to support collaborative construction of community knowledge, they refined the technology, pedagogy, and theory of "Knowledge Building" (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006, 2010). The Knowledge Forum project and related research demonstrate the huge potential of the "design" research paradigm in CSCL. However, DBR is not free of challenges. First and foremost, there is still a lack of agreement in the field of DBR in terms of its definition, terminologies, features, and procedures (Christensen & West, 2018). This inconsistency makes it a challenge to conceptualize and implement DBR (Christensen & West, 2018). DBR projects are usually situated in specific educational contexts and it might be difficult to expand the interventions to larger contexts (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012). On the other hand, some scholars caution that focusing on scalability and generalizability might sabotage "the designerly nature of DBR" (Svihla, 2014, p. 35). It seems to be challenging to strike a balance. On the practical level, multiple iterations of a DBR project might present challenges of time constraints (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012).

Conclusion

This paper provides a historical review of collaborative and cooperative learning, beginning with their definitions and characteristics. The practice of group-based learning can be traced back to ancient times (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, 2021). However, modern practices of collaborative learning and cooperative learning simultaneously and independently emerged in the 1960s, launched in the 1970s, and thrived in the 1980 and 1990 s as two separate methodologies. Not until the mid-1990s did the two camps start acknowledging each other's work and bridging their differences. In the context of instructional design and technology, the two seem to be less differentiated. CSCL emerged in 1989 and witnessed rapid advancement in the last two decades. The knowledge of the historical development of collaborative learning and cooperative learning can help us understand the similarities and differences between the two and help practitioners make informed decisions about which term most applies to a given learning situation and what pedagogical strategies are best to apply. Research on collaborative learning can be described within four paradigms: the "effects" paradigm, the "conditions" paradigm, the "interaction" paradigm (Dillenbourg et al., 1996), and the "design" paradigm. While all research paradigms are important and necessary (Dillenbourg et al., 1996), some researchers have called for more research on the "interaction" paradigm (Dillenbourg et al., 1996, 2009) and the "design" paradigm in the future (Stahl, 2015; Wise & Schwarz, 2017).

Declarations

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Footnotes

Publisher's Note
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A Historical Review of Collaborative Learning and Cooperative Learning

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Collaborative learning and cooperative learning are two separate approaches developed independently by two groups of scholars around the same period of time in the 1960 and 1970 s. Due to their different origins and intertwined paths of development, ...

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These design strategies can help support relationship-building and active learning in a team-teaching environment.

Harry Campbell / The iSpot

However, most schools trying team teaching models need to rethink how their school environment can support a fundamentally different approach to the one-teacher-one-class model that was the norm when most schools and classrooms were designed. "Design"-whether it is architecture, interiors, or instruction-is really about creating something with an intent. I'm guessing that most readers don't have the opportunity to design an entire new school (but some do!). Still, most teachers can make important choices about how we set up our classrooms.

In this context, designing a supportive environment for team teaching can make it more effective and magnify the benefits. Preparing an environment for team teaching serves as a daily reminder of the value of collaborative teaching to students and teachers alike.

Design for Collegial Relationships

Trust between the educators who are working together is an essential element of team teaching. Every teacher must establish their classroom culture. In team teaching models, this picture becomes more complex. The way that the adults interact with each other provides an important model that the students will immediately observe and learn from as well.

For example, how does one educator speak to the other if they have a question or don't understand? How do they react to each other when they make a mistake? How do they share the labor in the classroom: Does only one teacher do the "tedious" tasks like cleaning or organizing? Each of these social dynamics provides a model for students to see how peers can and should collaborate with one another.

Designing for trusting teaching dynamics means preparing your space for each teacher to assume different roles throughout each day. How can you prepare the environment to support this breadth of roles in a day?

Rethink "teacher space" as more communal, rather than private. Reduce the amount of exclusively "owned" space in the room. Make the teaching desk available to multiple users, or eliminate the teacher space in the classroom entirely.

Include areas in the room that emphasize each teacher's strengths. Decorate the room with each teacher's identity. For example, the room might display one teacher's artwork and the other's movie posters. You can also organize your space for each teacher's favorite teaching methods. If one teacher loves reading circles and the other loves STEM projects, show that both are important with their own spaces in the classroom.

Protect teacher peace and identity within a more collaborative framework. Team teaching emphasizes human connection but does not eliminate the need for rest, planning, or personal moments. Make a plan for where and how you can make a confidential phone call, get highly focused work time, or simply eat your lunch alone when you need 20 minutes of quiet. Your plan could include reorganizing a faculty office/lounge for more personal space or having access to another area for some privacy and ownership.

Design for Fluid, Active Teaching

Team teaching is most effective when your model helps teachers integrate other effective practices into their teaching. Those practices can include project-based instruction and supporting student autonomy. Team teaching makes it easier to design interdisciplinary projects because each teacher can become an expert on different elements. For example, one teacher may be the class technology expert, and another may be the mathematics expert. As different teachers offer different resources to students, it elevates their autonomy by giving even more choices for how to engage the adults throughout the project.

Designing your environment to emphasize active, autonomous learning means preparing for more student movement and the structured unpredictability of creative student projects. How can you help students find what they need when you don't always know what it will be in advance?

Hack your space for flexibility and agility. Flexible furniture is great for helping teachers and students move and reconfigure the environment throughout the day. Add tennis balls to the bottom of chairs and tables to make them easier to slide (or simply add casters).

Think creatively about other environmental elements: Remove doors from cabinets to let different groups see and use more materials, place markers by windows so students can use them as a writing surface, and orient some student seating near a teacher space to facilitate team members' ability to do small group support within larger activities. Whether those resources are digital (like tablets) or analog (like mobile marker boards), the goal should be that students or teachers can quickly get them and respond to spontaneous needs that arise in the learning process.

Organize your space with "movement" as the default. Move your desks and chairs into clusters, with varied spaces for circulation. The groups can be different sizes and shapes, because different teachers can and will be managing different activities in them. The differences between group compositions can extend to how you engage new work surfaces, like windows for a new writing surface, walls for pin-up space or a mounted screen, or counters for an additional work surface.

Smaller reconfigurations happen more often than you may realize, and even more often with multiple teachers working together. You never know when people will need to scoot a table to alternate between periods of high circulation and periods of more spread-out tabletop work.
Note: A thank-you to Stacy Roth for her ideas and expertise in developing this article.
Team teaching offers the potential to make teaching more collaborative and satisfying by connecting multiple adults in a shared classroom practice. These are some early design approaches to supporting team teaching, but it is still an area of active research!

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Designing Your Classroom for Collaborative Teaching

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These design strategies can help support relationship building and active learning in a team teaching environment.

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Corporate Social Responsibility and Shared Value

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Corporate Social Responsibility and Shared Value

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What is the Difference Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Shared Value?

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Understanding the Shared Responsibility Model in Cloud Computing

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Understanding the Shared Responsibility Model in Cloud Computing

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Understanding the Shared Responsibility Model in Cloud Computing (AI generated)

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How to Invoke the Principle of Reciprocity

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How to Invoke the Principle of Reciprocity

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How to Invoke the Principle of Reciprocity

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For better or worse, teams across an organization tend to develop their own internal cultures. While these cultures vary widely, every team should have one characteristic in common: accountability.

It's a hot topic filled with nuance and often met with resistance from managers and team members alike. But what exactly is accountability, and how can you build it within your team?

What Is Team Accountability?

Team accountability is a series of processes and standards that directly influence a team's ability to meet its obligations. For example, it might include:

Meeting deadlines

Completing projects successfully

Following up on communication

Providing deliverables as promised

When a team fosters a culture of accountability, it's better equipped to fulfill its role in the company, and the rest of the organization is able to operate more efficiently.

Why Is Accountability Important Within a Team?

Team accountability is important because it is a driving factor in team success. To note, you can build a team of exceptionally talented individuals who all have a strong sense of personal accountability, but if you don't encourage a culture of accountability on the team level, the full potential of the team is never reached.

What Happens When a Team Lacks Accountability?

A team that lacks accountability struggles in many ways. First of all, the team may suffer from a high turnover rate. When talented individuals notice that the rest of the team isn't pulling its weight, they grow frustrated and quickly search for opportunities elsewhere.

A lack of accountability also translates to a lack of trust, both within the team and without. Team members may feel pressured to overcompensate for their peers because they can't trust them to fulfill their duties, and other teams in the organization won't feel as though they can count on that team to deliver on its promises.

Even projects that are completed successfully are more laborious in a team with no cohesive sense of accountability. For example, it becomes much more difficult to verify the completion of tasks and deliverables, introducing avoidable roadblocks into the workflow.

Signs of Poor Accountability and How to Build It Within a Team

You may suspect that your team is struggling with accountability, but here are some common red flags:

People can't immediately identify who is responsible for a task

It takes too long to make decisions

There is consistent underperformance

Individuals stand out as taking on either too much work or too little

There is excessive "checking in" from stakeholders

You should also be wary of team in-fighting. Of course, this isn't always caused by accountability issues, but resentment does build when some team members perceive that others aren't meeting their responsibilities.

With that in mind, here are some ways to build accountability within your team.

Assign Accountability to a Single Person

While multiple people can be assigned tasks and work together to complete them, only one person should be accountable for each outcome. For example, one person is responsible for ensuring that sales reports are delivered to the managers on time for the quarterly sales meeting. However, multiple people may contribute the data that makes up those reports.

This prevents team members from dodging the responsibility of accountability since they otherwise might assume that "someone else was taking care of it."

Accountability Requires Empowerment

To contribute to team accountability, every member of the team must be empowered to:

Make decisions

Delegate tasks

Follow through with others

Gain knowledge and competencies

Whether this is made possible through training or resources, managers must ensure that their team is equipped to handle accountability.

Share Accountability Information

Team leaders need to do more than assign accountability. They must also share that information with the rest of the team. Without this communication, the people accountable for outcomes may run into roadblocks.

For example, if the person accountable for sales reports begins asking their peers to enter their numbers into the system, that might cause some friction. Team members may perceive this person as being bossy or intrusive. However, if the team is clear that this person is responsible for those reports, they are more likely to cooperate.

Set Clear Expectations

Unclear deadlines and expectations detract from team accountability. For this reason, it's important to communicate what you want done, who you expect to do it, and when they should finish it. It's fine to gather feedback to ensure that your expectations are reasonable, but they should ultimately be clear.

Formalize Things

If you want to earn team buy-in on your efforts to create more accountability, put things in writing. This helps create a sense of ownership and motivates people to ensure they achieve their outcomes.

For example, the person responsible for sales reports could receive the title of Sales Data Specialist. This way, they don't simply have extra work to do - they have a clear, formal role. That's something they can take ownership of and be proud of.

Follow Through and Maintain Standards

Even if a new accountability initiative seems successful at first, it's important to monitor its ongoing success, follow through with team members, and maintain high standards. This is especially important when accountability has been a clear issue in the past.

Things will inevitably get uncomfortable at some level, and that's okay. You may be dealing with people who simply aren't used to being held responsible for doing their jobs . But accountability is not an unreasonable stance. Keep in mind and make clear that your goal isn't to rule with an iron fist. Instead, you simply want to create a sense of urgency and self-ownership.

Accountability and Remote/Distributed Teams

Discussions about remote work invariably turn to the matter of accountability. After all, how can managers establish accountability without access to the same kind of supervision they had before?

It's easy to respond that good managers shouldn't need to share a physical space with their workers and oversee every minute detail to create a sense of accountability. This may be true, but some undeniable struggles are still unique to remote work. These tips will help you overcome those.

Encourage Habits that Build Accountability

You can allow the flexibility and autonomy that comes with remote work while also using your leadership position to encourage habits that increase accountability. Start by having team members create and share their weekly plans during a Monday morning check-in session. In addition to helping them focus their efforts and plan their days carefully, communicating their intention with the group increases accountability.

You can also have team planning sessions that focus on long-range goals. During these sessions, you can assign accountabilities, set deadlines, and create KPIs for each role.

Clarify How Work-from-Home Will Work

There are many ways to build a remote work culture centered on accountability. Some organizations can create a more casual structure with plenty of flexibility, but others need to be a bit more regimented. While there are good and bad ways to implement either approach, the easiest way to fail in both cases is to not set clear guidelines.

Here are some options to consider as you establish work-from-home policies:

Communication around absences and schedule changes

Regular meetings and check-ins

Mandatory availability times

Device policies

On-call rotations and compensation

Transparency is important, but so is empathy. After all, people who are working from home may face unique challenges. However, it's possible to foster accountability while also considering your team members' needs.

Use Technology to Facilitate Communication

Communication and accountability are tightly intertwined. As such, remote and distributed teams must depend on regular, synchronous, and real-time communication. This is necessary for team leaders to follow up on tasks and deadlines and for team members to communicate with one another about dependencies.

Identify modern tools that will work for your team, and ensure that everyone has access to them and thorough training.

The 5 Cs of Teamwork

If you want to build a team that values accountability, you also need to develop a strong sense of teamwork. Accountability only happens when team members work cooperatively and want each other to do well, so make sure you keep in mind the 5 Cs of teamwork:

1. Communication: Communication must be accurate, thorough, and timely

2. Contribution: Team members must be clear about roles and responsibilities

3. Commitment: Everyone must know and work toward team goals

4. Compromise: Managers must balance high expectations with empathy

5. Cooperation: The team must support each other and management

When team members want good outcomes for each other and value everyone's successes, it only fosters accountability.

Building Team Accountability in Organizational Design

The good news is that accountability can be facilitated by incorporating documents like Functionaly's accountability charts into organizational design.

Accountability maps provide an objective assignment of accountabilities and ensure that major functions can be carried out without significant debate over which person is responsible for particular outcomes. This gives teams more time to work on and successfully execute projects.

By taking advantage of resources that foster communication and transparency, teams can implement accountability right from the start, rather than retroactively trying to add it as an afterthought.

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Team Accountability Matters: Here's How To Improve It

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For better or worse, teams across an organization tend to develop their own internal cultures. While these cultures vary widely, every team should have one characteristic in common: accountability. It's a hot topic filled with nuance and often met with resistance from managers and team members alike.

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Ask any experienced leader, and they'll tell you that when individuals in a team come together, their collective talents, skills, and perspectives converge to produce remarkable results.

However, amidst the complexities of team collaboration, a critical factor that drives team performance and helps organizations achieve their goals is accountability. Yet, fostering a culture of accountability can be challenging, especially in teams with diverse personalities and working styles.

Thus, an effective strategy must consider the practical how-tos of building a culture of accountability within teams.

Let's explore proven strategies and uncover powerful tools to help your team take ownership, thrive together, and consistently exceed expectations.

What Is Team Accountability?

Team accountability is a shared commitment among team members to fulfill their responsibilities and contribute to the overall success of the team. It's about taking ownership of one's tasks, adhering to deadlines, and recognizing the impact of one's actions on the team's goals.

Team accountability is essential for organizational success. A team where members hold themselves and each other accountable for their actions thrives in several ways:

Enhanced productivity and efficiency: The entire team operates more smoothly when individuals take ownership of their tasks and deadlines. Clear expectations and communication minimize exhaustion and delays, leading to faster completion of projects and goals

Improved quality and innovation: Taking responsibility breeds ownership and fosters a commitment to excellence. Individuals are more likely to go the extra mile and propose innovative solutions when they feel accountable for the outcome

Stronger team culture and trust: Accountability built on open communication and support fosters trust and respect among team members. This, in turn, creates a collaborative environment in which individuals feel empowered to share ideas, learn from each other, and work towards the team's success

Client delight: Exceeding customer expectations and delivering client delight are essential for an organization's long-term success. An accountable team empowered with complete ownership will consistently strive to exceed client expectations and cultivate strong relationships. Consequently, delighted clients become loyal advocates, bringing repeat business and positive recommendations

A simple framework of accountability principles, the 5Cs, is built upon this foundation. These principles are critical components for building successful and high-performing teams.

The 5Cs to build team accountability are

Common purpose: Team accountability flourishes when everyone shares a common purpose. This purpose, the 'why' behind your efforts, unites team members and builds a sense of shared responsibility

Clear expectations: Each member needs to understand their specific roles, deadlines, and how their work contributes to the common goals

Communication and alignment: This is essential for ensuring everyone is on the same page. Open and consistent communication clarifies progress, roadblocks, and adjustments needed

Coaching and collaboration: Leaders and peers offer support, guidance, and opportunities for collaboration. This creates an environment where learning and growth are encouraged

Consequences and results: Acknowledging achievements and taking a constructive approach toward dealing with setbacks reinforces accountability and motivates continuous improvement

So, why exactly is building an accountable team so important?

Holding a team accountable creates a positive domino effect, impacting every performance aspect.

Let's delve deeper into the key benefits:

1. Performance and efficiency

Deadlines are met, the quality of work soars, the momentum propels team members forward, and everyone takes ownership of their tasks and strives for excellence. Accountability instills a sense of pride in individual contributions, leading to higher-quality deliverables and reduced rework.

Moreover, clear ownership and deadlines empower effective time management, eliminating ambiguity and ensuring everyone works towards shared objectives. Team members readily offer help and feedback, fostering quicker problem-solving and faster task completion.

2. Moving from communication to collaboration

An accountable team thrives on open and honest communication. When trust is established, team members feel empowered to share ideas and concerns without fear of blame. This transparency fosters trust, leading to closer collaboration.

Accountability fuels a culture of constructive feedback, where giving and receiving feedback is treated as a tool for individual and collective growth. Different perspectives are heard and addressed constructively, strengthening the team spirit and building stronger bonds.

3. High motivation levels

When individuals feel their work is valued and impactful, personal responsibility, intrinsic motivation, and engagement soar. This creates a positive work environment where job satisfaction flourishes.

Recognizing and rewarding accountable behavior further reinforces its importance, creating a positive feedback loop that boosts motivation even more.

Accountability also empowers individuals to take ownership of their professional development. They seek out learning opportunities and strive for self-improvement. The result is a skilled and adaptable workforce ready to take on any challenge.

Accountability doesn't just boost performance. It makes individuals proactive problem-solvers who identify and address potential issues before they snowball. This not only saves time and resources but also fosters continuous improvement.

And let's not forget the valuable lessons learned from mistakes. In a workplace that values a culture of accountability, every mistake is a learning opportunity, not a reason for reprimand. This open sharing allows everyone to learn and prevent similar errors from happening again without engaging in blaming and shaming.

A team where calculated risks and experimentation are encouraged eventually values innovation, and accountability plays a key role. It creates a safe space for trying new things and learning from failures, fostering a culture of out-of-the-box thinking. As a result, teams begin to explore a broader range of creative solutions.

Accountability also encourages critical thinking and analysis, ensuring decisions are made with potential consequences in mind. And because everyone shares ownership of the outcome, they are more invested in its success, which often requires innovative approaches to problem-solving.

Team Accountability and Productivity

Most organizations rely on strong teamwork to achieve their goals. But simply bringing talented individuals together doesn't guarantee success. The key ingredient that unlocks true collective potential is team accountability.

Team accountability is a powerful concept that goes beyond individual responsibility. It signifies a shared commitment within a group, where each member feels responsible not only for their own tasks but also for the collective success of the team.

It's a dynamic web of ownership, support, and trust that transforms teams through individual accountability.

Some critical pillars of team accountability are

Individual commitment: This is the foundational pillar. Each team member actively embraces their assigned tasks, understanding how their role contributes to the bigger picture. It's not just about completing tasks and meeting timelines; it's owning deadlines and expectations, ensuring high-quality work, and proactively identifying and solving problems

Continuous improvement: Team members constantly seek to learn and grow, pushing themselves to contribute more effectively. This translates to open communication, where they share progress, challenges, and concerns honestly, and proactively engage in discussions and decision-making

Shared responsibility: Team members hold each other accountable, providing constructive feedback and encouragement, celebrating successes, and learning from failures as a unit. They share goals and a vision, understanding and aligning with the team's purpose and collaborating to achieve them

Psychological safety: Team members feel safe taking calculated risks, openly sharing ideas, and admitting mistakes without fear of blame. This fosters a supportive environment where open communication and transparency thrive

But how exactly does accountability translate to improved productivity? The answer lies in its multifaceted impact on various aspects of team dynamics:

1. Reduced errors and rework: A proactive approach to problem-solving, characteristic of accountable teams, leads to fewer errors and rework. Individuals anticipate and address potential issues early on, saving time and resources. Open communication also allows for timely course correction, preventing small mistakes from turning into larger setbacks

2. Clarity and ownership: Clearly defined roles empower team members to independently solve problems, preventing delays and quality concerns that could impact your clients. This translates to faster project delivery, consistent quality, and ultimately, a more positive client experience

3. Motivation and engagement: Feeling valued ignites motivation, driving deeper involvement and meticulous attention to detail. Ownership thrives, transforming projects from mere tasks to personal commitments

For example, let's look at an accountable team going through a campaign launch. Each member owns their tasks, meets deadlines, and communicates roadblocks. This transparency allows for quick adjustments and course corrections. Shared goals unite the team, motivating them to surpass individual targets.

Consequently, the campaign launch exceeds client expectations, delivering positive client impact and delight. This elevates the company's reputation, customer base growth, and revenue.

Pro tip: The domino effect - Improving one aspect of team performance often triggers a chain reaction, positively impacting the others.

Leaders can improve team performance and achieve collective goals by skillfully balancing support and accountability. Here are some key actions you can take while leading your team:

Set clear expectations: Ensure each team member understands their individual and the team's collective objectives, along with the metrics for success

Communicate transparently: Share information freely, encourage questions, and build a safe space for constructive feedback

Delegate effectively: Assign tasks based on strengths and skill sets while providing appropriate autonomy and support

Recognize and reward achievement: Celebrate individual and team successes to reinforce positive behavior and motivate further contributions

Address poor performance constructively: Provide timely and direct feedback, offer support for improvement, and hold individuals accountable for performance that's below-par

Empower team members: Encourage ownership and decision-making to give individuals a sense of agency and responsibility

While clear expectations and high accountability are crucial, a truly effective leader understands that nurturing team accountability is as essential as driving results.

10 Exercises to Enhance Team Accountability

Accountability is crucial in cultivating a high-performing team built on trust and responsibility. You require a combination of strategies, tools, and exercises to improve accountability. Let's look at 10 strategies to foster and enhance team accountability.

1. Set clear goals

This exercise begins with a workshop dedicated to collective goal setting. Establish clear expectations with individual and team objectives aligned with your organization's vision.

Break down bigger goals into smaller SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals.

In software development, Scrum sprints follow this goal-oriented structure. Setting clear sprint goals increases team focus and transparency, encouraging individual and collective accountability. Regular sprint reviews offer evaluation and course correction opportunities, reinforcing the link between commitment and results.

By setting clear goals, you provide your team with a guide for individual actions and collective efforts. Ownership of these goals drives motivation and commitment, creating a positive work environment where team members hold themselves and each other accountable.

2. Build trust and belongingness

Host team-building activities focused on shared experiences and open communication. Games, volunteering, or even casual lunches can help you build personal relationships and synergy between members. Encourage collaboration and active listening for trust building. Examples of trust-building activities include 'Two Truths and a Lie' or 'Strengths & Weaknesses Sharing'.

When team members feel valued and supported, they're more likely to step up, admit mistakes, and offer constructive feedback. Trusting relationships within the team create a space for accountability without the fear of judgment.

3. Leadership and setting expectations

Leaders empower their teams by assigning clear responsibilities and delegating tasks, fostering a culture of accountability. As a leader, you must regularly engage in one-on-one conversations to provide feedback, guidance, and support. Demonstrate accountability in your actions and decision-making to lead by example.

Nurture future leaders through comprehensive development programs built upon a foundation of accountability within the team. This equips team members with the skills and confidence to hold themselves and each other responsible, unlocking their full potential.

Regular feedback creates growth opportunities and reinforces accountability as a two-way street.

4. Communication and collaboration

Implement fail-safe collaborative channels such as team meetings, project updates, and open forums to improve team communication. Encourage active listening, giving feedback, and open discussions about team struggles and solutions. You can foster collaboration through shared platforms, documents, and brainstorming sessions.

Open communication allows team members to stay informed, offer timely support, and hold each other accountable for progress. This encourages smooth conflict resolution between employees and shared ownership of successes and setbacks.

5. Progress tracking

Want to establish clear metrics and tracking systems for individuals and teams to monitor progress? Use visual dashboards, shared documents, or public progress reports to make achievements and roadblocks transparent.

Hold regular check-ins to celebrate successes, address challenges, and course-correct as needed. Regular tracking increases visibility and employee engagement.

Team members can see each other's contributions, fostering shared responsibility. Recognizing progress motivates individuals and reinforces the connection between effort and results.

6. Peer reviews

We often learn more from our peers than from our superiors. Peer reviews foster mutual accountability by allowing team members to provide positive feedback and support each other's growth

Design a structured peer review process aligned with performance objectives and team values to make the most of it. Utilize anonymous surveys or facilitated discussions on strengths, areas for improvement, and contributions to the team's goals. Encourage self-reflection and action plans based on the feedback received.

Implementing peer reviews reinforces team values, encourages open communication, and identifies areas for collective improvement.

7. Accountability agreements

Create accountability circles where team members check in with each other regularly, discuss progress, and offer support.

Personal accountability agreements empower individuals to take ownership of their performance and development. Sharing them creates a feeling of community and encourages team members to offer support and hold each other accountable.

8. Recognition and rewards

External validation can be a powerful tool to foster team accountability. When your team members demonstrate accountability, recognize and celebrate the same. Highlight instances where individuals took ownership, went above and beyond, or held themselves and others accountable. Public recognition or rewards based on team success can be used to incentivize desired behaviors.

Recognition reinforces positive behaviors and motivates continued dedication. It creates a culture of appreciation and encourages others to emulate positive actions, strengthening the team's overall performance.

9. Team challenges

Who said developing accountability couldn't be fun?

You could organize friendly team challenges focused on shared goals or skill development, like achieving a project milestone, learning a new technology, or improving a specific process. Challenges can be individual or team-based, fostering healthy competition, collaboration, and engagement.

Team challenges promote accountability by creating a shared objective and motivating individuals to contribute their best efforts. They encourage collaboration, build team spirit, and provide opportunities to celebrate collective achievements.

10. Retrospectives

Conduct regular team retrospectives to follow up on past projects, identify areas for improvement, and celebrate successes. Encourage open and honest discussions about what worked well, what could be improved, and how to strengthen team accountability. Define action items and owners to ensure progress and implementation.

All of the above exercises provide a valuable opportunity for team leaders to establish strong interpersonal bonds, which leads to higher trust and fosters collective ownership of team goals. By focusing on areas of shared responsibility, team members can hold themselves and each other more accountable, leading to increased effectiveness and better outcomes.

The Challenges in Upholding Team Accountability and Solutions

Building high-performing teams with true accountability in place is no easy feat. While the benefits are undeniable, the road to eliminating accountability issues can be riddled with obstacles.

However, understanding the common roadblocks and implementing effective strategies can create a culture of strong personal ownership. Here are some challenges you might encounter in the process and their remedies.

Fear of failure

Perfectionism leads to anxieties about consequences. This fear can paralyze action, leading to missed deadlines and underachievement due to the reluctance to confront potential shortcomings.

Conquer the fear of failure by

Embracing incremental wins: Celebrate small steps and milestones, shifting the focus from "perfect" outcomes to sustained progress

Reframing failure: View shortcomings as learning opportunities, not setbacks. Analyze mistakes, adjust your approach, and move forward with newfound knowledge

Seeking supportive feedback: Surround yourself with mentors or peers who encourage growth and provide constructive criticism, fostering a safe space for learning and vulnerability

Diffusion of responsibility

Familiar with the 'bystander effect'? It's when everyone assumes someone else will take the lead on an action item, and it's more common in teams than you think. The result? Accountability gets diffused, leaving tasks undone and progress stagnant.

To promote shared ownership in groups:

Clearly define roles and responsibilities: Ensure everyone understands their individual contribution to the overall goal. Designate single points of contact (SPOCs) to assign tasks and responsibilities clearly to the team. This helps prevent ambiguity and the bystander effect

Implement regular check-ins: Foster open communication through team meetings or progress reports. Encourage individuals to hold each other accountable for timely updates and shared responsibility

Competing interests

Conflicts of interest can be a major hurdle to team accountability. When individual interests clash with team goals, it can create situations where members prioritize personal gain over collective success. This erodes trust, impedes collaboration, and makes holding each other accountable challenging.

Align individual and team goals by

Establishing shared values and vision: Clearly define the team's overarching goals and values, ensuring individual objectives align with the collective mission

Promoting open communication: Encourage open discussions about potential conflicts and individual motivations. Find solutions that balance individual aspirations with team objectives

Implementing performance metrics: Align individual performance metrics that impact team goals, clearly linking individual contributions to collective success

Lack of visibility

In complex projects, it can be difficult to track the contributions of one team member and hold everyone accountable. This lack of visibility can lead to disengagement and a sense that individual actions don't matter.

Address lack of visibility by

Utilizing project management tools: Leverage project management platforms or communication channels to track individual contributions and make progress visible to everyone

Implementing recognition systems: Publicly acknowledge individual achievements and contributions, promoting a sense of connection and value for each member's role

Holding team meetings: Foster transparent communication through regular intra- and inter-team meetings. Provide progress updates, recognize individual contributions, and highlight the collective impact of all team members on the project.

Short-term focus

Long-term goals can feel intangible in the face of immediate demands. Prioritizing instant gratification over sustained progress can erode accountability, leading to compromised long-term outcomes.

To cultivate long-term focus, you must

Break down long-term goals: Divide overarching objectives into smaller, achievable milestones with clear deadlines. Celebrate each milestone to maintain momentum

Visualize the future: Create vision boards or tangible reminders of your long-term goals to keep them at the forefront of your mind

Seek external accountability: Dividing large teams into smaller 'pods' led by accountable pod leaders can be an effective strategy

Using Tools to Improve Team Accountability

While traditional methods still hold value, technology offers powerful tools to elevate accountability, especially in today's remote and hybrid work models.

Project management tools ensure project transparency and provide structure and support to track specific tasks and meet expectations.

With ClickUp Goals, you can create a shared space where all team members can see assigned goals, key results, and deadlines. This transparency encourages ownership, as everyone is aware of their individual and collective contributions.

You can also track work goals with clear timelines and measure numerical, monetary, true/false, and task-based targets. This quantitative approach provides a data-driven perspective for objective evaluation and informed decision-making.

ClickUp Goals provides a single platform for managing all team goals. The centralization eliminates the need for scattered spreadsheets or documents. Instead, the platform encourages a culture of honesty and accountability.

Additionally, features like progress roll-up and weekly scorecards offer visual representations of progress towards goals. This makes identifying roadblocks easier, celebrating achievements, and maintaining motivation.

ClickUp's Activity View provides updates on each team member's tasks, progress, and deadlines. This transparency eliminates ambiguity and helps build positive habits. Everyone is aware of their contributions and how they impact the bigger picture.

ClickUp's Views lets you visualize task flow with Kanban boards, track deadlines on calendar views, and manage resources with Gantt charts. Everyone stays informed, ownership is clear, and bottlenecks are easily identified.

Prioritization becomes effortless with ClickUp Views' collaborative features. Sort tasks, create cascading views, and leverage workload visualizations to ensure everyone knows what matters most. Real-time chat, collaborative docs, and a virtual whiteboard keep communication flowing and ideas moving forward at all times.

You can use ClickUp to streamline workflows, too. Convert forms into tasks at the touch of a button, link documents to tasks for shared responsibility, and edit data in bulk for efficiency. Reporting, analytics, and goal tracking further boost accountability by allowing you to measure progress and highlight areas for improvement.

Rise with ClickUp, Your Accountability Toolkit

Building team accountability is a journey of commitment and growth. Remember, the goal is to foster ownership, open communication, and mutual trust.

Incorporating the right tools into your accountability strategy can significantly amplify its effectiveness.

ClickUp is a project management software with a wide range of helpful tools for teams to stay organized, track deadlines, and ensure everyone is kept informed. These tools can also facilitate real-time communication, promoting collaboration among team members.

Go beyond just managing tasks and meeting deadlines and cultivate a culture of accountability to boost team productivity.

Try ClickUp today!

Common FAQs

1. What is accountability in teams?

Team accountability is a shared commitment among team members to achieve common goals, fulfill assigned roles and responsibilities, and be answerable for both their individual and collective actions and outcomes.

2. What are the 5 C's of team accountability?

The 5Cs are a simple framework of principles to build and promote accountability in teams. These principles are:

Common purpose

Clear expectations

Communication and alignment

Coaching and collaboration

Consequences and results

3. Why is accountability important in a group?

Accountability in groups leads to clearer goals, stronger trust, faster problem-solving, greater individual growth, better performance, and fairer contributions, resulting in a more successful and cohesive team.

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How to Improve Team Accountability: Strategies, Tools, & Exercises

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Build a culture of accountability in your team and achieve remarkable results with proven strategies, tools, & exercises.

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The Power of Team Accountability: Driving Innovation and Productivity

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Ironically, in today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, where collaboration and teamwork are highly valued, the concept of accountability often takes a backseat. However, research suggests that accountability within teams is not only crucial but also holds the key to driving innovation and productivity. This article aims to explore the power of team accountability in fostering… Read More »The Power of Team Accountability: Driving Innovation and Productivity

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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The idea for sharing this post came from a session I recently conducted at the annual teaching conference organized by my university. A pedagogical conundrum was raised by a colleague whose enthusiasm and question stayed with me and inspired me to write this post. The question posed by this colleague is relevant to all instructors who have ever used group work to assess their students: How should one deal with the issues that arise when members of a group are not picking up their share of the responsibilities during a group work project?

The benefits of group work are well recognized (e.g., http://goo.gl/N8kqhy), as are the reasons students don't like working in groups (Taylor, 2011). We have all had groups that operated magically, when group members brought out each other's strengths and helped each member shine; but we have also had groups that failed miserably when members did not get along or did not pull equal weight in completing a group project.

Although much has been written about group work and its benefits and challenges, as well as variables, features, or components that can contribute to positive learning outcomes (Tomcho, & Foels, 2012), issues of implementation seem to pop up every time instructors get together to talk about their teaching challenges. In this post I focus on the persistent challenge of imbalance when not all group members contribute equally. What follows are a few simple ideas you might wish to consider that have worked well for me during years of trial and error in my teaching, as well as insights from my research.

1. Design a group project in which the students work in phases.

For instance, starting with a project idea, then moving to project development, followed by preliminary project outcomes - and requiring students to "check-in" at each phase before delivering the final project. Not only does this help ensure that the groups won't wait until the final deadline is upon them to work on their project, but it also enables the instructor to touch base with every group and to offer guidance, support, or mediation, if needed, during the process.

2. Develop an element of the project that allows group members to make their own choices.

In my teaching, I usually give students the freedom to choose a topic area that interests them within the scope of the course or that is the most relevant or meaningful to the team members. This decision helps create a sense of ownership and enhances the students' level of engagement, both of which are crucial for working on large group projects, and especially for those requiring students to carry out the work in phases throughout the term (see, for example, Enghag & Niedder, 2007, on the theoretical basis for student ownership of learning).

3. Within a group project, include a component requiring individual students to submit non-onerous individual work.

For example, the project could include a personal reflection piece (e.g., e.g., Huang, 2011a), in which each member individually reflects on the process and product of his or her own portion of the group work. Apart from the pedagogical benefits of learners engaging in individual reflection (Pavlovich, Collins, & Jones, 2009), this task or component will inevitably provide insights about the division-of-labor issue commonly raised by instructors and students alike. Both learners and the instructor can glean a great many insights from those individual reflection pieces, which instructors can take into account when assigning either project or final grades, depending on their individual approach to assessment. This process also enables students to gain greater understanding about what worked well and what could be improved.

One important matter to keep in mind when implementing the reflection component is the need to ensure that we, as instructors, clarify what we mean by "reflection" in order to minimize a potential mismatch between our expectations about reflective learning and our students' understanding of what it entails. What we'd like our students to do is to engage in critical reflection - that is, thinking that involves different levels of reflection, rather than simply restating or describing what they did, or what I have called "non-transformative" reflection.

The goal is to encourage students to move beyond simply recalling what they did either individually or together within the group and instead to reflect on their personal discoveries about their own learning and the process of working collaboratively (i.e., understanding, analyzing, and evaluating the process and the product of their group efforts), and, importantly, to "verbalize" what they would do differently the next time around (i.e., pointing to the future).

This component is an example of what is called "writing/speaking to learn" (Manchón, 2011). For this task, it's important that students not be required to follow any formatting or style guidelines. The reflection should be an informal piece of writing, much like a diary entry, and can be in any modality (e.g., writing, audio recording, video clip) that suits the characteristics or preferences of individual students to allow for their individual expression. For some additional simple guidelines about implementing learner reflection, refer to Huang (2011b).

4. Devote a segment (30 minutes or so) during class before all group projects begin to implement two important steps.

Step 1: Get to know each other. The first 10 minutes can be a period for all students to find and meet with the group members they have either been assigned or have self-selected. They should then spend some time exploring each other's communication styles, which may arise from personal or culture-related differences (Lewis, 2006), to help them better anticipate different communication preferences and approaches to group work. This time can be spent sharing responses to guiding questions or statements, such as "I would describe my communication style/personality as ...," "I tend/prefer to deal with conflict by ...," and "I would appreciate my team members doing/not doing ...." (Huang, 2014). Guiding questions are especially helpful for groups that are culturally and linguistically diverse.

Step 2: Establish group norms. During the next 20 minutes, encourage each group to negotiate its own group norms (derived from Step 1) and ground rules. During this time, members of each team should elucidate, negotiate, and establish roles, responsibilities, and expectations. This process makes explicit the specific contributions and ownership of responsibilities that each team member negotiates and agrees to.

Below is a sample checklist that instructors can modify and use to facilitate this process and help prepare each group project to succeed (Huang, 2014). You can revise the items to suit a project or provide the list as an example for each group to use in creating its own list. The list can also be revisited during each check-point mentioned earlier and adjustments made as needed. Upon completion of the project, instructors can request the checklist(s) to be submitted (but not graded), along with other deliverables that are due.

5. Prepare students to expect the unexpected.

Rather than directing their every concern to you, students should be encouraged to become problem solvers not only by identifying problems, but also by developing solutions and choosing and evaluating the best ones so as to balance personal learning with the group's project goals. At the same time, you'll want to create and maintain a culture of openness that lets your students know you are readily available to provide guidance when groups reach an impasse.

In any group work situation, it is always possible that compatibility issues will arise between or among team members, as well as conflicts or problems with unequal distribution of work. The pre-group-project considerations described above, however, can easily be implemented to help minimize the likelihood that conflicts will develop that could negatively affect learning and outcomes. They may also help instructors and students in dealing with the specific common challenge of students who are not pulling their own weight in group collaborations, while maximizing the benefits of a group project not only in terms of content, but more, if not most, importantly, in learning how to work with others - a valuable life lesson that's best learned through experience.

References:
Enghag, M., & Niedderer, H. (2008). Two dimensions of student ownership of learning during small-group work in physics. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 6(4), 629-653.

Huang, L.-S. (2011a). Language learners as language researchers: The acquisition of English grammar through a corpus-aided discovery learning approach mediated by intra and interpersonal dialogues. In J. Newman, S. Rice, & H. Baayen (Eds.), Corpus-based studies in language documentation, use, and learning (pp. 91-122). Amsterdam: Rodopi Press.

Huang, L.-S. (2011b, Fall). Key concepts and theories in TESL: Learner reflection. TEAL News: The Association of B.C. Teachers of English as an Additional Language, pp. 9-13.

Huang, L.-S. (2014). Lessons learned from team-facilitation in ELT: Strategies for navigating the challenges and making it work. IATEFL ES(O)L Newsletter, pp. 13-17.

Lewis, R. D. (2006). When cultures collide: Leading across cultures (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Manchón, R. M. (Ed.). (2011). Learning-to-write and writing-to-learn in an additional language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Pavlovich, K., Collins, E., Jones, G. (2009). Developing students' skills in reflective practice: Design and assessment. Journal of Management Education, 33(1), 37-58.

Taylor, A. (2011). Top 10 reasons students dislike working in groups...and why I do it anyway. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 39(2), 219-220.

Tomcho, T. J., & Foels, R. (2012). Meta-analysis of group learning activities: Empirically based teaching recommendations. Teaching of Psychology, 39(3), 159-169.
Dr. Li-Shih Huang, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, Learning and Teaching Scholar-in-Residence, Learning and Teaching Centre, University of Victoria, BC, Canada.

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Students Riding on Coattails during Group Work? Five Simple Ideas to Try

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How should faculty deal with the issues that arise when some students ride on the coattails of others during a group work project?

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Ways to Support All Learners at School and Home 

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Ways to Support All Learners at School and Home 

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When it comes to supporting all students in an inclusive classroom, you can never have too many practical tips in your toolbox. Today's post, adapted from by Carolyn Hughes & Erik Carter, gives you 14 helpful suggestions for meeting the needs of all learners-during the school day and at home. Recommended by real teachers, these strategies will help you strengthen inclusive practices and help families provide the best supports for their children.

Teachers surveyed by authors Hughes & Carter recommended the following instructional strategies for supporting students in inclusive classrooms:

Apply proven strategies. Investigate what works by reading about the latest research-based strategies for inclusive classrooms. (We've got a whole bookstore category for that. ) If you haven't already, try strategies like constant and progressive time delay, most-to-least or least-to-most prompting, and other direct instruction strategies backed by strong evidence of effectiveness. Always match the strategies you choose with the individual needs and strengths of your students.

Rethink grading. For students who have extensive support needs, traditional grading systems probably won't be the best way to show what they can do. Consider alternative grading approaches that more meaningfully capture the progress students with disabilities are making toward their academic goals. (For guidance on grading, see this excellent post from Nicole Eredics of the Inclusive Class blog: "10 Tips for Grading Students with Disabilities in the Inclusive Classroom.")

Outside the classroom, kids should have plenty of chances to practice new skills across a variety of settings, tasks, and people. Parents, extended family members, and other adults can keep these teacher-recommended strategies in mind when supporting students at home and in the community.

Use your child's interests as teaching tools. Does your child have a special fascination? Weaving these preferences and interests into skill instruction can help promote learning and engagement. (For specific ideas on using a child's fascinations as powerful learning aids, see by Paula Kluth & Patrick Schwarz.)

As an educator or parent, which of these strategies resonates with you most? Do you have another key principle of inclusion that guides you every day? Share it with us in the comments below!

For more than 500 research-based, teacher-tested strategies that help students with disabilities make a smooth transition to adulthood, check outRead an excerpt, see the reviews, and view the full table of contents.

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14 Ways to Support All Learners at School and Home - Brookes Blog

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When it comes to supporting all students in an inclusive classroom, you can never have too many practical tips in your toolbox. Today's post, adapted from The New Transition Handbook by Carolyn Hughes & Erik Carter, gives you 14 helpful suggestions for meeting the needs of all learners-during the school day and at home.

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A Guide to Teaching Students to Work in Groups

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A Guide to Teaching Students to Work in Groups

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A Step-by-Step Guide to Teaching Students to Work in Groups

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A strategy for giving students explicit feedback on group interactions promotes participation and collaboration.