Collaborative work is a student-centered approach that allows students to build their own learning experience while developing essential skills for team-based work and personal learning. Most are familiar with think/pair/share as a collaborative activity. There are many additional methods for fostering collaboration and learning in your classes.
Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Excellence provides well developed resources explaining collaboration and group work with suggestions for specific activities, including strategies for managing group work and evaluating the work product.
Although some of their links are stale, The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) also produced a document on Collaborative Teaching and Learning Strategies including links to several universities supporting these techniques.
Several members of Research and Instructional Support have used a database comparison activity and/or a keyword searching comparison activity for collaborative learning in our library instruction sessions.