Do you have or wish you had assignments that foster collaboration among your students? Interested in increasing engagement and deeper learning through collaboration? The American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) lists Collaborative Assignments as one of eleven High-Impact Practices. High-Impact Practices are teaching and learning practices that have been proven to facilitate engagement and retention for students from many backgrounds (NESSE, 2007; Kuh, 2008).
High-Impact Practices foster the following qualities of teaching and learning:
- Significant effort over time
- Meaningful interactions with peers and faculty
- Real world application
- Iterative feedback
When considering the context of your course and the collaborative nature of your assignments, which of these components comes naturally? Which need a little more development? To further apply these features to your course context, complete the following.
- Review these practical tips for high-impact collaborative assignments.
- Select an assignment to revise, or create a new assignment.
- If you already have an assignment: Use the information that you have learned throughout this web page to revise your assignment to incorporate the qualities listed above.
- What changes did you make?
- How do these changes ensure that the assignment is now a high-impact collaborative assignment? Specifically, how will this change the way students interact with the course material, their peers, and their instructor?
- What resources did you use to inform your revision?
- What other steps do you need to take to incorporate the assignment into your course?
- If you are creating a new assignment:
- How do you envision this assignment changing the way students interact with the course material, their peers, and their instructor?
- What resources did you use to inform your assignment?
- What still needs to be developed, changed, or created?
resources on elements of collaborative assignments
- A step by step guide on setting up groups in Canvas from the Canvas Community
- A guide to group contracts from University of Waterloo
