“Turn and talk to your partner… Make groups of three.” Phrases like these strike fear and anxiety into the hearts of many students. Contempt for certain peers and reluctance to collaborate often render attempts to bring students together ineffective. However, people tend to ignore the aspects of teamwork and partnership that lead to learning more and producing higher-quality work. We at The Tower believe that collaboration, in school and beyond, is necessary for developing interpersonal skills and improving the quality of work, despite possible discomfort.
Even though some, or even most, students may be hesitant to engage with people outside of their “circle,” there are a multitude of benefits to group work that teenagers today often fail to recognize. Our age group’s reluctance to expand our boundaries often ends up being the reason a lot of high schoolers feel more alone or disconnected outside of friend circles. Being open-minded to working with others and engaged throughout the process will increase comfortability in those settings and potentially even introduce you to new friends outside of your typical friend circle.
When it comes to schoolwork, combining the brain power of two people is much more effective, efficient and generates deeper nuance. Group work allows for the conglomeration of different perspectives and experiences, rather than relying purely on a single person’s knowledge and views. Approximately 67 percent of students strongly agree that working in group settings provides them with different perspectives, according to a study by Ashikullah et al. Not only is it helpful for maximizing brain power, but working with peers is also a method of saving time and money, according to the Institute for Collaborative Work. These are two of the various reasons why group work is encouraged in the workplace, which means students should also be prepared for these experiences beyond the educational setting.
Workplace and classroom comradery contributes greatly to the final products produced. When people get along and cooperate with each other comfortably rather than working independently, it shows in the end product. The study from Ashikullah also concluded that 61 percent of students strongly agree that collaboration helps communication and interpersonal skills. Practicing group work reduces the discomfort and eventually gets easier over time, alleviating the awkwardness and allowing for a better working environment even after completing group work.
Despite these benefits, many people take issue with collaboration, especially with people they are unfamiliar with. A study conducted by Ashikullah shows that 80 percent of students felt that they were able to focus better on their tasks by working individually. While this may be true for some students, working with someone else allows students to explore a different path to completing a task while growing interpersonal skills that are valuable well outside of the singular project they’re completing.
Due to the increasing amounts of online interactions, many people, especially high schoolers, may begin to shy away from real life interactions, relying on social media and messaging to get information about other people. Teachers promoting collaborative activities, including partner projects and group work, can help to ensure that students maintain effective social skills and build on them throughout their high school careers.
While teachers are responsible for providing the opportunities to students to collaborate in high school, it falls on the students to listen, participate and utilize these group settings in order to fully harness the benefits that they provide. If teachers set up and encourage social interactions like group work in their classrooms, and students allow themselves to engage in these activities and improve their collaboration skills, we as a society will begin to see great improvements in workplace efficiency, productivity and morale as students eventually bring those skills into their professional lives. Therefore, we at The Tower believe that promoting group projects and partnership at the high school level results in great benefits for society in the future.
