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Collaboration Rubric a great document to assess the levels of learning activities

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How can you design collaborative learning in the classroom? This is one way to do it
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To brainstorm ...

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Module 2 Completed

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The rubric is a valuable tool to guide and evaluate the collaborative work, either as a teacher or as a student. The analysis of the information in the document “21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics” allows us to clarify in detail what kind of real collaborative work we are developing. It is an enabling document for the conception and implementation of our future activities.

Low Level activity:

After introducing the topic to be explored by sciencestudents they first watched a short video and answered individually to a quiz.

According to the 21 LCD Learning activity rubrics our assessment for the low level activity is:

Collaboration: decisions steps – 1 (Students are required to work in pairs or groups?);

Knowledge construction: decisions steps – 2 (Main requirement is knowledge construction?); Real-world problem-solving and innovation: decisions steps -1 (Main requirement is problem solving?);

use of ICT for learning: decisions steps – 2 (ICT supports students’ knowledge construction?);

Self-regulation: decisions steps – 1 (Long-term activity AND students have learning goals and success criteria in advance?);

and Skilled communication: decisions steps – 1 (Students are NOT required to produce extended or multi-modal communication).

High Level activity: “CreatiV3”

Students stared to research about environmental science poetry and then they distributed these poems among them. After that short videos were produced while which student of the class was reciting poems with a background soundtrack created and played by a colleague using a classic guitar. All these videos were joined together creating a single film by using the movie maker entitled by the class “CreatiV3”. This movie was presented to the school community during our “Open Week” (a period of time dedicated to the exhibition  of project works, debates, poetry declamation, contests and many other extracurricular activities that takes place before Easter Holiday). As we learned in module 1: What is collaborating learning? In this collaborative activity “CreatiV3” students enhanced: openness to diversity; developed a sense of respect among each other as well as team work and leadership competence; listening and presentation skills.  Even though they have worked together not as a small group but as a class group they managed to tackle the problems to reach the common goal – that art can be found not only in museums, art galleries, libraries, research articles, textbooks but also in science.

According to the 21 LCD Learning activity rubrics our assessment for the high level activity is:

Collaboration: decisions steps – 5

Students have shared responsibility, make substantive decisions together and work interdependent in all process by researching and selecting the environmental poems, deciding how to organize short videos into a single film and presenting the final result to school community.

Knowledge construction: decisions steps – 5

This learning activity requires knowledge construction about environmental poetry, ICT (by creating a film using movie maker), requires apply knowledge in a new context (e.g. associating poetry to science, learning to recite, writing for the school journal), and results have learning goals in more than one subject (e.g. Portuguese, Science, IT, Music, Art).

Real-world problem-solving and innovation: decisions steps -4

The learning activity’s main requirement was problem-solving in the context of the Environmental Sciences and the problem was a real-world problem that aim to raise awareness in the school community and students did innovate (e.g. Logo creation for the poetry program incorporating the name of the class CV3 - CreatiV3, creation of the soundtrack and news for the school journal). They implemented their ideas in the real world they organized to the school community a "Tertulia Ambiental” – “Environmental literary gathering” in order to promote the interaction between generations. The “Tertulia” comprises a musical session, magic show, poetry recital and the viewing of the created film “CreatiV3” followed by snacks.

Use of ICT for learning: decisions steps – 5

Students used ICT to support knowledge construction and the ICT was required for constructing this knowledge and students did create an ICT product for authentic users – Film entitled Creativ3 and invitation and brochure to the "Tertulia Ambiental” – “Environmental literary gathering.” Writing news for the school journal entitled “CreatiV3: We no longer want mobile phones used in vain.”

Self-regulation: decisions steps – 4

The learning activity was a long-term (durations two semesters) and students had learned goals and associated success criteria in advance of completing their work (e.g. weekly they write down their thoughts about the progress of the work, they shared in the classroom their thoughts about environmental problems implied in the poems). Students had the opportunity to plan their own work with different teachers applying different subjects. Students had the opportunity to revise their work based on feedback. They collectively owned the work so feedback happen daily face to face.

Skilled communication: decisions steps – 4

Students design their communication for a particular audience – the school community.

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2.5. Collaborative learning scenarios

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2.5. Collaborative learning scenarios

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The seven steps learning scenario template will be a valuable tool in the preparation and implementation of our collaborative learning activities. It gives us an overview of the entire process of how to structure a collaborative learning activity. The different learning scenarios are quite motivating and leading us to have a clear vision of how to apply the model to a particular subject.

They also allow us to have an accurate view of all the collaborative work done by students, step by step, and at the same time, monitoring and make an accurate assessment of the process.

The collaborative scenarios presented and the template, are quite interesting and inspiring. It will be a tool to use in the future!

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With this format, it is the first time we viewed a rubric collaboration, however, when we plan lessons that collaborative work is the methodology used for the preparation of planning, these aspects were designed but not coded in order to show whether there was collaborative work. This system can validate the existence of this type of work in the classroom (e.g. enhances the evidence to assess shared responsibility). Therefore, we consider it a valuable resource that will be used when planning our class.

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Questions:

Are they working together?

Do they share responsibility?

Do they make substantive decisions?

Is their work interdependent?

Let’s check the path teachers and pupils need to constantly develop when employing the 4 collaboration queries:

-          The decisions made should be pinpointed to the content rather than on the format.

-          The pupils must share and find together what type of activity they want to work by discussing an issue; solve a problem or create a product.

-          They also can work face to face (that is what happens in the majority of times), using technology or even with people outside school.

-          Share responsibility occurs when they collaboratively own the work.

-          Own the work means to collectively own the work and be responsible for the outcome.

-          It helps when teachers selecte one of the following tasks for the students: Content – Process – Product. Making substantive decisions together helps to drop the levels of anxiety.

Therefore the four questions are a perfect way to evaluate whether there was collaborative work or not. If the teacher positively rates, each question may have confirmation that this occurred. In classes where this methodology was chosen, similar questions were designed and placed to a better choice of tasks to be presented to students.

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2.2.
– Embedding collaborative learning into lesson design 

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2.2.
– Embedding collaborative learning into lesson design 

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We totally agree that it is important when designing the foundation of a collaborative learning ambiance that all the participants share the same understanding of the linguistic apply. However according to Professor Butler the path to reach an understanding of the language in the collaborative speech is complex. At schools teachers and students work together be communicating with others using digital technology or other methods but the majority of times implementing a cooperative design not the collaborative one. The collaborative work spaces emerge when key skills such as: the need to be proficient, literate, creative but also capable to manage oneself and managing information & thinking are implemented in the curriculum. Therefore we agree that collaborative skills are not a personality trait and teachers can design learning activities to develop both of these skills in their students.

With the constant use of information and communication technologies in our daily lives, it is natural that the computer has become an indispensable tool for our day living. In this context the school can not be apart of this new technological reality, having to adapt and relate what it is learned in school with what actually happens in the life of every citizen. So we can say that this will be an important tool for collaborative learning, as this is defined as a methodology learning, in which, through group work and the exchange of knowledge among peers, the people involved in the process learn together, and, being the "language" shared by students, it is natural to feel comfortable and natural to use it as main job feature. With the integration of new communication information technology in schools, installing computer labs; interactive whiteboards, it is clear that the use of these resources in the educational process will enrich for better learning, provide greater ease in performing any activity and promote interest in students in every subject. However, despite the preference that students give to these resources, they are not always available in schools, a reality that is no obstacle to the development of collaborative learning. It occurs because the most important in collaborative learning is the development of tasks that can provide the following skills: the students must be able to negotiate, to be able to solve conflicts, be able to decide and to reach consensus on what is the discussion of ideas of the group members and be able to integrate their ideas consistently in the whole work.

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How can you design collaborative learning in the classroom?

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Useful review

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Great reading :)

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Very Helpful

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Low Level activity:

After introducing the topic to be explored by sciencestudents watched a short video and answer individually to a quiz.

High Level activity: “CreatiV3”

Students stared to research about science poetry and then they distributed these poems among them. After that short videos were produced while which student of the class was reciting poems with a background soundtrack created and played by a colleague using a classic guitar. All these videos were joined together creating a single film by using the movie maker entitled by the class “CreatiV3” (see photo below. This movie was presented to the school community during our “Open Week” (a period of time dedicated to the exhibition  of project works, debates, poetry declamation, contests and many other extracurricular activities that takes place before Easter Holiday). As we learned in module 1: What is collaborating learning? In this collaborative activity “CreatiV3” students enhanced: openness to diversity; developed a sense of respect among each other as well as team work and leadership competence; listening and presentation skills.  Even though they have worked together not as a small group but as a class group they managed to tackle the problems to reach the common goal – that art can be found not only in museums, art galleries, libraries, research articles, textbooks but also in science.

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1.5. A History
& Geography teacher’s experience of collaborative learning

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1.5. A History
& Geography teacher’s experience of collaborative learning

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To work collaboratively is to assume that the community of learners have to leave their “comfort zone” and start building new networks that in the majority of times must reach outside the classroom and embrace the “real” world. The difficulty starts in establishing a frame time to work as groups and build a communication that allows a democratic sharing of different speeches about collaborative work which has been very difficult throughout the years to put into practice. In our professional experience collaborative has been a reality now and then but when implemented it proved to be a well succeeded experience.

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1.4. A foreign language
teaching experience of collaborative learning

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1.4. A foreign language
teaching experience of collaborative learning

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Once again the video exposes an inspiring collaborative task to develop with students. The challenge in performing this activity consists of developing in students the necessary skills to acknowledge their cognitive capabilities, as well as, creativity and critical thinking to effectively help their fellow colleagues throughout the challenges they face to accomplish the project. Assessing collaborative work can be and is a challenge but with discrete guidance without coercion such as: dialogue, constant checking of tasks, reassurance on their group achievements, respect for others by creating moments of brainstorming and negotiation of different ideas and visions.  Charts can be created and developed as online tools by groups, considering that all these documents can be updated.

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1.3. Collaborative learning through project-based learning

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1.3. Collaborative learning through project-based learning

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The video illustrates a wonderful learning environment that we would love to implement but our school lacks most of technology tools. We consider group brainstorm and group discussion very important moments in our daily work with students. The classroom should be a place that all knowledge matters and students should implement tasks in a democratic setting. A lesson plane does not exist because it is reveled at the end of the project it combines several subject of different disciplines and students can implement different cognitive approaches.

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1.2. Collaborative learning in a flexible class

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1.2. Collaborative learning in a flexible class

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In our school the furniture is displayed in a “classic way” although in some situations (laboratory activities; music and art classrooms; library; oriented group studies) teachers and students agree to rearrange the classroom space. We have one computer per classroom and the textbook still plays a major role. However the majority of us implement other instruments to create flexible and interactive classes. As teacher it is most of the times impossible to create a new class environment because first we are trying to develop a new approach “to how to acquire knowledge.” It means a development of new skills, of a different way of posture in class, a change of approach in the way we work with one another. The video reflects a change of mentalities, a reality still in work and still far from us.

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What is collaborative leaning ?

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This introductory course will help us to better understand:

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This introductory course will help us to better understand:

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What is collaborative learning?
How can I carry it out effectively in my classroom?
What tools can I use to assess collaborative learning?
How can I collaborate with fellow teachers to facilitate collaborative learning?

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About Me

Hello from Agrupamento de Escolas de Valongo, Porto. I teach Geology and Biology

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In our opinion collaborative work is one in which all members share the decisions and are responsible for the quality of what is produced together, according to their possibilities and interests. Studies that focus on group work sometimes use indiscriminately the terms collaboration and cooperation, alternately to designate it. Although the terms have the same prefix (co), which means join action, the terms are different, because the verb cooperate means operate, run, run according to the system - while the word collaborate means to work, produce, develop activities to reach the same goal. To work cooperatively means a division of tasks. In collaboration, on the other hand, by working together, the members of a group rely on one another to overcome obstacles in order to reach a common goal firstly negotiated by the collective.

In the classroom collaborative work, follows different activities to develop and foster in the students the following skills: a) leadership; b) self-assessment; c) respect for the opinions of his colleagues; d) production capacity; e) persuasiveness and negotiation, and finally f) working group capacity.