Factsheet - Support inclusive teamwork
Inclusive teamwork develops through clear expectations, structured interactions and explicit teaching of collaboration skills. These approaches help students build relationships, work across different perspectives, and contribute in ways that draw on their strengths.
Inclusive teamwork involves students collaborating towards a shared goal in conditions where every member feels valued, safe and empowered to contribute. It combines completing a shared task with developing the skills and relationships needed to work effectively together. Teamwork is recognised as a key graduate attribute relevant to professional and postgraduate contexts.
Research on teamwork emphasises the central role of social interaction in cognitive development (Vygotsky, 1987; Francis et al., 2025; Riebe et al., 2016). Students need explicit teaching and supported practice to develop the skills for effective teamwork. This requires careful planning, structured interactions and scaffolding tailored to the discipline and, where applicable, professional accreditation requirements.
This is particularly important within diverse student cohorts, where differences in prior educational experiences, disciplinary knowledge, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and confidence in collaborative settings can shape participation in teamwork.
By making participation explicit, teamwork can provide learning environments in which students engage with a range of perspectives, experiences, and approaches to problem-solving. Structured interactions, clearly defined expectations, and purposeful team formation can provide multiple opportunities for all members to contribute, learn from peers, and develop interpersonal and collaborative skills.
Implementing this strategy
Getting ready
Align teamwork with learning outcomes
Make teamwork an explicit part of the learning design by aligning: learning outcomes → learning activities → assessment → feedback. This is a process known as constructive alignment (Riebe et al., 2016).
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Define the teamwork skills students are expected to develop, provide structured opportunities to practise and receive feedback on these skills, and use clear marking criteria that assess both the teamwork process and the quality of the final product. This helps students see teamwork as an intentional and valued part of their learning, rather than simply a means of completing an assessment.
Here is an example of constructively aligning learning outcomes with learning activities, assessment, and feedback.
1. Learning outcome
Learning outcome
Students will demonstrate shared decision making, constructive communication and accountability when completing a team task.
Define the key skills to be demonstrated and make these visible including communication, shared decision-making, conflict resolution and accountability. How will learners demonstrate this, linking to your teaching of the skills?
2. Learning activities
Teach and model these teamwork skills, then provide structured opportunities for students to practise them.
3. Assessment
Assess both the teamwork process and the output or artifact. Use clear criteria for how effectively students worked as a team, alongside criteria for the quality, coherence and delivery of the group output.
Ensure equitable assessment by using a mix of group and individual accountability measures, such as reflective journals or peer evaluations.
4. Feedback
Provide formative feedback during the development of the task through team check-ins, peer feedback and self-reflection. Feedback should address both how the team is working together and how effectively their individual contributions are coming together as a coherent whole.If students reflect on teamwork only after completing the shared task, they have little opportunity to act on what they learn. Building reflection into the process gives students time to address challenges, practise teamwork skills and improve how they work together.
Constructive alignment supports diverse learners by making the expectations, processes and assessment of teamwork explicit and predictable. It provides opportunities to practise, receive formative feedback and understand transparent assessment criteria and reduce reliance on implicit social, linguistic or academic expectations. Assessing both process, practise and product also recognises different ways of contributing meaningfully to a team.
Determine group formation
Inclusive teamwork involves completing a shared task, with explicit support to develop collaboration skills and working relationships. This requires building teams by gathering information about students’ strengths, skills, interests, backgrounds and participation or support needs, then using clear criteria to allocate teams.
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When building teams, there are two options you can use:
- Option 1
Use a short pre-team survey to gather students’ relevant skills, strengths, interests, experience and preferred ways of contributing, then use the responses to allocate balanced teams. - Option 2
Allow students to form pairs or trios, then combine two of these small groups to create a team, with the educator allocating any remaining students. This allows some agency in group selection, and also reduces isolation for marginalised students. However, established relationships may affect whole-team cohesion and may need to be monitored (Healey, 2024).
Building teams considers students’ strengths, experiences, schedules, perspectives and support needs to reduce barriers to participation. It creates opportunities for students to contribute in different ways and have their strengths and perspectives valued.
Design activities to develop teamwork skills
Identify the interpersonal, communication and conflict-resolution skills students will need to coordinate their work and navigate different perspectives.
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Design structured activities in which students practise the communication, coordination and conflict-resolution skills they will need, rather than simply instructing them to “work well together” (McKay & Sridharan, 2024).
- Build the case for teamwork into your course design
Include content that makes the purpose of teamwork explicit by connecting collaborative learning with capabilities valued in professional contexts, including communication, leadership, problem-solving, shared responsibility and working with different perspectives. - Design opportunities to practise interpersonal skills
Include activities that enable students to recognise and practise behaviours that contribute to cohesive teams, such as active listening, inviting contributions, showing respect and developing trust. - Design opportunities to practise clear team communication
Build in scaffolds that support students to clarify expectations, provide constructive feedback and make decisions together. Develop communication cards to help students share ideas, ask for support and navigate disagreements respectfully. - Design opportunities to practise navigating different perspectives
Include realistic scenarios that normalise differences in perspective as part of teamwork and introduce strategies for addressing differences constructively.
Designing activities to explicitly teach and practise teamwork skills supports diverse learners by making the often-unspoken social and communication expectations of teamwork visible. It gives all students time to practise the discipline-specific interpersonal skills and professional attributes expected in their field, while social scripts and communication prompts can reduce cognitive load for neurodivergent students and students from diverse language backgrounds. Low-risk practice also helps students develop confidence in navigating different communication styles and perspectives before assessed teamwork begins.
Scaffold collaboration
Plan how to scaffold teams to break the task into manageable components, agree on responsibilities, and distribute work according to members’ strengths and opportunities for learning. Build in clear roles, shared expectations and regular check-ins so that responsibilities remain visible, contributions are coordinated, and workload is shared fairly.
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Design tasks that require students to coordinate, review and integrate their contributions, not simply divide a group assignment into isolated individual pieces. Here are four areas where scaffolding can be applied:
- Break down the task
Help teams identify the key components, outputs and sequence of work.
Possible scaffolds: Provide a task map, worked example or project planning template. - Agree on responsibilities
Ask teams to discuss who will take responsibility for each component, considering strengths, interests and opportunities to develop new skills.
Possible Scaffolds: Provide a simple roles and responsibilities table showing task, lead person, support person, and due date. Support teams to co-create a team charter which clearly articulates communication preferences, meeting times, expected response times and how the team will handle conflict or unequal workloads. - Coordinate the work
Break larger tasks into milestones or regular check-ins where students bring their individual work back to the team, share progress and identify dependencies between tasks.
Possible Scaffold: Provide meeting schedule templates and meeting prompts such as: What have we completed? What do we need from each other? What happens next?. You can use this example goal template from Krishnan et al., (2025). - Review and rebalance
Prompt teams to check whether responsibilities and workload remain fair and whether everyone is contributing meaningfully. Adjust responsibilities as the task develops. This reduces “social loafing” or “ free-riding” of students to engaging with their group (Healey, 2024; Riebe et al,.2016).
Possible Scaffold: Provide a workload check or progress tracker: Is the workload balanced? Does anyone need support? Do responsibilities need to shift.
These activities to strengthen teamwork skills can support students' understanding of compromise and contribution within a team (Krishnan et al., 2025).
Designing scaffolds such as a team charter and trackers supports diverse learners by making expectations, responsibilities and team processes clear. It provides different ways for students to contribute, draws on individual strengths, and creates opportunities to develop new skills. Regular check-ins also help identify uneven workloads or barriers to participation early, allowing responsibilities and support to be adjusted.
Plan for flexibility
Anticipate that students may need different forms of support or reasonable adjustments to teamwork to participate meaningfully in activities. Build flexibility into how instructions and resources are provided, how tasks are structured, the guidance available, and the ways students can contribute, while maintaining the intended learning outcomes. Equitable teamwork does not require every student to participate in exactly the same way.
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When designing teamwork:
- Identify where flexibility is possible
Distinguish the essential teamwork learning outcomes from aspects that can be adjusted, such as communication mode, role allocation, meeting format, timing or ways of contributing. - Build adjustment options into the activity
Include options such as written or verbal contributions, structured roles, agendas provided in advance, online participation and additional preparation time. This reduces the need to create individual solutions each time. - Brief educators before teamwork begins
Ensure all educators are aware of appropriate flexibility and who to contact if they are unsure. Emphasise that adjustments should be implemented discreetly and without requiring students to repeatedly explain their needs.
Planning flexibility makes participation options available to all students from the outset, reducing the need to request individual arrangements for common barriers. This provides a foundation for inclusive teamwork, alongside individual reasonable adjustments that educators implement and review with students who need them.
With students
Introduce the teamwork task
In class, clearly communicate what students are expected to achieve, why working as a team matters, and how teamwork will operate, using concise, staged instructions to avoid overwhelming students with all the complex requirements.
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Introduce the task, instructions, criteria and available support to students in class:
- Explain the why
Connect teamwork directly to the learning outcomes and explain how the skills students will develop relate to authentic disciplinary and professional practice.
In practice: Introduce a workplace scenario showing how professionals in the discipline need to collaborate, then identify the teamwork skills students will develop through the task align with this. - Make the how explicit
Explain how students will work together throughout the task, including how they will organise meetings, coordinate contributions and seek support.
In practice: Walk students through the task timeline, highlighting when they should meet, bring contributions together, review progress and contact the educator for guidance. - Model and guide practice
Demonstrate how the teamwork strategies are applied, then provide structured opportunities for students to practise with educator support.
In practice: Model how a team might allocate responsibilities or navigate a disagreement, then give students a short scenario to practise using the same process and prompts. - Gradually release responsibility
Reduce scaffolding as students develop confidence and capability, while keeping expectations and resources accessible throughout the task.
In practice: Move from educator modelling to guided team practice and then independent application, with brief check-ins and feedback as students apply the strategies to their assessed teamwork.
Monitor and support group dynamics
Actively monitor team interactions throughout the teamwork tasks as team dynamics can change quickly. Support teams to use agreed strategies to address interpersonal challenges, and resolve disagreements. Provide responsive and timely educator support with teams that cannot resolve issues independently.
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The following steps can help to monitor and support group dynamics:
- Monitor changing team dynamics
Observe interactions throughout the task to identify emerging conflict, exclusion or uneven participation.
In practice: Check in regularly using prompts: Can everyone contribute? Is the workload balanced? Has anything changed since your last check-in? - Support students to apply strategies
Guide teams to use agreed approaches and conversation starters to build skills in navigating interpersonal challenges and resolving disagreements.
In practice: Prompt teams to work through a familiar process, using conversation starters at each stage: Identify the issue: “I’ve noticed… Could we talk about it?” Hear different perspectives: “How do you see it?”
Agree on a solution: “What could we change to address this?”
Review progress: “Is this working for everyone, or do we need to adjust?” - Provide timely educator support
Step in when teams cannot resolve issues independently.
In practice: Meet with the team to understand the difficulty, agree on specific actions and arrange a follow-up to check whether these have helped.
Apply reasonable adjustments
Work with the student to apply their approved reasonable adjustments to the teamwork task. Discuss privately how the adjustments will support their participation, implement the adjustment and check with the student during the task to identify whether further changes are needed.
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Here is a process you can follow to support a student with reasonable adjustments in class in team tasks.
Step 1 - Confirm arrangements privately
Check with the student how their approved reasonable adjustments will apply to the teamwork activity, without requiring them to explain their diagnosis or disclose to teammates.
Step 2 - Put approved adjustments into practice
Ensure the agreed supports are available when needed. Clarify any arrangements affecting how the team works together while respecting the student’s privacy.
Step 3 - Respond to barriers during the activity
If the student encounters a barrier, work with them to address it promptly. Seek DSS advice where further guidance is needed, while providing available support so the student can continue participating.
Step 4 - Check that adjustments are effective
Check in discreetly with the student during the task. Follow through on any changes or further support needed to enable their participation.
Reasonable adjustments support students whose disabilities affect social interaction by addressing barriers such as rapid exchanges, interpreting social cues or navigating unstructured discussions. Agreed communication methods, clear interaction prompts and additional processing time can support students to contribute to the shared task and develop teamwork skills while maintaining the intended learning outcomes.
Spotlight on allocating roles in the team
Effective teams draw on a mix of people-focused, task-focused and thinking-focused roles, with students contributing in different ways to the shared work (Belbin & Brown, 2022; Hartley et al., 2022). Use team roles to make different strengths and contributions visible.
A team-role inventory helps students identify preferred contributions, recognise gaps and agree on responsibilities. It can also identify opportunities to practise unfamiliar roles (Bateman et al., 2022).
Inclusive principles
Inclusive teamwork at Monash
Dr Liza Barbour used group contracts to support teams to understand their roles and commitments during and assessment. This approach, as discussed in their Be Inspired on Teach HQ, involved supporting teams to draft a group contract that outlined expected work and deadlines, as well as how to identify barriers to teamwork early.
