There are two primary reasons why you might employ group work or projects in your course. First, you might share Vygotsky’s social constructivist philosophy that argues that students most effectively master concepts and ideas when they explore a topic collaboratively. It is, in part, the navigation and negotiation of meaning that challenges students to truly understand the material. Second, you might want to provide students with opportunities to become effective collaborators, an important 21st century skill. It’s not difficult to see that nearly every career and academic pursuit requires at least some level of proficiency in “playing well” with others.
 
In either case, for group work to be meaningful, we have to design these experiences intentionally. In this era of high stakes testing, many college students have had limited experience in engaging regularly in collaborative learning experiences. These are skills that need to be taught and practiced for students to develop proficiency.

Insight into effective group work
Fortunately, research, strategies and insights on group work abound in the scholarship of teaching and learning. For example, a quick search of the Faculty Focus blog reveals 2,280 articles that reference group work on their blog alone. One can quickly find resources on specific models (e.g., POGIL), minimizing “coat-tailing,” assessing both individual and group contributions to a project, and options for forming student groups.  Maryellen Weimer offers an excellent synthesis of some of the most widely used models available. Many, if not all, of these models were developed in the higher education context. What can we learn from the corporate sector to improve the efficacy of group work in college classrooms?
 
Recently, Business Insider published an article outlining the 5 traits that the most successful teams have in common. These traits were derived from a two-year study of 200 Google employees representing 180 of the most successful teams from the massive global company. While these traits are similar to some of the common recommendations from higher education faculty and faculty developers, I think they also provide a fresh example of how we nurture group work in our courses.
 
5 traits of effective teams

1. They establish “psychological safety”
   This trait was identified as the most critical of all five traits. This is a term that Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson defines as "a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking." Essentially, students need to feel comfortable to express their ideas, raise questions, “think aloud” as they grapple with an idea – all without fear of being criticized or ridiculed by their teammates. In the college classroom, this begins by developing, nurturing, and holding students accountable for a culture that values others' input and encourages constructive conversation. In group work, these values can be reinforced through the collaborative development of “group charters” that govern expectations for group members.
2. They require dependability
   In truly collaborative projects, students’ work is interdependent. This means that group members have to be able to count on their teammates to do what they say they will do when they say they will do it. This can be achieved through group charters or a “bill of rights”; roles, responsibilities, and deadlines should be developed together and mutually agreed upon from the outset of the work. The degree to which individual team members are dependable and accountable to their teammates can (and should) be reflected in their grade.
3. They have structure and clarity
   The same processes that encourage dependability can also support structure and clarity for group work. Students must clearly understand specifically what they need to do and how it relates to and connects with others’ work. It can be very helpful for a group to appoint a leader or facilitator to help to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear and accounted for and who can help to establish a timeline of tasks and processes.
4. They give each of their members meaning
   The Google study suggests that “these roles, plans, and goals need to personally resonate with each of the employees.” This can be challenging in a course assignment or project, since the purpose, focus, and deliverables are often dictated from the outset by the instructor. When we step back and think about that, it’s no wonder that some students aren’t fully engaged in the work, as they had little (if any) input on creating the vision. Might there be ways that we can provide our students and groups with some choice as they engage in a project?
5. They have a purpose
   According to Google, “Every team needs to ask itself, ‘Do we fundamentally believe that what we're doing matters?’” This goes back to the previous point about the students “buying in” to the work. I’d argue, though, that we also need to consider this as instructors. When we assign a group project, do we always have a clear vision and purpose? Does this vision and purpose require a collaborative effort, or is it more a case of efficiency on our part? The clearer our purpose is for a group project, the more likely students will feel that the work is valuable.

How do you approach these traits in your courses? What traits might you add to the list?
Please post your comments below. 

Having some downtime between semesters has given me a chance to poke my head above water and do a little planning for the new semester. One thing I try to do each year is to identify some promising technology tools and resources to explore. It helps me to stay on top of what is available to support teaching, learning, and research to do a deep dive into a select group of tools. Inspired by Bonni Stachowiak’s Someday/Maybe Technology List, I’ve decided to share what I’m focusing on this year.
 
Because of my training in educational technologies and instructional design, I tend to look at technology options with somewhat of a critical eye. I'm mindful that to really take advantage of the affordances of any technology, you really have to understand how it works, including its potential benefits and drawbacks. Like of all of us, I'm too busy to use a tool for the tool's sake. It has to provide me with some tangible benefits for me to invest my time and energy into it.
 
Selecting tools to explore
When I consider which tools I want to dive into, I try to make sure they either solve some problem for me or provide a relative advantage over other digital or non-digital tools that I already use. I also try to identify tools that have some history of development and updating. It can be really frustrating to invest time and energy into a tool only to find that the company has stopped development or folded altogether. I know this limits my exploration of the most cutting edge tools, but I think the time and energy saved by focusing on more proven tools is worth the trade off.
 
I also try to make sure they fit into my professional and digital life. Tools that might support my teaching need to fit into the kinds of pedagogies I typically employ. Again, while I may miss some interesting opportunities this way, I'm a firm believer that the tools should not drive instruction. I'm also primarily an Apple guy, so I prefer either Web-based tools or those that have native Mac OS software client. Aesthetics are also important to me. I've got to like how a tool looks and operates to integrate into my day-to-day routines.
 
So, what technology tools will I explore in the new year?
 
Tools for exploration in 2016
Occasionally in my teaching and more often in my presenting, I rely on slides for presentations. I'm always cognizant, though, of how this can lead to a passive and disengaged audience. So I'm always looking for new ways to make presentations more active. PowerPoint/Keynote alternatives like Prezi and eMaze can be engaging, but I'm looking for more intellectual than affective engagement. So this year, I'm going to try two new tools to integrate with my presentations. Nearpod (https://www.nearpod.com/) is an application that enables presenters to share their slides with their students/audience via a client application that works on any digital device. In this way, the participants can see the slides, makes notes, and annotate them on their own device during the presentation. The presenter has the opportunity to control what and how information/questions are presented on the client applications. This works well for encouraging note taking, question-and-answer activities, and formative assessment of understanding.
 
Poll Everywhere (https://www.polleverywhere.com/) is another tool that works well for encouraging interactivity and formative assessment during class or conference presentations. The presenter can use the tool by itself or integrated with presentation software to ask a variety of different types of questions. You can then access a real-time report of the results to use to guide the presentation/discussion or assess students’ understanding throughout a class session.
 
When I attend conference presentations these days, I like to share what I’m learning via Twitter (I’m @markhofer). By incorporating conference and/or presenter hashtags in my tweets, I’ve made some really helpful connections. What I’ve never mastered, however, is how to integrate Twitter as I’m presenting. Backdraft (http://www.itap.purdue.edu/studio/backdraft/) looks like an interesting tool to help me change this. Using Backdraft, a presenter can pre-create some tweets to send during the presentation. It has a really easy to use iPad interface that allows you to easily post the tweets while presenting.
 
I’ve always liked Evernote as a note taking tool. It has excellent capabilities for storing all kinds of digital media in notebooks. The search is really powerful as well. I’ve never liked either the desktop or Web apps, though. There’s just something about the look and feel that doesn’t work for me. I recently learned about Alternote (http://alternoteapp.com/), which essentially creates a new “skin” for your Evernote account. While I haven’t worked with it in depth yet, it looks like a great interface alternative and I’m looking forward to trying it out more fully.
 
Finally, I’ve been creating screencasts recently for a number of different classes and projects. In the past, I’ve used Office Mix, Camtasia, and more recently, Screenflow. This year I want to spend some time to learn about more of the features of my favorite app, Screenflow (http://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm). I know to this point I’ve only scratched the surface on what you can do with it, so I’m eager to learn more about how to create more professional and helpful screencasts.
 
What technology tools and resources would you like to explore this year?
Please post your comments below.