Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn

“Collaboration is a part of our life. In this book Janet illuminates how collaboration can be a positive experience and how we can intentionally learn to be an effective collaborator no matter the circumstances, our role, our preference way of working, and end point. At a time when working effectively with others is seen as a vital skill, this book unpacks how it possible to thrive and flourish as we learn to understand the collaborative process, how working with others can be put into practice, and most importantly how we can grow as individuals personally and professionally.”

Narelle Lemon, Associate Professor, Education

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

"Employers keep saying that they want employees who can be good team players and work collaboratively, and Janet Salmons has finally provided faculty and course-writing teams with a useful, well-grounded and practical guidebook for creating learning experiences that help our students build those critical skill-sets. Dr. Salmons has provided us with a remarkably well-grounded and useful guidebook for helping create truly collaborative learning experiences for our students—and helping students move from 'ugh, group work', to 'yes, collaborative teamwork'!"

William C. Schulz III, Director of Academic Initiatives, Office of Academic Affairs, School of Management, and Founding Director, Walden Center for Social Change

Walden University

"Western understanding of collaborative learning and work in Asia is in stark contrast to the way it is actually practiced among Chinese students. Surprisingly, they do not relish many of our best attempts to design collaborative learning processes. This is due in large part to social loafing, over-reliance on linguistic skills of others, cross-cultural disconnects, and misalignments in student/teacher expectations.

Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn gives instructors a tangible framework to understand, organize, assess, implement, and redesign methodologies toward effective student-centered existential collaborative processes inside or outside of the classroom. In our Fieldwork in Leadership Studies course, we strive to give theory practical application. The taxonomical approaches, the assessments, and the activities offered here are invaluable and can give us tangible guidelines to help us improve our deliverables."

Brendon C. Fox, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies

Fort Hays State University US/Sino partnership with Sias International University, Xinzheng, Henan, PR China

"Collaborative learning has an amazing potential for supporting students to learn within a discipline and to grow their agency and capacity for collaborative action. Unfortunately, the literature of learning in groups is also replete with stories of how it all went wrong. This new book by Janet Salmons provides the latest version of her highly accessible research-based, conceptual and visual taxonomy of collaboration and shows us how to apply this rich vocabulary to the design of face-to-face and online collaborative learning that can yield the desired learning benefits while minimizing the pitfalls. And as a bonus the same principles can also be applied to planning successful collaborative research and work processes."

Tony Carr, Convener of e/merge Africa and educational technologist in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT)

University of Cape Town, South Africa

"Collaboration is fast becoming one of the most important skills for leadership in the 21st-century. This fact is widely acknowledged and yet educators have few resources to teach students how to systematically pursue collaborative problem-solving. Janet Salmon’s book fills this gap with this practical guide book that can be applied across any discipline. Dr. Salmons writes in a clear, logical, and engaging style that is research-based and creates a sense of excitement and motivation for the collaborative experience."

Louise Kelly, Professor of Management and Leadership

University of La Verne, and author of The Psychologist Manager.

“The future of work requires team adaptability, shared participation, and integrated contributions among professionals. Educators need to create thoughtful learning experiences that expose students to relevant collaboration opportunities they will encounter in a connected world. Dr. Janet Salmons’ book offers the fundamentals for collaborative learning paired with the pedagogical planning and assessment practices to reach this goal. With reflective questions, team-based design graphs, and visual mapping of the collaborative learning taxonomy, instructors and learning designers will find this book to be a valuable resource for developing guided facilitation for learners.”

Laura Pasquini, Senior Lecturer

University of North Texas & Researcher with The Digital Learning and Social Media Research Group

"Janet Salmons's practical experience with collaboration in the classroom shines through in this book. Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn is packed with actionable advice and diverse examples. I know this book will be a go-to guide for instructors across disciplines looking to help their students learn the skills of collaboration and teamwork."

Katie Linder, Research Director, Oregon State University Ecampus

“Collaboration is a key component of working and learning in the 21st century. As the world becomes more of a global environment, it is important to learn how to purposely collaborate with individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds. In some cases, the diversity may be within a face-to-face classroom, or it could be a myriad of people online from all over the world. Either way, learning to work with others on a project or an idea is an important skill for the 21st century. Salmons states, ‘When people collaborate, they think together as well as work together’.

This book is unique in that Salmons offers a taxonomy for collaborative learning that provides a framework for creating, implementing, and assessing group assignments and activities in the classroom. Throughout the book, numerous tables and figures are used to help explain the concepts of collaboration.

Early in the book, Salmons gives a strong theoretical background on taxonomies as frameworks that help students develop critical thinking skills and, in turn, use those skills in other contexts. She also demonstrates that these skills extend beyond the classroom and are valuable in the workplace.

This book is a very useful text for a teacher or workplace leader who wants to incorporate the theories and practice of collaborative learning into their class or presentation. The book is very hands-on and gives multiple practical examples of how to lead students in a collaborative learning experience. Of particular note, Salmons also includes some reflections on her own experiences and research on how students worked through some collaborative assignments. This type of ‘learning from experience’ is very helpful as a guide for the reader and adds a personal feel to the writing.

Salmons’ work is very timely in the current learning environment when more and more instructors are looking to collaborative activities both for face-to face classes as well as the online platform. Given that the 21st century has changed the way people learn and work, her book is a relevant and valuable contribution to the field.”

Teachers College Record