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Indrani Dey is a PhD student in Learning Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying under Dr. Sadhana Puntambekar. At iSAT, she works with Dr. Puntambekar to investigate how students’ verbal and nonverbal interactions during group work reflect their engagement and learning, and explore how these insights can guide the design of AI technologies for classrooms. 

Sadhana Puntambekar is the Sears-Bascom Professor in Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her expertise lies in scaffolding and Design-Based Research. She investigates how middle students learn science, through the design and use of interactive technologies.

Collaboration and collaborative learning are key  that increase classroom engagement, participation, and learning. But what does it actually mean for students to collaborate, and do so well? Does putting students in a group mean that they will work together effectively? The short answer is no. While some groups may have rich, engaging discussions, others often struggle. One or two students may be doing all the talking in a group while others stay silent; some just go along with their group’s decisions, or discussions may leave members dissatisfied. Does being silent indicate that a student is not participating? Does disagreement mean that the group is not collaborating well? These are common examples of group dynamics observed in real classrooms, which then leads to the question: What does effective collaboration look like, and how can we help students get better at it?

Collaboration and Learning: How Are They Related?

Learning is an inherently . When students collaborate on a joint activity or problem, multiple things may happen. Group members can share their ideas and hear other ideas that they may not have thought of on their own. They can ask each other questions to clarify their understanding. Explanations prompt students to reason through their thinking, which, in turn, helps them refine their own ideas and build a deeper understanding. Adding to or challenging the ideas of other peers can strengthen critical thinking skills. Refining ideas can deepen overall understanding and thereby improve learning. Collaboration can also nurture socio-emotional, self-regulatory, and communication skills—skills that are valuable not just in school but beyond the classroom as well.

Why Does Collaboration Break Down?

Effective collaboration demands a lot from students. They need to have rich discussions that move their thinking forward, consider multiple perspectives, and unify those perspectives in order to find common ground to reach shared goals. This requires a high cognitive demand that can be challenging to sustain over long periods. Students also need to stay engaged and regulate themselves and their group to stay on track and complete activities. Given all of these demands, collaboration can sometimes break down or may not be as effective for learning.

Researchers have developed different . For example, assigning roles to individuals in a group may help the group work proceed more smoothly; Think-Pair-Share encourages students to discuss ideas in pairs before sharing with the class; Jigsaw facilitates discussions by having each student first become an “expert” in a topic and then share their unique knowledge with their group to solve a problem. These strategies were designed to facilitate more structured discussions, encouraging all group members to engage and participate, and therefore collaborate. But even with this structure, students may still struggle. To better understand why collaboration can still be challenging, even with these embedded participatory structures, we need to examine student interactions during collaboration.

Verbal and Nonverbal Interactions During Collaboration

In both characteristics of effective collaboration and its support strategies, there is often an emphasis on verbal participation. Educational research on collaborative learning often emphasizes analyzing students’ verbal interactions to understand their collaboration and learning. However, nonverbal interactions also play a fundamental role. For example, imagine a student shares an idea but their group members ignore them by avoiding eye contact or otherwise indicating that they are not listening—the student might stop contributing. They may then work on their own or disengage from the task altogether through body language, for example, such as not working on the task, looking around but not focusing on the group activity, or leaning away.

Students may not feel comfortable speaking up for many reasons, including differences in personality, culture, or language. Does that mean they are not engaged in the work or are not learning from their peers? Not necessarily. Students show engagement by sharing attention on joint tasks with their group members, making eye contact or nodding, leaning in, or performing the task, even if they do not speak as much. But simply showing behavioral engagement does not indicate whether students are learning or not. 

How Can We Support Collaboration?

To support  collaborative learning, we need to provide support not only for what students say but also do. Observing students’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors to assess their engagement and learning before providing necessary support may help create an environment where all students can participate.

Pedagogical strategies such as assigning roles or jigsaw to scaffold students’ verbal participation and thinking need to be complemented by supporting students’ nonverbal engagement. For example, when assigning roles to students, teachers could have students rotate between roles (e.g., a leader/decision-making role versus a note-taker) that play to their strengths or help them develop areas where they may not be as confident. Similarly, using tools or technologies that allow students to share and build on ideas through digital formats may also help students think through their ideas before sharing with their group.

AI-based tools are an emerging method for supporting collaboration. These tools collect data and provide analytics, often through visual displays (e.g., teacher or student dashboards). At iSAT, our Community Builder or CoBi helps students improve their communication and self-regulation skills, while the Jigsaw Interactive Agent (JIA) supports students’ interactions and knowledge building during a jigsaw activity. Both contribute to helping students build collaboration skills.

By recognizing challenges students face during collaboration, and identifying areas where it may break down, we can better support students with strategies and tools they need to collaborate effectively and learn together.

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