1. Recognize the value of constructive critism, 2. Engage in perspective talking or role reversal, 3. Acknowledge criticism that focuses on your behavior, 4. Listen actively, 5. Work hard to avoid becoming defensive, 6. Welcome criticism, 7. Maintain your interpersonal power and authority to make your own decisions, 8. Seek constructive changes to behavior that prompted the criticism, 9. Insist on valid criticism, 10. Communicate clearly how you feel and think about the criticism and receiving criticism.

To elaborate on Johnson, Johnson and Holubec's (1994) five steps for teaching team work skills, the first step is to ensure students see the need for teamwork skills by asking students to suggest the teamwork skills they need to work together effectively and decide what cooperative skills will be emphasized in the lesson. The second step is to ensure students understand what the skill is, how to engage in the skill, and when to used teh skill by operationally defining the skill. The third step is to set up practice situations and encourage mastery of the skill. To master a skill students need to practice it again and again. The fourth step ensures that all students receive feedback on their use of the skill and reflect on how to engage in the skill more effectively in the future. Lastly, the fifth step ensures that students persevere in practicing the skill until it seems to be a natural actions. Students should continuosly improve their teamwork skills by refining, modifying, and adapting them.

Venn Diagram - allow students to compare and contrast items.

According to Dr. Soller, the sequence of the words students use to communicate in cooperative groups can determine the productivity of the dialog and learning outcomes. Her study focused on seven groups and their interaction patterns. A key element in the conclusion was the usage of the system EPSILON. EPSILON monitors the communication patterns of students and can measure when students effectively share new knowledge. The most effective exchanges in the study were those where the initial speaker requested information. To be considered effective, one or more of the students must learn the newly shared knowledge, as evidenced by a difference in a pre-post test performance. These effective collaborations show that learning has occured and the decisions that are made in these groups are more likely to be more thorough and thought out.