“I’ll just do all the work myself.” Every educator has heard this frustrated declaration from students faced with group work. This sentiment reveals a more profound truth about collaborative learning: while group work promises to build essential skills like communication, problem-solving, and teamwork, the reality often falls short. Students aren’t born knowing how to collaborate effectively – yet we frequently throw them into group projects with minimal guidance and wonder why they struggle. This post explores practical strategies to help your students develop genuine collaborative skills while avoiding the common pitfalls that make group work so notorious.
Establish and support group work
Starting any group project can be challenging, both when students are unfamiliar with each other (is this space safe?) and when students know each other well (pre-existing issues and social hierarchies). To ease into group work, students will need support and scaffolding during Tuckman’s performing model’s forming and storming stages (Tuckman, 1965). This is the critical point in group work where students start figuring out how they’ll work together. Giving groups clear instructions and scaffolded tasks in a structured first meeting will go a long way towards establishing a safe space for groups to share ideas, discuss concepts and problem-solve together. Students will feel more supported since you’re there to answer questions and point them in the right direction
Walk them through the task
Give students a clear picture of what they’ll be doing. Pro tip: Record your explanation so students can replay it later if they need to refresh their memory.
Allocate students into groups
There are two main options here – let students pick their teams or arrange them yourself. Both approaches have their benefits and issues. If you have a smaller class and know the students, you can allocate the groups and mix up their different skills and perspectives. You can also mitigate certain risks by avoiding putting students together with known issues. If you’re less familiar with the students, you can let them pick their teams, and they may feel more invested in the project, particularly if they are selecting groups based on a project topic. If you like to gamble, have students randomly allocated to teams and see what beauty and chaos life can provide.
Give them in-class time to form
Give groups time and space to break the ice, brainstorm, and start planning their project. Offering this as an in-class activity provides a safer, more supported approach, and the following tasks can all be conducted in this initial meeting to help scaffold the experience.
Co-create a group contract
To foster a culture of respect and inclusion, have students co-develop a group contract that establishes rules and guidelines for communication and participation. A group contract is a document that a group creates to formalise the expectations of group members and outline how everyone will work together to complete the task. Co-creating the contract means everyone has a say in how the work should get done, and everyone is accountable for their actions. Rather than giving students a template, offer them a series of questions to discuss to form their own contract. Questions like:
- What quality does everyone expect from the final product? Are we aiming to achieve a high grade, manage a pass, or some middle ground?
- How often will we meet? Where will we meet? Will we have an organised meeting with an agenda? Who will run the meetings, and will this be a rotating role?
- How will we make decisions? How will we navigate disagreement? How will we ensure we hear all opinions?
- What will we do if a group member is not doing all their assigned tasks?
Break the task down into smaller parts
Group assessment tasks involve significantly more workload than individual tasks because the students share the load. Because of this, the task size can be overwhelming for some. Break the task down into different components or stages to help the students work through the task. This will allow the students to focus on one thing at a time, making the process less daunting. One strategy would be offering a low-stakes early assessment task, which can proactively identify and address issues, allowing for more certainty and productivity in the assessment process. Here are some suggestions for low-stakes early assessments:
Project plan
Have groups brainstorm and map out their projects together. Injecting feedback in the conception stage can help iron out any potential issues before the group has put too much work into a project. Keep it simple—just grade the plan as pass/fail so students focus on the feedback rather than the grade.
Project pitch
The pitch is similar to the written plan, but the audience is the whole class rather than just the educator, and they get to practice a different skill set. The Q&A, particularly when directed across the entire group, can highlight who has and hasn’t contributed and put those issues in the spotlight early on. Peer feedback from the audience can help strengthen the group’s understanding of their own project and identify critical issues in the project. As with the plan, keep it pass/fail to focus on feedback.
Individual check-in
Having each student write a quick reflection (either by itself or with one of the other tasks) is a great way to catch any problems with team dynamics or workload balance. It allows you to step in and help before minor issues become critical ones.
Incorporate self and peer assessment into the task
Group assessment tasks are predominantly marked with everyone sharing the same grade despite potential unequal contributions. Therefore, equity is a commonly cited issue for students. Findings from a study by Ion et al. (2023) indicate that incorporating elements of self and peer assessment into a group assessment task can improve students’ sense of fairness. Student perceptions indicated that they felt more active and engaged in the process and experienced greater equity. Self-assessment can be incorporated through critical self-reflection at key points in the assessment process, and peer assessment can involve group evaluation of individual contributions or peer review of tasks with feedback.
Showcase quality feedback
Students won’t be able to identify good feedback unless shown, so share some feedback that worked well for past groups. Focus on comments that point out exactly what worked and could be improved, helping them understand what they can do next with that feedback.
Use a questioning framework
The questions should match where groups are in their project journey. For example:
- What would you want to know more about if you were just hearing about this project?
- How well does their approach match the assignment requirements?
- Which parts of the presentation grabbed your attention most?
- Were there any points where you found your mind wandering?
- How well have they explained complex concepts to their audience?
Use a rubric
Create an easy-to-use rubric – not for grading, but for giving structured feedback. Take your usual grading rubric, simplify it to basic levels like ‘needs work,’ ‘progressing,’ and ‘achieving’, and leave plenty of room for written comments.
Group work doesn’t have to be a dreaded experience for students or teachers. By thoughtfully structuring the process, we can scaffold the student experience with more meaningful support. This level of support will increase the workload, at least for the initial cohort. However, it will go a long way in preventing major headaches for you and your students. Students will be able to collaborate more effectively and develop real-world team skills.
References
Ion, G., Díaz-Vicario, A., & Mercader, C. (2023). Making steps towards improved fairness in group work assessment: The role of students’ self- and peer-assessment. Active Learning in Higher Education, 14697874231154826. https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874231154826
Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384–399.