Top Benefits of Student Collaboration

The Powerful Benefits of Student Collaboration in the Classroom

In my sophomore year of college, I took a class about humanitarian work and how to create cross-sector collaborations (such as a private company partnering with a non-profit) to create the greatest change. Every few weeks our group would be assigned a sector and a social problem, and we would have to collaborate with another group.

Ask me what I learned from that class, why don’t you?

I’ll be honest: nothing.

It was way too easy for our groups to each pick a part of the worksheet, divide up the work, and get it done in a quick twenty-minute silent work session. While this offered some form of efficiency, there was little-to-no discussion and shockingly little collaboration for a class of that sort. Because of this, I didn’t really learn anything. Sure, I could tell you the benefits of being registered as an LLC, but I know little about how to actually apply that knowledge.

This is the opposite of what we’re looking for in education. Education is more than just memorizing vocabulary or completing a worksheet—it’s preparing and equipping students for the real world. Even in a post-pandemic world with numerous remote or hybrid jobs, we will all have to collaborate with others in some form. Knowing how to cooperate effectively is a trademark of strong leadership.

Through collaborative learning, students develop the essential skill of teamwork. Yale University reported on some of the benefits of teamwork, including appreciation for differing perspectives, enhanced learning, increased productivity, strong communication skills, and an expanded feeling of accomplishment. Instilling these competencies in our students early is critical: the earlier students learn to work together effectively, the more success they will see in the classroom and beyond in their professional lives. Teamwork allows students to achieve together what they were not capable of alone.

What is Student Collaboration?

Collaborative learning is an opportunity for students to work with and learn from their peers. An approach to collaborative learning includes putting students into small groups where they can problem solve, agree, disagree, and apply their critical thinking skills. Through this learning process, students will develop leadership skills, cooperate, and retain knowledge better.

Collaboration helps students learn essential skills like critical thinking, listening, and compromise. In an increasingly divided world, the ability to listen to and compassionately understand the perspective of another is crucial. That is one of the benefits of student collaboration: students are taught to hear one another out, and they also get to witness firsthand how others approach problem-solving. In a healthy collaborative environment, students will be challenged, disagreed with, change their minds, and come to conclusions together. Student collaboration can be done through small groups of two or more students, or even larger all-classroom projects.

Here are a few of our top tips to encourage student engagement and enhance collaboration:

1. Give them a common goal. Provide students with a clear objective or end goal so they can adequately measure their success.
2. Don’t stop teaching when they start collaborating. Pause the class and talk. Walk around and observe. Offer subtle guidance, but don’t sit on the sidelines.
3. Ask questions and push students to explain their thinking. Why are they doing what they’re doing? How do they know if that is the best solution to the problem? Asking these questions will inspire them to dig deeper and get more creative.
4. Check in with each team at least once. Seek out opportunities to encourage, correct, or help them grasp challenging concepts.
5. Take advantage of obvious opportunities to set expectations and coach kids toward proper behavior. Some students may “work in parallel”, or side-by-side in silence while not actually working together. Some students may bring their sibling energy to the classroom as they fight and argue. Either way, don’t be afraid to step in, reestablish the common goal, and teach students what is and isn’t appropriate teamwork behavior.

Now that we have some better ideas of how to implement this in the classroom, let’s dive into more benefits of student collaboration.

Enhancing Communication Skills

Working in small groups creates a healthy collaborative environment where students develop greater confidence. These groups expose students to people with different perspectives, backgrounds, and thinking styles. A small group environment creates the space for students to speak up and share ideas. Perhaps even more important, these small groups teach students how to listen for understanding. Student success will increase because they will learn how to advocate for their own learning through effective communication.

Being an effective communicator is necessary in almost all professions and stages of life: a healthy relationship is built on communication. A doctor needs to know how to tactfully deliver difficult news to a patient. A scientist must write legible reports on their discoveries. Police officers will have to communicate effectively to diffuse dangerous situations. No matter where you go or what profession you pursue, communication is required in some form. Teaching students how to communicate effectively is one more skill that can put them on top.

Fostering Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving

Collaboration forces students to explain their thinking, whether that is explaining to a teammate or a questioning teacher. As students explain their thinking, they will learn to view their ideas in a more critical way and dive deeper into solutions. This critical thinking will help students seek out group decision-making as they arrive at solutions together.

Consider different ways that you can encourage students to practice decision-making:

•     Invite students to analyze data and make conclusions about it
•     Role-play a debate or negotiation on subjects such as potential school rules or planning class events
•     Provide a complex, multi-layered problem and offer students a clear goal
•     Designate each group member as an expert in a particular field, then invite them to come together to discuss what they’ve learned and how it contributes to the issue

As students approach problem-solving together, they will discover new solutions they may not otherwise thought of. Perhaps one student thinks “A” is the best solution while another wants to pursue “B”. As students analyze and critically think about their own solutions, they can identify the best parts of each option and create an entirely new one with path “C.”

Developing Leadership Skills

Group settings are ideal opportunities for students to strengthen their leadership skills. Harvard Business Review identified numerous characteristics of effective leaders, including: authenticity, curiosity, adaptability, creativity, resilience, and empathy. All of these qualities are enhanced as students learn to collaborate. They must be authentic in their own ideas and opinions, yet adaptable to the solutions their team pursues. They must be curious about others and creative in how they apply their skills to the problem.

Give students the opportunity to lead their collaborative work. You can designate a team leader or even students who are responsible for leading various parts of a project. Point out students’ strengths and capabilities so they feel empowered  to speak up and lead their team.

Encouraging Diverse Perspectives and Creative Ideas

Another one of the benefits of student collaboration is that students will be exposed to new perspectives and ideas that they may not have otherwise experienced. Maybe one student is more analytical, another is more creative, and yet another is intuitive. Alone, each student is limited to the scope of their capabilities. Together, the students are exposed to new ways of thinking, problem-solving, and looking at the world. As students share their ideas and collaborate with one another, they will dig deeper into solutions and together arrive at new conclusions that they hadn’t considered before.

“The magic of collaboration is when students forget they’re even learning,” said Cameron Milien, former secondary teacher and Director of Academics at Mission.io. “I love it when students become so invested in the outcome of an activity that they lose track of time. Back when I was a teacher, I regularly had students work in groups on projects or team up to solve problems. It’s honestly all about how you frame activities as a teacher. While my colleagues gave out multiple choice worksheets or practice tests to help students review for a big test, I would design escape rooms, dim the lights, turn on dramatic music, and tell students, “You have 45 minutes to escape from this haunted house. I hope you remember what you learned about [fill in the blank]. Good luck.” Which activity do you think students enjoyed the most? Which activity do you think students remembered the most? And which activity do you think helped students learn the most? There’s no question. Collaboration and engagement make all the difference between an activity that puts students to sleep and an activity where deep and meaningful learning really happens.” 

Strengthening Social and Interpersonal Skills

Collaborative environments build student self-esteem and strengthen their social skills. A team task creates opportunities for students to disagree respectfully as they work together to find cooperative solutions. These differing ideas and approaches are perfect opportunities  for students to practice conflict resolution in a safe and low-stakes environment. These experiences will harness a collaborative classroom culture where students feel comfortable sharing their ideas and relying on their peers.

Boosting Student Engagement and Motivation

At Mission.io, we are all about student engagement and hands-on learning. Team-based and goal-oriented tasks give students the intrinsic and external motivation needed to get them involved. When students collaborate, they feel a greater sense of responsibility towards their peers and their ultimate goal, which motivates them to be more involved. This collaborative environment will also increase their enthusiasm, as students will be more invested in the overall success of the team.

Collaboration also increases student engagement by making learning feel more applicable and meaningful to their future lives. Through collaboration on projects, debates, or problem-solving, we give students a taste of what this looks like in the real world. For example, our missions help  students apply their investigative skills to figure out why an orchard of trees is dying. Another mission asks students to use their knowledge of food webs to help balance an ecosystem. Students can even test out their knowledge of environmental influences to figure out why animals are changing over time. If students can see how their skills in school apply to real-world situations, they will be more excited and motivated to participate in the learning process.

Corinna Motola, an elementary school teacher in Utah County, Utah, told us of the increased engagement she saw when students began participating in Mission.io missions, our collaborative and goal-based learning program: “It’s a great way to assess learning and have kids be engaged in the process. If they know a mission is coming up, they work harder to study the material and be prepared.”

Improving Academic Performance and Student Success

We recently completed  a case study on Alpine School District in Utah County, Utah. We examined their science proficiency scores in 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grade classes. In 2021, Riverview Elementary averaged 60.2% in their science proficiency scores. After using Mission.io and embarking on STEM and goal-based missions, Riverview saw their science proficiency scores rise to 80.1% in 2023, an increase of 19.9%. These improved test scores correlate with implementing more collaborative and team-based STEM work in the classroom. Working together helps students learn from and teach one another.

To encourage this deeper understanding, ask students why they are doing certain things. Ask them questions that force them to think more critically and look beyond the surface level. Ask them why they’re making certain decisions and how they came to their conclusions.

Building a Collaborative Learning Environment

Creating a safe space where students feel comfortable sharing ideas and collaborating is key.

In his 2008 book The Adaptive School, Robert Garmston (an Emeritus Professor of Educational Administration at California State University) identified 7 guidelines to give students to they get the most out of their collaboration. Discuss with your students how these guidelines can be implemented in your classroom as you dive into group work:

1. Pausing: Teach students to pause and think before responding to a teammate or asking a question.
2. Paraphrasing: Show students how to repeat back in their own words what their teammate said. This will improve listening skills and confirm understanding!
3. Posing Questions: Explain the value of questions that help students explore a topic and specify their thinking.
4. Putting Ideas on the Table: Encourage students to share any idea, big or small. This will help increase discussion and help teams determine the best solutions.
5. Providing Data: Help students to seek out and share data in a variety of forms. Counsel with them about how the data contributes to the overall goal.
6. Paying Attention to Self and Others: Emphasize the importance of what students say and how it is received by teammates. Encourage students to include others and invite everyone to participate.
7. Presuming Positive Intentions: Teach students to assume that teammates are all doing their best! Point them towards them common goal. Have students ask others to explain their thinking if they don’t understand

Implementing Collaborative Learning Activities

We know the benefits of collaborative learning, but where do we begin with actually applying it?

Bringing team-building activities and creating a collaborative environment begins with intentional and well-structured activities. Integrate group work through project-based assignments, peer teaching, and problem-solving challenges. For example, students can work in small teams to understand and present solutions to real-world challenges like global warming or recycling. For a STEM activity, they can use their knowledge of wind and water to create and compare solutions that prevent erosion. Try splitting up your students into teams who take positions on an issue and engage in a mock-debate. In order to make sure these activities are effective, make sure students are familiar with the guidelines above. Look for opportunities to celebrate students or correct behavior.

To find more examples of collaborative activities to try in your  K-8 classroom, check out our Mission Library here.

Conclusion

Collaboration is more than efficiency and completing group projects—-it’s a powerful tool that builds up the confidence, capabilities, and critical thinking of future leaders.

Through working together, students will be equipped to navigate differing opinions, address diverse perspectives, creatively solve problems, and develop leadership skills. All of these skills will give students the toolkit they need to be successful in the classroom and beyond.

When educators integrate collaborative activities into every day, whether group discussions, goal-oriented problem solving, or team-based projects, an environment develops where students are not just engaged but motivated. Through fostering a culture of collaboration, you will empower your students to be the next great innovative thinkers, strong communicators, and reliable leaders.

Take the dive into collaborative learning and give the next generation the skills they need to thrive.