By Stephen M. Fiore
Many environmental, social, and public health problems require collaborative problem solving because they are too complex for an individual to work through alone. This requires a research and technical workforce that is better prepared for collaborative problem solving. How can this be supported by educational programs from kindergarten through college? How can we ensure that the next generation of researchers and engineers are able to effectively engage in team science?
Drawing from disciplines that study cognition, collaboration, and learning, colleagues and I (Graesser et al., 2018) make three key recommendations to improve research and education with a focus on instruction, opportunities to practice, and assessment. Across these is the need to attend to the core features of teamwork as identified in the broad research literature on groups and teams.
Systematic use of instructional strategies
First and foremost, researchers should collaborate with educators to make more systematic use of instructional strategies devised to teach components of collaboration. Research on groups and teams has produced methods that focus on team processes relevant to complex forms of work.
For example, knowledge building training emphasizes communicative processes that make explicit the structure of team member knowledge (eg., mental models), as well as assumptions and interpretations team members have about their knowledge. External representations make such knowledge explicit and concrete and build shared understanding.
Also relevant is training that draws attention to the team process following interactions. Team reflexivity training requires that members reflect on prior performance episodes by focusing on met or unmet objectives, strategies used to address task needs, and efficiency of collaborative interactions. Such training could be improved by further research both on effective interventions and on how students come to learn team processes that improve future interactions.
Opportunities for practice
Second, in addition to systematic implementation of instruction on team process, students need opportunities for practice. Collaboration in the classroom is common in science and engineering, and education level and nature of the content will dictate the team and task context.
For example, in introductory science classes, students may collaborate while learning about fundamental physics concepts, how they should be integrated, and applied, for particular problems. At these levels, knowledge is usually unevenly distributed across students such that they need to communicate what each knows as well as their interpretation of what needs to be applied. Teams need to discuss member contributions and evaluate their appropriateness while also using logical analyses to identify and evaluate solutions. In these stages of learning, basic interpersonal competencies associated with relationship management (eg., encourage participation) and communication (eg., listening to learn), are needed.
At more advanced levels, students address problems that require richer domain knowledge, as well as connection to more complicated scenarios. For example, upper level students might collaborate on complex socio-environmental problems such as overfishing wherein stakeholder factors necessitate consideration of species population dynamics and local economies. At these levels, collaboration requires sophisticated forms of perspective taking to consider alternative views of problem elements.
Considering the need to provide more structured practice opportunities, problem-based learning is a method tested in a variety of settings with meta-analytic support documenting effectiveness. Teams work on real-world problems, first discussing any lack of understanding and identifying gaps in knowledge. From this, they form explicit learning goals and collaborate to gather and integrate knowledge necessary to produce a solution. Research must thoroughly examine these in the classroom to understand how they can best provide the contextual grounding that fosters integration of collaboration skills.
Assessment to measure team work
Finally, more consistent assessments that measure teamwork to provide diagnostic feedback on collaboration are also necessary. To achieve this, there should be a more systematic integration of methods on team training with the educational programs devised for learning to work in teams. This includes consideration of self-ratings of soft skills as well as peer-ratings that assess categories of team involvement like contribution to the team’s work and keeping the team on track. Also needed are assessments of interpersonal competencies such as conflict resolution (eg., reactions to conflict) and assertive communication (eg., addressing differences without intimidation).
Critical to this assessment is ensuring students receive feedback regularly, can compare it to self-assessments, and have opportunities to calibrate it in future collaborations. Research must explore how to incentivize collaborative problem solving skills and integrate grades on collaboration into overall student assessment.
Concluding questions
Do you have successful experiences of teaching and assessing team work to share? What are the key concepts that you teach? Which pedagogical strategies have you found helpful? What questions must the burgeoning “Science of Team Science” pursue to ensure effectiveness in collaborative problem solving?
To find out more:
Graesser, A. C., Fiore, S. M., Greiff, S., Andrews-Todd, J., Foltz, P. W. and Hesse, F. W. (2018). Advancing the science of collaborative problem solving. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19, 2: 59-92. (Online): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1529100618808244
Biography: Stephen M. Fiore PhD is Director, Cognitive Sciences Laboratory, and Professor with the University of Central Florida’s Cognitive Sciences Program in the Department of Philosophy and Institute for Simulation and Training. He is Past-President of the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research, a founding committee member for the annual Science of Team Science Conference and founding board member for the International Network for the Science of Team Science. He maintains a multidisciplinary research interest that incorporates aspects of the cognitive, social, organizational, and computational sciences in the investigation of learning and performance in individuals and teams.
I really like this post. It is important to recognize that we can and should teach and practice teamwork skills (and, I would add, other interdisciplinary skills) at any educational level. Though there is much recognition in both K-12 and universities that we should be teaching skills rather than just stuff, there is less appreciation that it is both possible and desirable to teach skills such as these. The next generation of interdisciplinary team researchers could be much better prepared. And these skills are useful far beyond academic research. We might, for example, have a healthier democracy if we taught students to listen to learn, and appreciate the advantages of differing perspectives.