HomeEducationHow to Set Up...

How to Set Up Collaborative Learning to Boost Intrinsic Motivation

Picture this: Your students are working on a group assignment where students compete against other groups in a classroom game, and the reward for success is a collective team prize. What do we usually see happen in this situation? This scene often ends with one or two students dominating the work in each group, completing most or all of the tasks, while others contribute little. The resulting conflicts within the team can erode motivation and lead to frustration and resentment, ultimately crushing students’ collaborative spirits, leaving some students disengaged and others feeling overwhelmed.

Participation equity is the foundation of collaborative learning; when students are working in groups, we want to ensure that all students have the opportunity to contribute and engage. Participation leads to a more diverse exchange of ideas where every voice is heard, and every contribution is valued. One way to this is through fostering intrinsic motivation.  

Start of newsletter promotion.

Troll-free commenting is here!

Our comments are always worth reading. Ask questions, add advice, and upvote useful ideas.

Start here

End of newsletter promotion.

Fostering intrinsic motivation 

Our goal as educators is to have classrooms full of hardworking students intrinsically motivated by collaboration and a love of learning and challenge. Positive feedback is the only reward that has been shown to facilitate intrinsic motivation instead of compromising it. 

What this can look like in the classroom: Emphasize effort over correctness during collaborative activities. Rather than rewarding groups solely for “leading the pack,” also reward them for critical thinking processes such as attention to detail, strategy implementation, communication skills, and use of contextualized language. When considering how to offer these process rewards, make sure that it acknowledges something any group or individual learner feels capable of replicating, so that students can more easily understand how their contributions are valued and assessed.

Thinking about rewards: Tangible rewards, ranging from dollar bills to marshmallows, undercut intrinsic motivation, even when offered to students as signals of competence. However, intrinsic motivation is not affected when a reward is unanticipated or not dependent on task performance. For example, if you consistently reward correct answers with stickers, students may focus more on the sticker than on engaging with the content. But if you give every learner a surprise sticker on Friday for demonstrating effort or participation throughout the week, they‘ll be more inclined to remain motivated by the joy of learning. Since they weren’t expecting the reward and it’s not tied to a specific performance, the sticker remains a pleasant, positive reinforcement rather than a controlling reward. 

3 Ways to Infuse Intrinsic Motivation into Collaborative Learning

Structured roles: Collaborative learning activities with structured roles promote intrinsic motivation by fostering a sense of ownership among students with clear expectations. When group roles are clearly defined, students embrace their responsibilities without the confusion or anxiety that comes with uncertainty. Collaboration with structured roles also promotes task interdependence, requiring learners to acknowledge the value of each other’s contributions.

In an effort to provide scaffolding for students who may struggle with certain aspects of the group’s tasks, I routinely assign roles such as notetaker, timekeeper, and speaker to ensure that no students feel left behind or overburdened. Rotating these roles also maintains active learning experiences, which can lead to extended time on task.

Reciprocal teaching is a comprehension and critical thinking strategy whereby student-led groups work together to parse a text. Reciprocal teaching utilizes structured roles to promote collaborative learning and establish deeper text connections through interactive coordinated discussions. I assign students rotating roles to navigate group discussions such as summarizer, questioner, clarifier, predictor, and sometimes facilitator, depending on group sizes. Reciprocal teaching not only empowers students to become more introspective about their learning, but also supports partnership-building among classmates, which can also increase intrinsic motivation. 

Reciprocal teaching

Unanticipated-incentive gamification: Before every summative assessment, I love playing collaborative review games to engage all students in reinforcing learning through discussion and shared responsibility. Unfortunately, a key aspect of many classroom games is extrinsic motivation, which can narrowly steer students to undertake participation either for tangible reward or to avoid fear-branding, either of which comes with minimal appreciation for the accumulation of skill or knowledge itself. 

My students’ favorite review game to play is called Stinky Feet, which utilizes a “numbered heads together” structure where learners collaborate in answering questions posed by the teacher. Stinky Feet is packed with intrinsic motivation due to its “mystery points” twist that keeps students working until the very end. Traditionally, the team with the most, or least, points at the end receives some sort of tangible group reward. I hear the game’s title was derived from a teacher allowing the winning team to take their shoes off for the rest of the day—not a suggestion, just an anecdote.

I adapt the reward structure so that every group stays in the game until its conclusion (i.e., run out of class time, questions, or point-value cards). Instead of students’ knowing beforehand the qualifications of winning the game, I randomly select two students at the end to either flip a coin or play rock-paper-scissors to determine if the “winning team” has the most or least points. When the outcome is kept ambiguous until the end, students enjoy the suspense without their intrinsic motivation being undermined, as the reward is now just an unexpected bonus. 

Relevance: Explicitly having students connect the relevance of a collaborative activity to their experiences and identities prioritizes effort over correctness, as it recognizes their participation and engagement more than their achieving the “right” answer. When students do not recognize the applicability of what they are doing in the classroom, their intrinsic motivation to learn may wane.

Similar to providing students with strategies for making connections to text (i.e., text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world), creating space for students to better understand and to make logical inferences about group tasks helps them to make direct connections with those tasks. I use a Collaborative Learning Task Connections handout to guide learners to make multiple connections to collaborative activities. Have students share their task connections with the rest of the class and discuss any difficulties they had in making the task connections. By framing discussions around students’ effort in making task connections, we reinforce that the process of learning and collaborating is just as important as—if not more important than—the final results.

It all comes down to motivation. While the research is pragmatic about the roles that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation play in the classroom, there’s consensus that inspiring students’ intrinsic motivation increases student effort and tolerance for persisting through challenging tasks, along with helping them develop a deeper understanding of concepts.

Cre: Carl Slater
Source: https://www.edutopia.org/article/intrinsic-motivation-collaborative-learning-school  

- A word from our sponsors -

spot_img

Most Popular

More from Author

All About Shelley Long’s Daughter Juliana Tyson Kissick

Actress Shelley Long, most well-known for her role as Diane Chambers...

Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story Coming to Hallmark

A new Holiday Touchdown movie is set to arrive on screens this...

Johnny Mathis, 89, Retiring from Performing Due to Age and ‘Accelerated’ Memory Issues

Johnny Mathis is retiring from live performing. On Wednesday, March 26, Mathis’ Facebook...

- A word from our sponsors -

spot_img

Read Now

Fans Praise Kelly Clarkson’s Makeup-Free Look: ‘Thank You for Being Normal’

In a sneak peek of the Thursday, March 27, episode of Kylie Kelce’s Not Gonna Lie podcast, the three-time Grammy winner, 42, appeared as a guest — seemingly without a drop of make-up. The Kelly Clarkson Show host went for a relaxed vibe, wearing a gray sweatshirt and...

All About Shelley Long’s Daughter Juliana Tyson Kissick

Actress Shelley Long, most well-known for her role as Diane Chambers in the TV sitcom Cheers, has one child: a daughter named Juliana Tyson Kissick. Juliana is the daughter of Shelley and Bruce Tyson, a securities broker. Shelley and Bruce got married in 1981 and had Juliana on March...

Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story Coming to Hallmark

A new Holiday Touchdown movie is set to arrive on screens this holiday. On Thursday, March 27, Hallmark Media, NFL and Skydance Sports announced their new original film, Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story, which will be premiering during Hallmark Channel’s 16th annual Countdown to Christmas. Following the release of Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs...

Johnny Mathis, 89, Retiring from Performing Due to Age and ‘Accelerated’ Memory Issues

Johnny Mathis is retiring from live performing. On Wednesday, March 26, Mathis’ Facebook account announced that the 89-year-old crooner will stop performing live, due to “age and memory issues, which have accelerated.” The singer will continue to perform three more shows on his “Voice of Romance Tour” before his final performance...

Chanel Ties Paris Fashion Week Up With a Bow

Long before the “bow girl,” in all her coquettecore glory, became a fashion archetype, there was Chanel. This morning at Paris Fashion Week, the French house wrapped the Grand Palais in a massive black ribbon to celebrate one of its most beloved motifs. (One which dates back to the...

Miu Miu Was Cool-Girl Catnip

Miu Miu has a knack for bringing It girls not just to the front row, but onto the runway. Today at Paris Fashion Week, the former group included Sydney Sweeney, Nara Smith, Alix Earle, and Renée Rapp. (And at least one It guy: A$AP Rocky.) At the Palais D’Iéna, the walls had...

Saint Laurent Solidifies the Season of the Big Shoulder

There was one big thing that united Saint Laurent’s winter 2025 collection: huge, powerful shoulders. Models paraded around the perimeter of a large oval onyx floor wearing every single version of the massive shoulder. They appeared on ’80s power-suit-style dresses in vibrant colors, oversized outerwear, and even...

Reading Festival organisers quizzed over waste

The organisers of one of the UK's largest music festivals have been grilled over the tonnes of waste and tents that are left behind each year. Reading Festival attracts tens of thousands of people to Little John's Farm in the Berkshire town on the August bank holiday weekend...

Ray Meade: ‘When they told me I had MS, I thought I was done’

Like most of us, guitarist Raymond Meade had a slow and quiet summer in 2021. The pandemic had put a stop to live touring with Ocean Colour Scene, with whom he had played since 2016. And without recording studios, he was unable to continue with his successful solo career. But...

Oasis sale ‘may have misled fans’ says watchdog

Ticketmaster "may have misled Oasis fans" with unclear pricing when it put their reunion tour on sale last year, the UK's competition watchdog has said. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the company may have breached consumer protection law by selling "platinum" tickets for almost 2.5 times...

Window cleaner in quest to confirm priceless Shakespeare portrait

Window cleaner Steven Wadlow has spent more than a decade trying to prove he is in possession of a priceless, authentic Shakespeare portrait. His quest is now being told in a Netflix documentary. What is the story behind the find? Steven, who lives in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, said his...

What is the Signal messaging app and how secure is it?

The free messaging app Signal has made headlines after the White House confirmed it was used for a secret group chat between senior US officials. The editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to the group where plans for a strike against the Houthi group in...