Building Collaboration Skills Through Collaborative Thinking and Student Dialogue

Part 3 of our 4-part collaboration skills series

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." 

African Proverb

About this Series

Welcome to Part 3 of our blog series on Collaboration Skills! If you are new to this series, we encourage you to read our previous blogs: Building Collaboration Skills Through Cultivating Relationships that Support Student Learning and Building Collaboration Skills Through Goal-Setting and Accountability in the Classroom.

Quick Review of the Collaboration Skills

Here are the four domains.

In our last post, we explored how shared goals and progress tracking give collaboration shape and purpose. Before that, we looked at the foundation: relationships built on trust, connection, and storytelling. Now, in this third post, we turn to the heart of working together—thinking together. Collaborative thinking is where ideas are tested, expanded, and made better through dialogue. When students are grounded in strong relationships and clear goals, they’re more willing to engage in the messy, generative work of co-construction. This is the domain where curiosity meets challenge, where disagreement becomes productive, and where deep learning takes root.

As you review collaborative thinking, consider the skill's relationship with the others. How does relationship building impact students' ability to think collaboratively? What role does feedback play in sharing our thinking?

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What Is Collaborative Thinking? Definition, Purpose, and Key Classroom Practices

Definition: Deprivatizing thinking and building on one another’s ideas

What does it mean to think together? When young people engage in collaborative thinking, they do more than exchange ideas. They co-create new understandings and ideas through their exchange. Let's break down this process a bit.

Reflect

Before learners can share ideas, they must consider their current knowledge or thinking.

Share

Once a learner is clear on their ideas, they can start exchanging them.

Consider

As part of this exchange, the learner listens and makes sense of what the other person has shared or offered.

Evaluate

Once the other person's contributions are understood, the learner evaluates their thinking. Based on what they heard, what do they think now?

Decide

After evaluating what others have shared, the learner decides the next steps. Will they offer feedback, build upon the idea, or accept it as it is?

Implement

Time to put the next steps into action.

Any one of these is complex and requires direct and explicit instruction. Here are a few ways to support young people in exchanging ideas successfully.

Teaching Students to Collaborate With Purpose and Intention

Now that we’ve explored the steps involved in collaborative thinking, it’s important to take a step back and ask: Why are we doing this in the first place? Simon Sinek writes, "The WHY can guide us to act with purpose, on purpose." Establishing a clear purpose helps students see the value of these practices and engage with greater intention.

To help them do this, first set the purpose for the collaborative work time at the beginning of a lesson or work session. What are groups trying to achieve? This is a great time to revisit your goals or set new ones! Second, make visible the ways collaborative thinking benefits the learner and the work. Begin with a brainstorming session from students. You may be surprised by what they say–here is a list you can draw from to fill in the gaps for students.

Collaborative thinking helps...

1. Build connections between collaborators. As we share our work and thoughts, we get to know each other better, including how we think and work.

2. Grow our knowledge base. When two minds come together, they become the sum of their parts.

3. Strengthen communication. Through practice, young people learn to share their ideas better and listen actively.

4. Make ideas better. Not every idea is great. Through this process, learners can practice a growth mindset and how to be open to new and different ideas.

Making Thinking Visible Through Modeling and Student Practice

Make the process of exchanging ideas visible through metacognitive modeling. As you think out loud, pause to explain what’s happening in your mind. For example, share:

• What does it mean to truly consider someone else’s idea?

• What thoughts run through your head as you listen?

• How do you decide what to do with that idea—build on it, question it, or integrate it into your own thinking?

After modeling, invite students to practice. Ask probing questions, give feedback, and keep the tone light. Start with low-stakes, playful practice before applying collaborative thinking in academic tasks. When students see and rehearse these moves regularly, they begin to shift from working side-by-side to working with one another.

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4 Collaborative Learning Strategies That Promote Student Dialogue and Critical Thinking

Practices that work

When students learn to think collaboratively, they move beyond simply sharing ideas—they begin to co-construct knowledge. This post explores how to help students make their thinking visible, consider diverse perspectives, and build on one another’s ideas. Rooted in strong relationships and guided by shared goals, collaborative thinking transforms learning into a dynamic, interactive process. But this kind of thinking doesn’t just happen—it must be explicitly taught, modeled, and practiced. The strategies that follow are designed to do just that, helping students engage in deeper dialogue and become more thoughtful, flexible collaborators.

Quick Note

As you review the strategies, you may notice some are aligned with additional categories. We made some choices for the purposes of this series. In some cases, we showcase a novel application of the strategy; in others, we go with the most obvious use case. For example, the Field Trip activity can be used for collaborative thinking, goals and progress, and feedback. Use these strategies in ways that will advance your specific learning goals and get your students thinking more meaningfully together.

1, 2, 3, 4 Fingers Strategy

A quick, low-stakes way to check for understanding and surface student thinking. Learners respond to a prompt by holding up fingers (1 to 4) to represent their confidence, agreement, or readiness. This visible thinking strategy helps teachers adjust instruction in real time and supports equitable participation before full-class discussion begins.

Chalk Talk

A silent, written conversation where students respond to a shared prompt or question on chart paper or whiteboards. Without talking, students build on each other's ideas, make connections, and deepen their thinking by reading and responding to what others have written. This strategy centers individual reflection while creating a visual map of collective understanding.

Field Trip

A structured routine for peer-to-peer learning. Students move around the room to examine each other’s work-in-progress and engage in brief conversations about process, choices, or strategies. This real-time exchange of ideas helps students refine their own work and builds a culture of collective problem-solving.

Jigsaw

Students divvy up the content and become "experts" who share their learning with peers. By dividing the learning and relying on one another to build understanding, students practice interdependence and deepen content knowledge through peer teaching.

Prefer everything in one place?

Click here to view all four of the Collaborative Thinking Strategies together

How Collaborative Thinking Builds Deeper Learning and Empathy

Collaborative thinking is more than talk—it’s a way of being. When students reflect, share, and build on each other’s ideas, they deepen their understanding and strengthen their connections. Students also engage in deeper learning, develop empathy, and practice collective problem-solving.

We are excited for you to try these strategies. With repeated practice and explicit instruction, you will see students shift from coordinating alongside one another to working interdependently with purpose.

Looking Ahead – What’s Next in the Series

Up next is the final blog in this series: feedback. We’ll explore how to help students build on one another’s ideas and challenge each other with curiosity and care. You won’t want to miss it.

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