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Stimulating Group Involvement

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Encouraging students to participate can be tricky when it comes to the kid who seems to actively avoid speaking up. I know I find it to be especially complicated when the student who never raises their hand has the most insightful, compelling ideas to share when I meet with them one-on-one. I had one student, Vanessa, who barely spoke at the beginning of the year, even though I knew she had a lot to share. I wanted to figure out how to get her to participate more. But putting a shy, introverted kid on the spot in class, begging them to participate, can be traumatic and most likely won't achieve the outcome you're looking for. So how can you get these students talking?
Further reading: Creating an Engaged and Positive Classroom Culture
Create a Safe Space

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being introverted. But it's important for kids to learn the skills they'll need to feel comfortable sharing. When encouraging students to participate, we need to make sure they feel safe contributing in class. We live in a culture that tends to reward extroversion, so it isn't easy to be more of an observer than a participant-both in and out of the classroom. Introverts watch your classroom dynamic and assess whether it's a safe place for them to express themselves. Are mistakes ridiculed? How are "wrong" answers handled? Do the same kids get your attention and praise regularly? The best way to get everyone to participate is to set up standards for all class participation that encourages everyone to try their best. Try including rules such as raising your hand when you have something to say and not calling out.
The Math is Simple: Just $6,380 a term for your teaching degree!
Start Small (Groups)

Small group discussions provide more opportunities for all students, not just the quiet ones, to participate. There is less competition between students, and the flow of the discussion can be more inclusive simply because there are fewer people involved. For more introverted students, this can feel far less intimidating because instead of speaking in front of 30 kids, they only need to face four. This will also make them more comfortable speaking up in front of the entire class later because they will have had the opportunity to work out their ideas with their small group beforehand.

This was one of the most effective strategies when I was encouraging Vanessa to get involved in class. I noticed that she was starting to feel more comfortable as I used this strategy, and not only was she benefiting from the positive feedback she received from her classmates, but they got to hear the gems of information and insight she shared.

Assign Conversation Partners

Who are the kids that more introverted kids feel comfortable around? Pair them up to discuss the subject or project at hand. Then have each pair share with the class. This way, your shyer students will know that they'll be asked to speak in front of the class, and they'll be able to prepare both intellectually (the material) and emotionally (the courage to share with the class).

Let Them Prepare

Building on the idea of a predictable event, try to avoid putting your shy kids on the spot. Ask the introverted student if they wouldn't mind sharing a specific thought or idea in class at a specific time in the future. This can be something to start a class discussion or a point to be made in the middle of the lesson. They can prepare and be ready to go when you call on them.

I also use scheduled class presentations. Every week, two students in my fifth grade class present a current events article. They speak to the class about the article they chose, why they chose it, and their opinion. I give them the schedule in advance so each student can prepare, and I intentionally place the kids who may be more nervous in the middle or toward the end in terms of timing. I also pair them with another student who's comfortable presenting so they can rehearse beforehand. It all makes a difference.
Further reading: Do Introverts Have the Right Teacher Characteristics to Succeed?
By using a number of these techniques in my class, Vanessa became a regular participant by January. Come May, she was engaging even more freely. Was she a full-blown extrovert who called out every chance she got? No, but that wasn't the goal. What I wanted, and what I accomplished, was to help her recognize her own strengths as a member of the class and encourage her to share her thoughts. When it comes to encouraging students to participate, these techniques truly work. Give them a shot in your classroom.

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Encouraging Students to Participate: How to Help Shy Students Speak Up

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Encouraging students to participate can be tricky when it comes to the kid who seems to actively avoid speaking up. I know I find it to be especially complicated when the student who never raises their hand has the most insightful, compelling ideas to share when I meet with them one-on-one.

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Steps to ensure support is provided to all class members during an assignment:
1. Providing multiple opportunities for them to communicate questions to the teacher
2. Match the tasks to the students abilities and experience
3. Minimize group work that could be done solo and focus on activities that would thrive in a group setting

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Rebecca Johnson--When small-group work goes well, students "achieve higher grades, learn at a deeper level, retain information longer, are less likely to drop out of school, acquire greater communication and teamwork skills, and gain a better understanding of the environment in which they will be working as professionals." (Oakley, et al.) When small-group work doesn't go well, the experience can be incredibly frustrating for students and instructors. But what can instructors do to help their students succeed? This teaching element is for instructors who hope to incorporate significant small-group work in their courses. This guide isn't necessary for those who implement informal groups that last only the length of a single class period.

Why am I assigning group work?

It seems straightforward enough, but make sure that your group project or other group activities align with course goals and student learning outcomes. If group work makes sense for your course, be clear with students about why you are assigning group work and how that work is important to the course. Help to personalize this work for students by explaining how it can help them learn and develop skills they'll need in their academic and professional lives. Kate M. Martin, in her blog post, "More than Get into Groups of Four: Understanding the 'Cognitive Whys' and the 'Social Hows' of Group Work," shares questions that she asks herself before assigning a small group project.

What do I think students will get out of group learning that they cannot achieve by working individually?

What kinds of group interaction skills and knowledge will be necessary for graduates when they enter the job market? Do they know this?

What do students need to reflect on regarding their own abilities and experiences with group learning? And how do we help them act on this reflection?

What do students need to know about others' previous experiences and attitudes about working in groups? And how do we help them act on this information?

How can I structure early group interactions to set a tone that ensures balanced participation and establishes the importance of everyone having a voice once the actual work begins?

As you consider the answers to these questions, consider groups that you've been part of. Which groups were successful and why? If you've been part of an unproductive group, what characterized that experience? How could you help students to avoid those pitfalls?

Considerations for Online Groups

If you're considering assigning group work in an online course, even more rigorously address these questions. Carefully think through whether a group project makes sense for your online course, or whether interaction among students might best be encouraged through some other means, such as discussion. If you do choose to assign a group online project, make sure to consider how you will step students through the tasks and what tools (whether checklists or forms or tools in MyCourses) you will employ to facilitate their work.

How should I structure the learning task?

Assigning group work is a balancing act. How do you provide the necessary structure for the task and for the student groups, but still allow students to take charge of this learning experience? Consider these suggestions, drawn from research by Barkley, et al., and by Michaelson and Black.

The task must be relevant to course goals and learning outcomes. Students must understand course concepts to complete the task. Otherwise, the project will seem like busywork and neither the instructor nor students will have any idea how well the concepts are understood.

The task must require the groups to produce a tangible output. Otherwise, neither the instructor nor the students will have any idea about whether or not students have developed the ability to use the concepts effectively.

Be sure to match the task to your students' skills and experience. The task cannot seem so easy that working with the group isn't necessary. Successful completion of the task should require student interdependence.

While the task should require interdependence, students should be held accountable for individual work. Consider how you can use individual assignments as a part of the larger group project. (See more about this in the sections on keeping group work on track and on grading group projects.)

The task, and perhaps some class time, should be structured so that groups spend the majority of their time engaged in the kinds of activities that groups do well (e.g., identifying problems, formulating strategies, processing information, making decisions) and a minimum of time engaged in activities that individuals could do more efficiently working alone (e.g., creating a polished written document). "In fact, the greater the length of required written documents, the less students are likely to learn from the assignment. (i.e., when groups are assigned to produce a lengthy document, the only thing that is likely to be done by the group is deciding how to carve up the project into manageable pieces -- the rest will be individual work.)" (Michaelson & Black, 1994)

Considerations for Online Groups

If you are working to structure the task for an online class, ensure that work for all stages of the project takes place in a centrally accessible location-the wiki, the MyCourses discussion board, etc. Also make sure that all communication in the group takes place in a way that can be recorded, such as in Zoom. These recordings provide accountability and can help group members track participation and more readily self-assess and perhaps diagnose and address problems with group dynamics. You can also use these recordings to more accurately assess individual participation.

For more information on tools that you can use with small groups in both online and face-to-face modes, see the following Teaching Elements available from Teaching and Learning Services: Web Conferencing, Online Discussions, and Wikis.

How should groups be formed?

Once you've determined why you will ask students to work in small groups and you've devised a task and structure that makes sense, how do you actually form the groups? If you plan to have student groups meet outside of class (or synchronously online), make student availability a primary criterion for group formation. (You may wish to use Doodle or some other tool to gauge availability.) Otherwise, research by Oakley et al. and others suggests heterogeneous groups formed by the instructor are most beneficial, particularly in the first two years of a curriculum. Possible considerations for ensuring heterogeneity could be gender, campus/commuter/international students, major, grade in the class. Also,

"Student assets should be evenly distributed among the groups. Instructors should ask themselves, 'What would make a difference in how students are likely to perform?' Student assets typically include such things as work experience, previous relevant course work, access to perspectives from other cultures, etc." (Michaelson & Black, 1994)

Consider the effect of group size on productivity and group dynamics. Research recommendations vary. Some recommend three, four, or five students in each group. Barkley, et al, in Collaborative Learning Techniques report that while Bean recommends groups of five (because four members split off into two pairs and three split into a pair and an outsider), another researcher, Smith, recommends that for longer term groups, having three members is ideal for ease of scheduling meetings and maximizing involvement.

Instructors should create the groups. Oakley, et al, found that while the students preferred to choose their own groups, students also admit that their worst group experiences were in those groups formed by students. Oakley and her colleagues also find that in their own classes, cheating is reduced in instructor-selected groups.

What should students do to prepare for group work?

When groups write down expectations, form policies, and draft formal process documents, they are more likely to be successful. Researchers at the University of Minnesota also found that unless instructors require students to submit these documents, students won't do this important administrative work. For more information on how to require students to complete these tasks, including links to sample documents, see Christina Petersen's blog post, "Helping Student Teams Perform Well."

You may also want to have groups discuss how to handle common group dynamic problems, such as "hitchhikers." Oakley, et al, found that when you required students to discuss group work case studies that dealt with students who are just along for the ride, groups tended to operate more smoothly. See also the sample group work policies and the questionnaires in Oakley. For even more information about challenges of group dynamics, see the Eberly Center's page Group Projects Aren't Working, and specifically Students Lack the Necessary Teamwork Skills. See also the Conflicts? page of the student teamwork website from the University of Minnesota.

Researchers consistently recommend that student groups be provided with a list of group roles. Avoid designating any one role as "Leader." As students draft group policies, they can assign roles. All roles should incorporate leadership responsibilities and all roles should contribute well-defined content to the group project. These roles can rotate, depending on the length of time that the group stays together. The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University has compiled a list of common small group roles including "Facilitator," "Recorder," "Reporter," and "Devil's Advocate." See their full group work webpage for more information.

How can I help keep group work on track?

Whether online or face-to-face, provide students doing group work with frequent opportunities to check understanding of a topic and get feedback from fellow group members and from the instructor. These frequent deadlines can also help keep group work on track.

After students have set expectations for how the group will work together, they should have an opportunity early on to self-assess their process and discuss how their expectations are being met. To facilitate this process, you may want to assign a brief project to allow groups to test out their policies and roles, and have them provide feedback to other group members. You may wish to use Qualtrics, or some other survey tool, to facilitate this exchange of feedback. If RIT faculty have questions about setting up surveys to facilitate feedback among group members, contact the help desk in Teaching and Learning Services. For more information on formative assessments and group work, see Christina Petersen's blog post, "Helping Student Teams Perform Well." See, too, her post on " Adjourning Activities: Wrapping Up Team-Based Projects."

How do I grade group work?

Before the semester begins, determine how you will assess group work. Will you assign a grade to a group's process apart from their product? How much weight will you give to individual contributions to the group project and how much weight to the group project overall? In calculating the total grade, how will you factor in the peer evaluations of group process and product? For suggestions on how to evaluate individual and group efforts, both the Oakley article and the Eberly Center group work website have suggestions, including forms and rubrics.

Where can I learn more?

Books

Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2005). Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Articles

Crutchfield, T. N. and Klamon, K., (2014). Assessing the dimension and outcomes of an effective teammate. Journal of Education for Business, 89 (6), 285-291. Maryellen Weimer writes about the Crutchfield article in her blog Faculty Focus. See more at: "What Do Students Want from Their Teammates?"

Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning Student Groups into Effective Teams. Journal of Student Centered Learning , 2 (1), 9-34.

Websites

Self-enroll in the RIT Online sample course in MyCourses (listed as SampleRITOC). Click on the Content tab, then scroll down to Group Activities in Learning Activities to find group work materials.

The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University has created an extensive resource for group work: http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/groupprojects/index.html

The University of Minnesota Center for Teaching and Learning has an excellent site in teamwork for students: http://teamwork.umn.edu See also TILT: Techniques in Learning and Teaching https://uminntilt.wordpress.com

The Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University has a wide range of helpful information related to teaching and learning: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/cooperative-learning/

References

Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2005). Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Eberly Center: Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation. (n.d.). Using Group Projects Effectively. Retrieved January 12, 2015, from Design and Teach a Course: https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/...

Martin, K. M. (2012, May 8). More Than "Get into Groups of Four" - Understanding "Cognitive Whys" and "Social Hows" of Group Work. Retrieved January 11, 2015, from TILT: Techniques in Learning and Teaching: http://uminntilt.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/more-than-get-into-groups-of-f...

Michaelson, L. K., & Black, R. H. (1994). Building Learning Teams: The Key to Harnessing the Power of Small Groups in Higher Education. Retrieved January 12, 2015, from UNC Charlotte The Center for Teaching and Learning: http://teaching.uncc.edu/learning-resources/articles-books/best-practice...

Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning Student Groups into Effective Teams. Journal of Student Centered Learning , 2 (1), 9-34.

Petersen, C. (2015, January 5). Helping Student Teams Perform Well. Retrieved January 11, 2015, from TILT: Techniques in Learning and Teaching: http://uminntilt.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/helping-student-teams-perform-...

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How Can I Help Students Succeed with Small-Group Work? | Teaching & Learning Services | RIT

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Rebecca Johnson--When small-group work goes well, students "achieve higher grades, learn at a deeper level, retain information longer, are less likely to drop out of school, acquire greater communication and teamwork skills, and gain a better understanding of the environment in which they will be working as professionals." (Oakley, et al.)

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Partnership

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Group Work Accountability:
1. Group contracts
2. Task management tools
3. Group accountability scoring tools

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Individualizing in Groups Methodology

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Tuckman's Stages Theory

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You can't just switch on teamwork. It takes time for a new team to "gel" and work to its full potential. What's more, team members go through stages as they move from strangers to co-workers.

Bruce Tuckman's Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing model describes these stages. When you understand Tuckman's model, you'll know how to help your new team to become effective - faster. Let's look at how.

Click here to view a transcript of this video.

Where Does Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing Come From?

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman came up with the memorable phrase "forming, storming, norming, and performing" in his 1965 paper, "Developmental Sequence in Small Groups." [1] It describes the path that teams follow on their way to high performance. Later, he added a fifth stage, "adjourning" (also known as "mourning") to mark the end of a team's journey.

What Happens at Tuckman's Forming Stage?

In the beginning, when a new team forms, individuals will be unsure of the team's purpose, how they fit in, and whether they'll work well with one another. They may be anxious, curious, or excited to get going. However they feel, they'll be looking to the team leader for direction.

This may take some time, as people get to know their new colleagues and one another's ways of working.

What Did Tuckman Mean by Storming?

In the storming stage, people start to push against the established boundaries. Conflict or friction can also arise between team members as their true characters - and their preferred ways of working - surface and clash with other people's.

At this stage team members may challenge your authority or management style, or even the team's mission. Left unchecked, this can lead to face-to-face confrontations or simmering online tensions.

If roles and responsibilities aren't yet clear, individuals might begin to feel overwhelmed by their workload or frustrated at a lack of progress.

How Do I Recognize the Norming Stage?

Gradually, the team moves into the norming stage. People start to resolve their differences, appreciate one another's strengths, and respect your authority as a leader.

Now that they know one another better, your team members will feel more comfortable asking for help and offering constructive feedback. They'll share a stronger commitment to the team's goals, and they should make good progress toward it.

What Does the Performing Stage Look Like?

Now your team is in flow and performing to its full potential. With hard work and structured processes, the team is likely to achieve its goals efficiently.

Judith Stein, from MIT's HR department, says of this stage, "Roles on the team may have become more fluid, with members taking on various roles and responsibilities as needed. Differences among members are appreciated and used to enhance the team's performance." [2]

What About Tuckman's Adjourning (or Mourning) Stage?

Many teams reach this stage naturally. For example, projects come to an end, or permanent teams are disbanded and people redeployed.

People who like routine, or who have developed close working relationships with colleagues, may find this time difficult.

Using the Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing Tool

Follow the steps below to ensure that you're doing the right thing at the right time:

1. Identify the stage that your team is at from the descriptions above.

2. Consider what you need to do to move on to the next stage.

3. Schedule regular reviews of where your team is at, and adjust your behavior and leadership approach accordingly.

Tuckman's model isn't a one-way street - teams may go back and forth between stages. When you hit the performing stage, keep observing your team's progress in case it slips back. For example, a new team member can disrupt the group dynamic, or a new business direction might mean you have to reevaluate your team roles and goals.

Leading Through the Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing Stages

Forming to Storming

To establish clear objectives for the group at this first stage, create a team charter. And help team members to set personal goals so that they can see how their work will fit with the bigger picture.

Storming to Norming

Storming can make or break a team, so it's essential that you establish processes to track the progress and success of tasks.

Norming to Performing

Use your regular one-on-ones to encourage individuals to step back, review their goals, and take responsibility for them.

Performing to Adjourning

When the team has settled into the performing stage, you can focus on other goals and new areas to benefit the business. Free up more time for yourself - and boost team engagement - by delegating tasks and projects.

You should also make time for the group's personal development. Discuss with your team what opportunities and resources are available to them, such as the Mind Tools toolkits.

Adjourning (or Mourning)

If any team members feel uncertain about what's ahead, boost their confidence and career prospects by praising them at company meetings. And offer to provide LinkedIn recommendations and references if they're moving on.

Key Points

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman described how teams move through stages known as forming, storming, norming, and performing, and adjourning (or mourning).

You can use Tuckman's model to help your team to perform better. First, identify the stage your team is at, then use our tips to move them through the stages.

Remember, teams can slip back a stage, too. Use Tuckman's model to continually review where you team is at - and make any necessary changes to get back on course.

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Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing: Tuckman's Model for Nurturing a Team to High Performance

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You can't just switch on teamwork. It takes time for a new team to "gel" and work to its full potential. What's more, team members go through stages as they move from strangers to co-workers. Bruce Tuckman's Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing model describes these stages.

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Partnership

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Stimulating Group Involvement

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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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Stimulating Group Involvement

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Ways to Arrange Students for Group Work - TeachHUB

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Students working in groups is one of the most effective and efficient teaching strategies for all classrooms. There is a multitude of benefits, and students engage in learning at a higher level. Students learn how to tackle more complex problems than they could on their own.

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Sharing Responsibility and Reciprocity

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Sharing Responsibility and Reciprocity

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Using Reciprocal Teaching to Engage 3rd Grade Readers

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Partnership

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Sharing Responsibility and Reciprocity

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Coordination Theory

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In his fifth post for the RSA Living Change Campaign, Matthew Taylor explores some of the implications of the framework he has outlined over the last month and asks why ideas like these aren't more widely known and used.

Over my last four blog posts, I have outlined key tenets of what I call coordination theory. This is a set of ideas drawing heavily on the work of the British anthropologist Mary Douglas and her followers, but with a marked similarity to several other ways of thinking about human motivation. In this post I will explore some of the most important implications of the theory before considering a question that has increasingly been nagging at me. Given, how often similar schemas of motivation and change recurs across a range of disciplines, is there not scope for a wider acceptance of these ideas as the basis for more multi-disciplinary and impactful social science?

My aim in writing this series of blog posts is that the ideas within them may empower anyone facing a group challenge - whether you are a team member trying resolve a problem, an organisational leader or strategist, a policy advisor or politician - to become more attuned to four types of human motivations. These types - based respectively on authority, values and belonging, individual aspiration and fatalism - are also the basis for thinking about and approaching change. Perhaps, most of all, they are ways people work together, which is why I call them 'forms of coordination'.

The first principle of 'coordination theory' theory is that it is useful to think in terms of these four motivational worldviews, which we can simplify as four injunctions; 'do what you're told', 'do what is right', ' do what you want' and 'it won't make any difference what you do'. The second principle is that the best way to get social things done is to combine the three active motivations, while acknowledging the inevitability, and sometimes accuracy, of fatalism. If organisations can align the power of authority, of values and belonging, and of individual aspiration, they are more likely to achieve their goals. Similarly (as I evidenced in the last post), if policy combines the technocratic skills of policymakers, feels legitimate and fair to the public and goes with the grain of individual motivation it is more likely to succeed. I call these situations or interventions - where the motivations and the methods that go with them are expressed and aligned - 'fully engaged'.

Good and bad traits

As I have said my ideas draw on the work of Mary Douglas but over the years, by applying the ideas to a range of concrete challenges, I have added some propositions of my own. One concerns the 'good' and 'bad' side of the forms. If we take individualism, we might make a common-sense distinction between its benign expressions in the form of autonomy, self-expression or creativity and its less popular manifestations in the form of acquisitiveness, self-obsession or mindless competition. But we are unlikely to agree precisely where the divide between healthy and unhealthy individualism lies. Coordination theory offers an answer. A force is benign when its expression is compatible with the positive expression of the other forms.

Here is an example. I have worked for a political party and run charities, so I have spent a lot of my life in cultures that are predominantly solidaristic. My experience in these organisations has shown that an emphasis on shared values, trust and fairness can potentially be combined with effective authority and an enlightened individualism of autonomy and personal fulfilment. In contrast, other solidaristic expression, such as resistance to change, suspicion of outgroups and rigid insistence on a particular idea of justice, are much less compatible. Similarly, while overbearing hierarchies crush creativity and can induce collective apathy, benign leadership draws on the energy of shared values and opens the space for individual autonomy and fulfilment. Fatalism too has a benign side of wisdom and realism and a malign one of pessimism and cynicism. Its strength is also a reflection of the difficulty in any context of achieving full engagement.

Experience has also taught me how difficult it is to achieve full engagement. Despite all the tools now available to leaders and policymakers, I often find myself in situations or addressing issues where change feels intractable. This begs a question. If full engagement works best - indeed it generally occurs without explicit intent or design - why is it not simply the way organisational and social matters arrange themselves?

One reason lies in the impulse within each form of coordination to become dominant as a worldview and method of change. Although most of us would recognise in principle that a healthy society requires some balance of authority, freedom, justice, belonging and realism, in practice much more energy goes into arguing for more of whatever quality we now feel to be lacking. Champions of individualism will tend to be on the lookout for ways to enhance personal freedom or to expand the role of market and consumer choice. Hierarchical attempts to exert greater control over organisations can often be self-reinforcing as the unintended response to one rule generates the need for another. A solidaristic concern with unfairness can often turn into the idealistic but futile pursuit of perfect justice. Accurate situational fatalism can become an all-encompassing and destructive pessimism.

Moreover, each form gains some of its power and legitimacy from critiquing the other forms. This is a recognisable characteristic of ideological arguments. In the 1960s and '70s the political case of the New Right was based less on the virtues of markets and unfettered capitalist accumulation and more on concerted critiques of governmental organisation, democratic choice and the very idea of social justice. Equally, on the left, the case for greater equality less often involves confronting the considerable practical challenges of egalitarianism and is more likely in terms of the failure and corruption of leaders and the inequities and selfishness of capitalism.

Immunity to change

There is another reason full engagement is unusual; although all forms are somewhere present in all situations, equilibriums can persist in which one is systematically under-valued and expressed. It saps dynamism and, ultimately, resilience but a lack of full engagement does not automatically provoke a crisis. Indeed, stability can be based on a systemic and culturally embedded rejection of certain forms of human motivation and organisation; a kind of immunity to change. A much greater proportion of human history and of our day-to-day lives has been spent in organisations and ways of life fixed in an un-dynamic equilibrium than in creative situations of full engagement.

In these situations - what I call 'deficit cultures' - where one form of active coordination is not strongly expressed, there are generally to be found reformers arguing for the under-expressed form to be amplified. But because the fuller expression of any form generates a reaction in the others, change can be tricky.

I came across one example of this when asked to give a talk to some high-ranking military officers. At first, I couldn't see how my political experience and ideas would be of much relevance to a group of highly-skilled, totally dedicated professionals used to risking their lives in dangerous situations. For all their strengths, the armed forces are classic deficit cultures; generally, very strong on hierarchical control and legitimacy, equally dependent on the solidaristic comradeship of teams of soldiers, but much less able to generate and deal with individualism. But the nature of modern conflict, particularly wars against extremist organisations often embedded in civilian communities, is changing. It is becoming more complex and unpredictable. This is inevitably requiring soldiers to show more judgement in responding to unpredictable events. But it is hard to expect the frontline to show more individual initiative without this impacting the deep cultural norms of the army. As one officer put it to me: "We have to get them ready to sometimes act without orders, or even ignore the ones they've been given. How can we do that without subverting the whole ethos of command?"

In both policymaking and leadership, I have often seen attempts to 'dial up' a weaker form of motivation, or the methods associated with it, generate unexpected and counterproductive responses. A well-known example was quoted by Stephen Levvit and Stephen Dubnar in their book Freakonomics. A nursery in Israel decided to disincentivise parents arriving late to pick up their children by fining them, but the net effect was more late parents. In essence, the hierarchical motivation of following instructions and the solidaristic one of putting the good of the school and teachers first was replaced by the individualistic opportunity to pay for the privilege of being late. On a much larger and more tragic scale, this failure to predict the systemic consequences of increasing individualistic methods helps to explain why the New Public Management strategy of commercialising public services has so completely failed to live up to the promises of its advocates.

Finally, even when hierarchical, solidaristic and individualistic motivations are combined and aligned, changes in context can quickly upset a hard-won equilibrium. For example, the case for stronger authority, collective obedience and personal self-sacrifice is generally increased when a group is perceived to be facing crisis. Which is why autocrats often summon up fears of the enemy at the gate. Conversely, our expectation of freedom and openness to risk-taking tend to increase after periods of stability and success, something that helps to explain the recurrence of boom and bust cycles in financial trading. We have seen how the Covid-19 pandemic has created an appetite and various outlets for stronger solidaristic feeling.

Another example can be seen in the way information technology has shaped organisational and political strategy in recent decades. In the era of the main frame, computers tended to buttress the power of the organisation's hierarchy, but as computing became personal, and with the rise of social media, technology became more empowering of individuals and informal networks. For several years, particularly around the Arab spring, it was believed that social media was fundamentally changing the dynamic of power rendering hierarchy powerless in the face of collective mobilisation and individual self-expression. Now we are seeing authoritarian regimes like Russia and China remodelling these technologies to serve authoritarian purposes.

Achieving full engagement

Achieving and sustaining full engagement involves continuous adaptation and a certain amount of luck. It is as much art as science. Management books tend to offer one best way of doing things and guarantee to bring success. In contrast, robust research studies on change highlight complexity, power dynamics and clashing interests. Coordination theory offers a middle path, suggesting that while fully engaged solutions are the most likely to work and to be sustained, this does not mean any solution will work always or forever. The impulses within each form and the continuously shifting sands of social reality mean success is fragile. When going on a new journey most of us would prefer detailed instructions to general guidance, but if the terrain is continuously changing then a compass is more useful than a map.

In future posts I hope to explore examples of monocultures where one form is very dominant (for example, totalitarianism as hierarchical monoculture, or investment banks before the credit crunch as individualistic monocultures), and 'deficit cultures' where one form is particularly weak (for example, that challenge of mobilising individualism in public services). But I want to conclude today by asking a question.

Over the last few weeks, I have described some of the many frameworks, from a range of disciplines, that recognise the existence of core human motivations and change methods clustering around three poles; first, hierarchy/authority, second, values/belonging/solidarity/connectedness and third, autonomy/individualism/competition. I have added fatalism to the mix and I have suggested that solutions and organisations are most effective when they express and align these drives. I have also described some of the dynamics involved in combinations and conflicts between them. My question is why these ideas keep being discovered afresh in new forms rather than being more widely acknowledged and applied.

Often, particularly at the conceptual level, different social science disciplines seem not even to recognise each other's account of people and society. Large swathes of the output of economics relies on an account of human nature and decision-making that almost any psychologist would be bound to consider profoundly inaccurate and reductive. Social psychologists tend to take society as a given and focus on how individuals can be more happy and productive, while the starting point for many sociologists (I say this as one myself) is the game of 'find the oppressor', assuming that society can only be understood as a system in which one group exerts its self-interested power over others. Meanwhile organisational theorists and policy thinkers too often fail to acknowledge complexity or apply wider insights into human nature or social dynamics.

Overall, as the American sociologist Andrew Abbott argued in his brilliant book Chaos of Disciplines, what the defenders of social science might want to portray as the unfolding of progress of understanding the world is, in fact, a much more cyclical, indeed - according to Abbott - fractal, process. Basic divides, for example between the qualitative and quantitative, or between theories that explore functionality and those which assume conflict, recur with every new generation of thinkers.

There is a consequence of social scientists agreeing about so little and spending so much energy replaying the same arguments. Increasingly people assume that the future will be the consequence not of human choices based on shared understanding and democratic engagement but of the unstoppable march of natural science and the technological innovations that flow from it. For example, in my own specialist area - the future of work - I have frequently to push back against predictions based solely or largely on technological change. Technological determinism is not only ethically vacuous, it is also inaccurate. From climate change to the future of cities, work and even health, our future will be as much if not more the consequence of the decisions we make as individuals and collectively as of technological capacity. Yet, partly because there is so little agreement about how society can and should change, technological predictions (even though they are often widely wrong) feel more concrete and reliable.

Social scientists will always disagree about matters big and small. The reflexive nature of individual and social change (that which is changing is aware of itself and able to adapt) means that theories about people in society will never have the reliability of predictions about the behaviour of non-human phenomena. Coordination theory itself recognised the inevitability of complexity and flux. But this is no reason to abandon the hope of multidisciplinary thinking or the development of common frameworks and action. Quite the reverse; in the face of technological determinism and social pessimism (in many developed countries, including the UK people think their children will have a harder life than their parents) it is important for social scientists to search for greater agreement.

Perhaps what I call coordination theory - or the many other theories that rely on similar core concepts - may not be the basis for such as coming together. But it has important advantages, including its multi-disciplinary reference points. It also has the advantage of combining confidence that problems can be solved, and progress made, with an acknowledgement of how fragile and contested change always is. Most of all, perhaps, there is the scope to connect individual human motivations with organisational processes, social forces and even political values. At a time when political discourse can feel inauthentic and distant from our day-to-day lives, these are ideas that can help us connect debates 'out there' about how to make the world and its institutions better with debates 'in here' about how to live our best lives.
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Coordination Theory: the basis for working together?

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In his fifth post for the RSA Living Change Campaign, Matthew Taylor explores some of the implications of the framework he has outlined over the last month and asks why ideas like these aren't more widely known and used. Over my last four blog posts, I have outlined key tenets of what I call coordination theory.