Teachers need to develop cooperative group projects that allow for individual assessment as well as team assessment. In addition, strong leaders need to emerge and be shaped by teachers. The business world has many suggestions for strong teamwork, and students who learn how to work in teams in school can be successful in the business world later in life.
Students Must Work Together to Succeed
The Edtech website explains that cooperative learning creates an “atmosphere of achievement” because each team member has to help the other team members learn, and each team member must learn the material individually as well. In addition, it promotes positive interdependence where the group must “sink or swim” together, and they must learn how to be successful by using their interpersonal skills.
Working Through Problems of Cooperative Learning
Some teachers who have tried cooperative learning complain that there are students who don’t do any work and “ride on the coat-tails of others." Because everyone receives the same grade, there are sometimes a few students who allow others to do all of the work.
The best way to avoid this problem is to hold each person in the team accountable with an individual assessment. In addition, the Edtech website recommends that teachers try the following: keep groups small to help with individual accountability, randomly call on students to explain the group’s work, keep a close eye on individual work during class time by recording work completed and give each group member a separate task.
Business World Tips Can Work in the Classroom
Building strong teams can be learned from the corporate world. The Learning Center website reports that in order to build a team that it takes Using Vision, Commitment and Trust.
Students must learn how to relate to others by first creating a vision. Wanting to reach a common goal can be a powerful vision. It also helps if the leader has a good sense of what the end product should look like. Teachers need to help shape leaders and to give them a good description of the end product with a basic outline to follow.
Getting all of the students in a group to commit is sometimes difficult. Some students are not motivated by grades. In the business world, the Learning Center suggests to establish an atmosphere of trust and within that atmosphere encourage inclusion.
Can teachers get teenagers to trust each other? It is helpful if the teacher assigns a leader for each group. The leader needs to first commit to the vision and be sincere. Also, the leader needs to get the group to figure out the unknowns of the project, the worst-case scenario of what can happen and how the group can succeed. Then they need to research what they don’t know and how to get to the goal.
Last, the leader needs inclusion, which is getting others to commit to the team by communicating the vision of the end product by making sure everyone is on the same page and sharing the risk and rewards. The best way to make this work is by leading with consensus where all members can live with a decision even if they don’t agree with it.
Teachers can learn a thing from the business world to make cooperative learning projects successful. Teamwork is important in school and in the work world. If students can learn how to work together while in school, they will have a leg up in the business world when they enter the workforce.
Kellie Hayden - She is a 19 year veteran teacher with a master's degree in education and NBCT, 2000. Kellie teaches 8th grade language arts, TAG and ...
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