00:00 Introduction to Collaborative Problem Solving
02:08 Understanding Collaborative Problem Solving
03:19 Common Classroom Scenarios
04:08 Teaching Collaborative Skills Explicitly
07:29 Key Points for Effective Collaboration
11:19 Classroom Project Example
16:04 Steps for Collaborative Problem Solving
19:02 Addressing Group Work Challenges
28:27 Final Thoughts and Reflection
Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Empower Students Now podcast. I am Amanda Werner, your host, and today we are talking about collaborative problem solving. This is an episode that’s in a series of episodes about the skills that our students will need for their future no matter what the future has in store for us.
Speaker: And each of these episodes has slideshows, student facing slideshows that you can use today if you wanted, or tomorrow they’re ready to go. Um, to present to your, your class to start teaching these skills. If you want access to these slides. Go to the link in the show notes called Essential Skills Slideshows.
Speaker: You’ll sign up for my email list, which means we can be in contact more. Um, I don’t email a lot really. I don’t, sometimes I just [00:01:00] disappear. Um, but I do like to keep in contact with listeners of the podcast and. Send you freebies, send you updates, send you surveys about what you want to hear on the podcast, what kind of lessons you’re interested in in receiving, um, things like that.
Speaker: So definitely sign up. And access all of these slides that you can use. So the different topics we’ve covered so far are self-knowledge, self-advocacy, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, active listening. And today we’re talking about collaborative problem solving. And this episode does come with its own slideshow, student facing, ready to go.
Speaker: You could even give it to a sub if you wanted. I don’t recommend that ’cause this is such an important skill. Or maybe your sub covers a little bit of it and then you continue on, um, when you come back. But yeah, these slides could [00:02:00] be definitely useful, uh, for a sub as well. Um, okay, so let’s talk about collaborative.
Speaker: Problem solving, like what is it and how do we teach our students about it? Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast. A podcast about equity, neurodiversity, mindfulness, and student engagement. There’s a lot that needs to change in our education system. The good news is teachers have the power to make these changes now.
Speaker: So collaborative problem solving is the ability to work with others, to tackle problems, to tackle challenges that none of you alone could solve. It’s not group work. That’s different Group work and collaborative problem solving are not the same group. Work can mean like for students [00:03:00] dividing up a task and working in parallel.
Speaker: Like parallel play, right? Um, but parallel schoolwork, collaborative problem solving means genuinely. Thinking together, building on each other’s ideas and creating solutions that emerge from the collaboration itself. So let me like talk about a common, uh, scenario that happens in classrooms all over the world.
Speaker: A teacher assigns a group project and you, the teacher carefully constructs the groups to balance skills and personalities. You give really clear instructions about the project, and then you observe the different groups and one student takes over another disengages, a third just. It does the bare minimum, and then a fourth student just ends up doing all of the work and resenting the others in their group.
Speaker: Does this sound familiar? Um, this [00:04:00] happens and it’s really common, and I don’t want you to beat yourself up about it. It’s happened in my classroom over and over and over again. Okay. We’re equals here. Okay, so what’s happened is we often put students in groups without really teaching them, taking the time to actually teach how to collaborate.
Speaker: And it’s not your fault, right? We have so many things we need to teach, like our subject area. It’s hard to make time to teach these types of skills explicitly, and a lot of times. Teachers just assume students already know how to do this because they learned it in the grade prior, right? Like especially high school teachers, they just assume students should know this already.
Speaker: Well, guess what? They don’t. Because I’ve taught elementary, middle, and high school, and even in elementary, like when I turned. I taught third grade. I was guilty of this too. I would be like, well, the second grade teachers already taught this, or the first grader teachers already taught this. We’re always like handing off, you know, like [00:05:00] this responsibility to the teachers before us, but like, really, like how many classrooms actually teach these things explicitly?
Speaker: I don’t know of many, um, including my own. Uh, but these skills are becoming more and more and more vital. I know you know this. Um, okay. And they need to be taught explicitly, directly. So that’s why I’m giving you these slides. That’s why we’re talking about this today. I wanna make it easy for you to teach these essential skills.
Speaker: So what does real collaborative problem solving actually look like? I feel like even adults aren’t familiar with this. Um, so it requires. A problem that’s genuinely complex, so something that benefits from having multiple perspectives. If you’re assigning a task, like read these three articles in your group and summarize them, that’s not really a task.
Speaker: That’s needed, like that collaboration is [00:06:00] really needed because there’s no like problem. I mean, students might think there’s a problem that they have to read these articles and write summaries for them, but that’s not really a problem. It’s more of like an activity that they could get help from each other with, but it’s not.
Speaker: That’s not really something that a, like you could practice collaborative problem solving with. So the task is important. So a task like design a solution to reduce the food, race waste in our cafeteria, that’s something that actually requires people to think together and. Second, it requires interdependence, so each person needs to bring something unique to the table, and the solution needs to be better because everyone contributed to the problem or like solutions to the problem.
Speaker: So if one person could have done it alone just as well, it’s not real collaboration. And so thirdly, collaborative problem solving [00:07:00] requires a process. And this is what we often skip in classrooms ’cause we don’t have time. We tell students to work together, but we don’t teach them how. How does it. What does it mean to build on someone else’s idea?
Speaker: How do you disagree productively? What do you do when the group is stuck? Um, so let me share what I’ve learned about collaborative problem solving with you using, um, some key points. Okay? So key point number one is that. You have to teach active listening. Um, and that is the episode previous to this. If you wanna go back and listen to it and you should teach active listening before teaching, collaborative problem solving.
Speaker: And in that episode I talked about how it’s, it’s active listening is not waiting for your turn to talk, which is what we kind of, the pattern we all fall into. ’cause we’re all humans and humans are, you know. I [00:08:00] mean, rightfully so selfish, right? Because we wanna protect ourselves. Um, and so, uh, so we wanna be able to teach students how to get out of that pattern and how to like, truly listen to what someone’s saying rather than thinking about what you wanna say and think about like.
Speaker: Like someone else’s perspective. So there’s this phrase that’s, uh, you can teach students and the phrase is yes. And so yes, and thinking it actually comes from improv and drama games. I used to teach drama. And it’s there. This is actually a pretty fun drama game that you could teach, um, for collaborative problem solving.
Speaker: So, um, it’s a game where someone like says something and then the next person has to say yes and then add on to what the last person said. So. They build on it rather than like changing the subject entirely, [00:09:00] right? Yes. And that could work. And what if we also, so this doesn’t mean you can’t critique ideas.
Speaker: You absolutely should when you’re collaboratively problem solving, but it means you start from a place of addition rather than subtraction or just like, totally like changing the subject after someone shares an idea. Um, the second, uh, really important. Thing to to know is, um, that this needs to be made visible for students.
Speaker: So, um, in collaborative problem solving, it’s not enough to say, I think we should do whatever it is. X you need to say, I think we should do X because, and explain your thinking, share your reasoning so that others can build on it or challenge it or help you kind of refine the idea to make it even better.
Speaker: So you can use the protocol thinking aloud, which is verbalizing your thinking process as you work together. [00:10:00] And it is very awkward. Like when I taught workshop, I would do this a lot to model, uh, my writing, like what my process, my inner world when writing, when in the act of writing. And it is pretty awkward, but it does improve the quality of collaboration because everyone can kind of see how everyone else is.
Speaker: Thinking, and you don’t have to kind of guess. And then third is being able to manage disagreement productively. This is so important, um, and this is also why collaborative problem solving can be so powerful because you can use this process to manage disagreements, um, and in collaborative problem solving disagreement is.
Speaker: Good. It’s a good thing. It’s healthy, it’s healthy to challenge other people’s assumptions and offer alternative perspectives and push thinking forward. Um, and the key to this is disagreeing with the ideas, not people. So [00:11:00] you don’t think you’re wrong. It’s, I see that differently or it’s not, that won’t work.
Speaker: It’s. Maybe I’m worried about whatever, and then explain. So not disagreeing with the person themselves, but with the idea. So you’re kind of depersonalizing it, uh, when you disagree. So let me talk about a project I did with my students. Um, that really can crystallize all of this for you. Okay. So we were working on, uh, this was a time when, um, like flexible seating was really big, you know, and, and I don’t know if it’s big now still.
Speaker: I think flexible seating is very important, um, especially for neurodivergent kids and all kids really. Um, and so I was kind of redesigning my classroom space and I was, um. Writing donors choose grants to order different furniture and different things for our classroom space so that it wasn’t just like uncomfortable desks, you know, like lined up [00:12:00] in rows.
Speaker: I wanted to really kind of like, think out of the box in terms of like what my classroom setup was and, and so, and I wanted to get kids ideas and get them excited about all of this, and so I divided students into groups and gave them the problem. And the problem was I want, like, I don’t know what to do with the classroom space and I want your help.
Speaker: Like, um, I have donors choose grant money and I really wanna do this flexible seating stuff, but I just like, I’m not sure how to do this because you all are. You know, you all learn differently and I, I know I can’t please everyone, so there’s a problem here, like, what do I do? Um, and so I put them into groups and I said, what do you think we should do with our classroom space if we just like had all the money in the world or whatever?
Speaker: And, um, I. Immediately, like one group started arguing, right? And so like one student just like wanted to get rid of all the desks and get, and like get bing bags and just put them everywhere. And students could have like [00:13:00] clipboards, right on the bing bags. And they were really excited about their idea. But then another student was like, no, then I’m never gonna be able to, you know, like, I’m not gonna be able to.
Speaker: Like focus in a beanbag, right? And, and then, and, and they just wanted like traditional rows and they didn’t want all these beanbag. They were like, well, maybe we should just get one beanbag for you. And then a third student was like, how about we just sit on the floor and there’s no furniture at all?
Speaker: Wouldn’t that be cool? Um, and then Ms. Werner could spend all the money on fidget toys. So they were obviously not agreeing and they were arguing a lot with each other and like just really focused on like their idea and how it was the best. Does this sound familiar? Um, and so I, I said to them, I said, so like, what’s the problem?
Speaker: Remember, like, we’re trying to solve a problem here. What is it that you’re trying to solve? And you know, of course when you try and help students, they all kinda [00:14:00] look at you blankly. Like, what does she want me to say? You know, like, guess the teacher’s answer. And they started, you know, just talking about their ideas again, right?
Speaker: And so they’re running into this, these walls of like, I just want my idea to cut, go through, right? Um, so I did ask them to share like, okay, what, what is it? Um, I. That you think the problem is in the classroom? Like what’s the class, the problem we’re trying to solve here, you know, and like, um. What is the problem that beanbags would solve?
Speaker: What is the problem that Rose would solve? Right. That’s kind of what I was asking them. So the student who wanted beanbag really cared about comfort. The student who wanted Rose cared about focus. The student who wanted no furniture, just wanted like to be able to run around, right? So then they were able to kind of understand each other’s perspectives and listen to each other.
Speaker: And a lot of times, [00:15:00] sometimes, instead of just breaking kids up into groups. Just like sending them off to do the work, to solve the problem. Sometimes it helps to like have a fishbowl, um, kind of interaction first. Um, and so pulling this group into a fishbowl and having, having everyone observe the conversation, it’s a really great strategy.
Speaker: Um, and so I, I told them, I said, all of your ideas are awesome. They’re really, really great. And so why don’t we combine them? That’s what collaborative problem solving is. So we could have zones in our classroom, like a quiet focus area with rows of desks, a comfortable reading area with beanbags a, a space that’s totally open with nothing.
Speaker: Um, and so what emerged was a cool solution that included everyone’s ideas, right? Like this is. Collaborative problem solving. So, and, and that was sort of [00:16:00] the process, right? That I was teaching them. And this is what you can teach students. So here’s the process. The first step is you have to define the problem.
Speaker: You have to agree that there’s a problem. And the problem was like Ms. Werner doesn’t know what to do with her classroom space. She wants it to be more flexible, right. And she doesn’t know what to do. And we all have to agree that that’s the problem that we’re trying to solve. What’s the challenge? What are the constraints and like what might success look like?
Speaker: Right? Second, um, the second step in the process is to have students generate ideas. Without anyone judging them. Okay, so this is like a space for the most random, weird, outrageous ideas. They’re all welcome. And at this step, at this stage in the collaborative problem solving process, quantity matters more than quality.
Speaker: And so this is kind of the step that these students got stuck [00:17:00] on ’cause they were like. Really coming up with quality ideas that they thought was the best. Right? But you wanna come up with more ideas, right, than just the initial first idea and that no one is shooting other people’s ideas down. Um, and then third, you build on each other’s ideas.
Speaker: This is where the yes and comes in. Take ideas and, and keep and build them. Like what would this look like if we took all of our ideas and combine them? What about this idea and this idea, right? And like if you came up with a large list of ideas and everyone had like five ideas, and then you could pick and choose which ones do we think would work and solve the problem, right?
Speaker: This is where collaboration really happens. And then the fourth step is this is where you start to evaluate. The ideas shared and which of these ideas actually address the problem, which are, are feasible, which are like [00:18:00] reasonable, um, and which ones align with what we value. Right? And this can be for any problem, by the way.
Speaker: Okay. And then the fifth step in this process is to, um. To decide to make a decision on what’s the solution and commit to it. Even if the final decision isn’t everyone’s first choice. Everyone needs to understand how you got there and commit to making it work. And honestly, there is a sixth step and that is like, let’s.
Speaker: Reflect later, like after we’ve quote unquote solved the problem. Like you go back and revisit the problem and sort of reflect on like, did did we do it? Did we solve it? Was this a success? Was it not a success? Why? And how can we maybe, um, readjust the solutions or come up with different solutions, right?
Speaker: So that’s the process. [00:19:00] Um. So I do wanna address something when having kids work in groups and that’s that there are certain requirements in order for students to be able to work in groups successfully and like actually solve a problem successfully. And that’s just. Psychological safety and just the feeling that you can contribute without being dismissed or ridiculed.
Speaker: And this is not a automatic, um, especially in groups of, of like middle schoolers or teenagers who are really navigating like complex social hierarchies, right? And like cliques and things. Um. And honestly, like when I was a teacher, I quit teaching and I’m not in a classroom anymore. I think one of the hardest parts for me when working in like PLC groups.
Speaker: Or like my, um, department, like having, [00:20:00] um, team meetings right, with other teachers who are teaching the same subject areas as me is I did not feel psychologically safe. I, I did because I’m someone who’s really passionate and constantly reading about education and educational philosophy and constantly just.
Speaker: I generate a lot of idea. I have so many ideas. Um, and that intensity is not always welcome. And so I didn’t feel safe. Like I honestly, in most of the teams that I was a part of, I. Was pretty shut down. I, I was quiet. I didn’t say much. I just listened, which is, is really sad because I do think that there are a lot of teachers out there that have such wonderful things to say [00:21:00] and points of view to bring up, but they don’t feel safe.
Speaker: They don’t feel safe. They feel like they might, mostly my ideas were dismissed or not really. Like, people just kind of looked at me like, that’s not realistic, or, you know what I mean? Like it wasn’t really, or we just needed to stick to, you know, the plan that the team leader had come up with. Right. It, it was like, like that situation.
Speaker: So adults have just as many challenges. Collaboratively problem solving as kids. Do we all do? Um, and so here’s what I mean. Like, if you’re an administrator listening to this, you could be applying this info to teachers, right? So what’s really important is. Um, building in explicit like strategies that counter these challenges that happen in group dynamics.
Speaker: So having ex like setting [00:22:00] explicit norms, right? So everyone’s ideas get heard. We critique ideas, not people. We make decisions by consensus when possible. Right. And I know like a lot of staff meetings, like people will like have these norms and they’ll go over them and it’s just sort of like people just are kind of saying the things but not actually.
Speaker: Putting them into practice. So you not only need the norms, you have to put them into to practice, you have to like hold yourself and others accountable for them, right? If you’re the teacher in the room and you notice, uh, student is sort of off to the side and no, and they’re just being quiet and like just listening, and they’re not really contributing at all.
Speaker: You know, going up to that group and saying, Hey, I’m, I’m [00:23:00] wondering is everyone. Is every, has everyone shared at least one idea? And then maybe the group might say, well, this person hasn’t said anything yet. And you know, that’s putting that person on the spot. But we could, you know, like say, Hey, what do you think?
Speaker: And maybe they don’t have any ideas and they, they’re comfortable just listening in that moment and they, you know, and so just, you don’t wanna put people on the spot because that makes them feel unsafe too. And I’m thinking about myself. If someone had said that to me, like during a team collaboration meeting, I feel like it would’ve felt really good.
Speaker: You know, like, what do you think, Amanda? Um, but I don’t feel like that happened very often because I think that, you know, like I said, I, I’m very intense and maybe said too much in another meeting. Right? And so people are like, I don’t wanna open up that up, that can of worms. Um. So there’s so many social dynamics that we could talk [00:24:00] about that happen.
Speaker: But just naming them, like even just like saying it out loud, like, this happens, this is normal. How can we navigate that? And it can even be a problem that kids discuss with each other, um, you know, that people’s ideas get shot down or that we don’t feel like we’re being heard by the group or, you know, I mean, these are problems that are solvable if we talk about them.
Speaker: Okay. So that’s a strategy to, um, approach challenges that can happen, like just teaching explicit norms, but also holding people accountable to them and naming, you know, when problems arise. Another strategy is to assign roles to students. Um, you know, and I think sometimes these roles can be, um.
Speaker: Challenging, you know, to assign, um, or for kids to take on. Um, but they could, you know, negotiate with [00:25:00] each other like who’s, you know, really good at writing, right? They could be the recorder. Um, and who likes writing? Who has nice handwriting, right? Or who’s really fast at typing? They’re the recorder. Um. Or maybe there’s no one in the group that’s fast at typing, so maybe they do a voice recording.
Speaker: I don’t know. Like, I’m just thinking in unique ways right now. Um, who could be the devil’s advocate? There’s a devil’s advocate role, right? Like the devil’s advocate is always trying to see the other side of the problem, like the other point of view. So that could be a person’s role in a group. Uh, the timekeeper, the facilitator to make sure everyone’s heard.
Speaker: There’s many different roles that students can play in a group that gives them sort of purpose in the group. Um, and then. Um, of course you want to build in the reflection after collaborative work. Like [00:26:00] ask students what worked well, what was challenging, what would you do differently next time? Um, all of these can help students improve, uh, and then intervene as needed.
Speaker: If a student is dominating a group or withdrawing in a group, try not to ignore it. Uh, pull the group aside and help them reset. Um, and here’s something I’ve noticed. The students who struggle most with collaboration are often the students who are used to being the smartest in the room. Or the most hardworking, they’ve succeeded by being individually brilliant, and now they’re being asked to subordinate their ideas to a group process.
Speaker: And that’s super uncomfortable for type A people, right? I, I’m one of them. Okay. So like working. In group settings is really hard for me because I wanna just do it all. Like, ’cause I think [00:27:00] I am gonna do it better than anyone else, right? And so really this is a problem that needs a solution, right? So this, this is another opportunity that you have with this student, this type A student to kind of shift their mindset, you know, and, and don’t make them feel bad about their type A.
Speaker: Personality. Tell them like, you have such good ideas. You are such a hard worker, right? You, you, you have the capacity to do everything for this group, right? You, you do like, and that’s amazing and that work ethic is gonna get you far in life, but. What I want you to grow the area I think you need to grow in is collaboration, is listening to others’ ideas and enhancing your own ideas.
Speaker: By incorporating their ideas, right? Because when you [00:28:00] collaborate with others, it pushes you to be even better. To, to reach, uh, places you wouldn’t have been able to reach yourself. It’s a whole mindset shift. And so instead of seeing collaboration and group work as a burden, students can start to realize like, oh wow.
Speaker: Yeah. Like I am better with others. Right? Um, and you really wanna help them realize that. Um, so here’s what you wanna take away today. Don’t assume that students know how to collaborate, teach it explicitly. Use my slideshow if you want. Give them protocols, sentence frames, and feedback on their collaboration skills, not just on the final products they produce in groups.
Speaker: Second, design tasks that actually require collaboration. If students can complete it just as well individually, it’s not a collaboration task. So find problems that are genuinely enhanced by multiple [00:29:00] perspectives. Third, assess the collaboration separately from the content. Students should get feedback and they should self-reflect on how they work together.
Speaker: What went well, what didn’t, well go well, and this sends the message that this whole process matters, right? And. Just being patient and realizing that good collaboration is pretty messy. There’s conflict. Um, it can be inefficient. It can feel like you’re wasting time and all of that is okay. Messiness is part of learning and tell your students that, and this really matters a lot.
Speaker: And this is like why, the reason it matters is because students. In their lives, in their personal lives, in, in the careers that they end up in, they are going to be expected to collaborate. And there’s so many issues that are complex [00:30:00] and hard and there are problems that we still don’t have solutions for, and we need our kids to be able to.
Speaker: Do this work. Climate change, techno technological ethics, like ai, like all of these things, public health, these are problems that individuals cannot solve alone. They require diverse perspectives and working together. But more than that, collaborative problem solving is how we build community. It’s how we bridge divides.
Speaker: It’s how we create solutions that actually work for everyone, not just the people with the loudest voices. When we teach students to collaborate effectively, we’re not just preparing them for group projects. We’re teaching them how to be citizens in a real democracy, how to be colleagues in a workplace, how to be neighbors in a community.
Speaker: We’re teaching them that they’re smarter together. They’re smarter together. I [00:31:00] really appreciate you listening and exploring this, this really important skill, and I really hope that this episode has helped you. Uh, and armed you with tools to teach the this skill, um, because it really is important and we’re gonna continue this series.
Speaker: I’m not sure what the next essential skill’s gonna be. Next. Maybe if you want, you could email me and tell me what you think. Um. Would be a good skill that students need for the future no matter what. You can go to Amanda right now.com and click contact and email me. Tell me what you think. Um, but until next time, I would like you to think about this reflection question.
Speaker: Think about the last time you collaborated with other adults on a challenging problem. Think about the last staff meeting you were in, or last team meeting you were in. What made it work well? What made it frustrating and what would it look like to teach these [00:32:00] lessons to your students? Even use these stories from your own adult life in your classroom.
Speaker: Students really respond to that. So that’s your reflection question for this week. Thank you so much for joining me, and as always, if you found this episode helpful, share it with someone you know. I really appreciate it. It helps the podcast grow. Thank you. [00:33:00] Bye.
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