A Simple Way to Build Rich Tasks for Group Work

In too many classes, group work doesn’t work. Some teams bicker incessantly. Others get along too well, goofing off instead of getting things done. Meanwhile, within each team, certain students seem to do almost everything. Others appear to do next to nothing. Learners report feeling frustrated by their in-class collaborative experiences. Similarly, educators often give up on group work altogether. As one teacher joked, “I only do group work when I need things to take twice as long.”

But group work can work if we follow John Hattie’s guidance in Visible Learning: The Sequel: A Synthesis of Over 2,100 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement: “We need to intentionally teach more skills and confidence to work in groups, on tasks that require multiple interpretations, and where the feedback and rewards are a function of the individual contributions to the group as well as the group’s performance.”

Enter TAFT, a twist on one of our favorite design tools, RAFT.

TAFT is an acronym that represents the following elements of an authentic collaborative task:

• Team (with associated roles)
• Audience
• Format
• Topic

Here’s an example: In a grade-five life sciences class, students form an editorial board (Team) and collaboratively create a textbook chapter (Format) for fellow students (Audience) about photosynthesis (Topic).

Assigning Team Roles

Within this team, individualized roles ensure learner independence and interdependence: Each team member holds unique responsibilities, and the group’s overall success relies on each of these individual contributions.

Differentiated roles also enable educators and learners to more effectively assess individual contributions instead of only evaluating the team’s overall output. Students can measure their own performance with a simple prompt like “I met the individual responsibilities of my role,” paired with a scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” and a space to explain one’s assessment.

How do you determine team roles? In some cases, you might come up with Format-specific roles. In the life sciences example above, the editorial team could consist of a researcher who gathers information, a writer who synthesizes and articulates this information, a peer reviewer who examines the copy for quality, and a designer who internalizes the content and seeks ways to represent it visually.

In other cases, you may choose to assign roles that apply to any Format. In our book, Leaders of the Class: Units for Teaching Motivation, Perseverance, Communication, and Collaboration in the Secondary Classroom, we provide tool kits for the following student roles that will work in any context: facilitator, project manager, motivator, and advocate.

Adapting the TAFT

TAFT is endlessly adaptable based on your subject, your students, and your learning objectives. For example, TAFTs offer opportunities to incorporate more or less student voice and choice, depending on how ready students are to engage in independent learning.

In the directions below from a grade-six social studies TAFT, the teacher has determined every aspect of the project except the Format.

Team and roles: You are part of a Civilization Commemoration Committee that includes…

• An Archaeologist
• An Active Local, Present-Day Citizen
• An Economist
• An Event Planner

Audience: Our Local Town Council. Provide an invitation list.

Format: As a team, you will host a 15-minute event at “City Hall” during our classroom Civilization Showcase. The event must…

• Showcase the information in a way that engages and delights the guests
• Provide insightful analysis using evidence from both ancient and modern times

Topic: At the event, celebrate a civilization we have studied by showcasing how its innovations might inspire present-day innovations. Advocate for these innovations to the local town council. Provide a rationale for how these changes might improve the economy.

We recommend preparing an example of TAFT to provide to students who need more support.

In contrast, TAFT also provides opportunities for educators to provide self-directed students with more choice and voice. A high school English teacher, for instance, may need to determine only the Format—a persuasive essay, for example—and then empower students to propose the Team and Roles, Audience, and Topic. After all, whether they form a group of environmental activists supporting policy changes or a marketing department pitching a potential client on an advertising campaign, students will exercise the same skills of persuasive writing.

In addition to enlisting students to help design TAFTs, it may also be productive to partner with AI. The AI prompt template below incorporates key ideas for teaching transfer and also includes an optional prompt to promote place-based learning.

“Give me an example of an authentic collaborative task for (grade level) students in (course title or subject area) studying (learning objective and/or topic). I would like students to demonstrate transfer, so make sure they have opportunities to compare contexts; create analogous problems; generate and test hypotheses; or engage with communities, audiences, and experts in order to produce products, performances, or portfolios. Include a Team with (number) specific roles, Audience, Format, and Topic. (Optional) Connect the task to (specific location, such as your school’s city).”

As these examples illustrate, TAFT is a highly adaptable design tool for creating collaborative tasks that work.