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Hello! I'm Bella, a teacher of Science based in Sidoarjo, Indonesia. I have been teaching for 16 years, mainly in the field of science and math. My students range from age 12 to 16 years, belonging to Years 7, 8, 9 and 10.
My involvement here in the Collaborative Teaching and Learning enabled me to be more reflective of my practice, greatly aided with this Learning Diary. I am glad to have been part of the CoLab group. I have learned a lot from this training. The sharing made by teachers based in Europe were all enlightening and encouraging as well. All in all, this training afforded me the opportunity to enrich my teaching and enliven the way I connect with my students.

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4.7 Irish teachers’ reflections on teacher collaboration

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4.7 Irish teachers’ reflections on teacher collaboration

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Do you agree that finding time within the school day for teacher collaboration is challenging? What are your experiences of this, and what solutions have you tried to overcome this challenge? Do you agree that working with teachers from different disciplines can be very useful, and what are your experiences of this? What are the conditions needed in your opinion for this to work?

It is certainly not easy to find time for teachers to collaborate on single day, let alone just a dedicated time for contact meeting once per week. In my former school, there would be a certain time before the start of the term where teachers could meet and share their lessons in order to look for a common lesson where teachers can collaborate. Then again, time is really an issue.
I find working with teachers of different discipline quite useful in terms of sharing resources and ideas, but this can only take place during professioal development time held at least once a year before the start of the school year. For collaborative effort among teachers to happen, there should at least be 2 days devoted spent just planning to find a common ground by which at least 2 - 3 teachers can collaborate together for two to three weeks in a term.
That could just serve as a jump off point for any succeeding collaborative teaching.

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4.6 How technology can facilitate teacher collaboration

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4.6 How technology can facilitate teacher collaboration

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Do you use technology specifically for the purpose of collaborating with other teachers? Would you say that the nature of your digital collaboration with teachers is equivalent to ‘sending and displaying’, as mentioned in the video, or more about processing, analyzing and sharing? Why do you think this is and can you give examples? Which digital tools would you recommend for teachers to use for collaborating and why?

I haven't really tried out using technology to collaborate with teachers. Some of us in the science department share resources and these usually are linked to certain websites. But that's the extent to how we used technology when we work with colleagues. The only real 'sending and displaying' exchange we ever have in school is the school's SNAil publication that is run by students and where some teachers in the IT department are able to post videos and pictures with captions to commemorate certain events in school.
I hope that teachers, other than the Edmodo site where we just simply connect as teachers of the same school, would get to spend time using a platform where we could collaborate on a project for the students.
The technology that may prove helpful could include Google Drive, Padlet, Wikis and Edmodo. I am interested to learn more of Schoology as an LMS for our school.

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4.5 Skills and conditions needed for teacher collaboration

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4.5 Skills and conditions needed for teacher collaboration

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Do you agree with the list of skillsand conditions mentioned as necessary for teacher collaboration to flourish in schools? What would you add to this list based on your experiences? Does the leadership in your teacher training institution or the current school in which you teach model collaboration? If so, how, and do you think this is motivating and beneficial for students? Do you work with teachers who are sceptical about collaboration, and what have you/will you try to help them see the advantages of this way of working?

It is indeed true that a teacher's knowledge, social and communication skills, personal traits and task management skills have to be factored in when he or she will be part of a collaborative undertaking in school. I think that cultural beliefs can also be considered as another condition for teacher collaboration as people of various cultural background should work together as a team.

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4.4 The benefits and challenges of teacher collaboration

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4.4 The benefits and challenges of teacher collaboration

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Do you agree with the benefits and challenges highlighted by Professor Butler? Which benefits and challenges would you add based on your experiences? What opportunities have you been able to take advantage of in your own context to collaborate with teachers both in and outside of school? Do you collaborate with teachers in your own subject group, across age groups or across themes relevant to the whole school, and if so how?

Prof. Buter emphasised that  the school management themselves would have seen the need to push for teacher collaboration. If there would be some form of initiative that the school requires the teachers to collaborate in a specific grade or year level (for a pilot start), then the teachers would really find time to engage in collaboration with their peers on a common theme or learning task. We have tried this at Southville International School when I used to work there. The challenges that accompany teacher collaboration is finding a common timetable for all year level teachers to meet and plan for collaborative lesson. We even went to the extent of putting up a specific whiteboard in the classroom so other teachers would just simply fit their lessons into the theme being studied in one subject. At least there would be two or more teachers in the same year level who can collaborate on a common theme.

I am admittedly eager to collaborate with teachers outside of Indonesia, who can work on a lesson involving either ecology or energy sources. I do hope I could find any of my former colleagues in the Philippines who'd be willing to collaborate with me on these topics. It is hoped that the study of these lessons would somehow be within the standards or curriculum my former colleagues would be teaching in the first six months of 2017.

To be honest, I and my teacher-colleagues in my present school have not yet engaged in any collaborative effort to date. This is rather sad as the school maintains distinct departments working on their own.

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Teacher collaboration - Bella Montero, Indonesia

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Teacher collaboration - Bella Montero, Indonesia

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I have never used Twitter nor Facebook for exchanges of information with fellow teachers. Rather, I took part in discussion groups for educators in LinkedIn, which for me, proved interesting as I get to read about interesting views from fellow educators. Also, in LinkedIn groups for educators, you would be notified of certain questions open for discussion, or an invitation to share your views after an article has been posted in LinkedIn. So for professional learning via discussion forums, LinkedIn, for me, serves me well. In Edmodo, I also followed the discussion of fellow educators where I have learned a lot of tools shared in this platform. What I like about Edmodo is that this platform is simply focused and dedicated solely for education.
I would be willing to try my hand in teacher collaboration and I am thinking of starting with fellow teachers based in nearby Asian countries. I hope i could meet a teacher or two in my Edmodo group who are willing to engage in collaborative teaching.

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Co-teaching rotational model - 17/11/2016

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Co-teaching rotational model - 17/11/2016

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I think that co-teaching rotation works well for younger kids, who require close monitoring when engaged in activities. Since Valentina spent time after school planning for the succeeding days' activities with her colleague, the approach she is working on really takes some amount of time invested in collaborative teaching. I never had this kind of experience yet. When doing collaborative teaching, it is indeed expected that the teacher should learn to adapt to whatever procedure she and her colleagues might want to carry out, which may appear significantly different that what she is used to do. But nevertheless, the teacher needs to give things her best efforts no matter how demanding tasks may be.

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Learning Activity for Module 3, 15/11/2016

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Learning Activity for Module 3, 15/11/2016

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Start working on creating one or more lesson plans integrating collaborative learning and assessment, which you intend to use with your students in the classroom before the end of 2016 or early next year.

Module 4’s learning activity will be to continue working on your lesson plan/s so that you can submit your final one/s at the end of the course, and implement it/them in practice shortly afterwards.

To design your lesson plan, please use the Learning Designer.

Below is a list of criteria you should consider when creating your lesson plan and to use for your peer review of the lesson plans of two other course participants:

1. The lesson plan includes learning activities specifically designed to develop students’ collaborative learning skills: For example, at least two of the following criteria are included (see module 2 videos and resources – i.e. the 21CLD rubric and the example learning scenarios for further information and inspiration):

Students are required to work in pairs or groups

Students have shared responsibility

Students make substantive decisions together

Students’ work is interdependent

It is essential that the nature of the collaborative activities is fully described in the lesson plan, and clearly refers to one or more of the four dimensions mentioned above.

2. The lesson plan incorporates appropriate assessment tools to assess the collaborative learning activities mentioned, preferably including the student in the design of at least one of the tools: For example, one or more of the following are included as assessment tools (see module 3 videos and resources – i.e. the CO-LAB Guidelines for Assessing Collaborative Learning in the Classroom for further information and inspiration):

Rubric to assess a group

Rubric to assess group members individually

Checklist for self-assessment of students’ collaborative skills

Checklist for peer-assessment of students’ collaborative skills

Digital tools facilitating self and peer assessment of collaborative learning

Mindmaps and infographics to assess group work and facilitate peer assessment

3. The lesson plan is well aligned with its learning outcomes: activities and assessment clearly link with the defined learning outcomes and allow the teacher to determine by the end of the lesson(s) if the objectives have been achieved.

4. The lesson plan is balanced: there is a good mix of activities with at least four different Teaching Learning Activities used (TLAs in the Learning Designer) and none of the Activities, except in the case of collaboration, taking up more than 35% of the time (see the pie chart for this).

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3.8 Answers to teachers’ questions on assessing collaborative learning

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3.8 Answers to teachers’ questions on assessing collaborative learning

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Dr. Luis Valente suggests self and peer assessment can help students to move away from seeing teachers as the only source of judgement about the quality of their learning, thereby helping them to become more independent learners. Do you agree, and what are your experiences of this? He also notes that research shows that self-assessment combined with peer assessment reduces the trend for ‘friendship dependency’, ‘benefit of the dominators’ and ‘benefit of parasitism’. Does this match with your experiences? What do you think of assigning a percentage weight to individual assessment as part of the summative assessment related to collaborative work? Any other thoughts on Dr. Valente’s suggestions?

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3.7 Collaborative learning - What to assess and how? - Bella Montero (15/11/2016)

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3.7 Collaborative learning - What to assess and how? - Bella Montero (15/11/2016)

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Have you ever used existing rubrics and checklists to assess collaborative work? Have you ever constructed your own rubrics or checklists for this purpose? What about involving students in the design of rubrics, checklists or other assessment tools? What have been your experiences? What do you think of the tips given for constructing rubrics and checklists in the video? Are the guidelines and examples given in the CO-LAB Assessment Guidelines useful?
I have indeed used rubric and checklist in assessing group presentation and project outcomes. I must though, that when I created the rubric, I did not involve my students in designing them. I simply through of the assessment criteria and the accompanying descriptors myself for each of the progress levels. Or, I had downloaded the ones available in the web that applies to the kind of work my students are engaged in.

Involving students in making the rubric would prove rather meaningful to the students themselves. They would actually get to see the whole picture of what is expected of them in terms of assessing their learning outcomes. But I am yet to try this in my own teaching.

The CoLab assessment rubric sample would indeed be helpful in constructing my own set of rubric when I intend to implement the learning activity I have in mind for my Year 9 students. I have to spell out exactly to my students what are the things I would look into in their group products and what they perceive to be the evidence of their learning that I should likewise consider. I shall try to work this out carefully.

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3.6 Collaborative learning and student peer reviews

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3.6 Collaborative learning and student peer reviews

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When setting up student groups to work on a project, Anna often leaves students free to decide who they would like to work with and each team member’s role. However, when it comes to peer assessment Anna prefers to use a random name picking tool, as she believes this helps ensure objectivity and is more likely to encourage useful and constructive feedback among peers. Do you agree with these different approaches? Anna mentions a variety of digital tools which are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work, such as Edmodo, Scrumy, Tackks, Padlets, Google Forms etc. What are your experiences of these tools?
Once again, Anna, I am truly impressed about the way you have made your students do collaborative work and the outcomes they've made were truly amazing. Sometimes, it is much convenient for the teacher and the students if they are allowed to choose whom they are going to work with. Given this freehand choice to work collaboratively with friends, the efforts of the group are done smoothly, with less tension as to who should spearhead certain tasks and others simply acting as spectators in the group. But Anna's way of letting her students peer evaluate those they are not in the same group with through random picking, looked actually interesting and this method could really enable students to be objective in their peer reviews.

The digital tools that students can use for their learning outcomes would really come in handy and utterly useful to highlight what the students would want to show in their products and in their self-reflection. Though the amount of time needed to properly use these tools (Scrumy, Tackks, Padlets, Google Forms, etc.) take time, the payoffs would more than make up for the time invested in learning.

Assessing for learning requires some degree of explanations for parents and students to appreciate. These do not necessarily have to be reflected in numbers and parents usually regard the marks of their children as something tangible, measuring their children's learning.

All in all, I learned so much from this video. The students' efforts on the life and struggles of Nelson Mandela were really commendable!

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3.5 An ICT teacher’s experience of assessing students’ collaborative learning

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3.5 An ICT teacher’s experience of assessing students’ collaborative learning

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What do you think about the projects described by Antonio, from the student collaboration point of view, as well as the teacher collaboration point of view? Do you agree with the 7 benefits Antonio associates to assessing collaborative learning? What about the challenges he mentions concerning group dynamics, team management and the time needed to prepare and implement assessment of collaborative learning in the classroom – are these challenges you also face? Antonio mentions the use of collaborative digital tools, reorganizing the classroom space and introducing more interdisciplinary teaching and the sharing of materials amongst teachers as useful tips. Do you agree and what are your experiences of these suggestions?
The collaborative projects initiated by Antonio together with other teachers based in another country (Lithuania) appeared amazing and these had surely been interesting to his students in De Esmoriz. I agree with Antonio's 7 benefits to assessing collaborative learning. However, he did not describe the specific criteria for each gradation in every area of his rubric assessment.  The scoring guide was shown in the tablet but there were no description for the scores, 5 to 1.

The challenges Antonio mentioned with regards to group dynamics, team management and the time needed to prepare and implement assessment of collaborative learning in the classroom are indeed valid and true. I have come across these same issues that I need to address when managing my students in collaborative tasks.

Antonio mentions that the use of digital tools, reorganizing classroom space and introducing more interdisciplinary teaching and the sharing of materials amongst teachers as useful tips in managing collaborative work in students. It would prove helpful if teachers have enough digital competencies to help them work with students in producing digitised work that the teachers knew how to generate. The assistance that can be afforded by colleagues in other departments could likewise be tapped to ensure that the students' collaborative work would be more meaningful to their learning.  The questions that Antonio posed near the end of his presentation again touched the issue of assessing individual performance apart from that of the group performance.

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A sports teacher's experience of assessing students’ collaborative learning - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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A sports teacher's experience of assessing students’ collaborative learning - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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What do you think about the various assessment methods used by Chrysa to assess her pupils’ collaborative learning? Do you think the questions she asked her pupils were helpful in getting them to reflect about their collaborative skills? What do you think about implementing peer assessment with pupils of a young age (6-11 year olds)? Are there special considerations to be taken into account? What about her final question she asks us and our expert to reflect on; do you find it challenging to know how best to assess the individual participation of a student in a collaborative activity?

Chrysa's various assessment methods enabled her students to be mindful of their participation in the group. By having a separate assessment rubric for individual performance apart from that of the group performance, Chrysa tried to ensure that all the individual students in her class should contribute to the group and not allow only the more able ones to dominate in the group. Although measuring individual participation is a little hard to come by if done through rubric assessment.

The questions she asked her students only served to encourage her students to do better, especially those who belong to the upper age group (10-11 year olds). I doubt, however, if her younger students, the ones aged 6-7, fully understood what it means to perform individually for the purpose of serving the group's tasks. The self-assessment checklist is also better answered by the older group of Chrysa's students.

Peer assessment work well for the older group of students (aged 9 - 11). But for the younger ones (aged 6-8) this may prove a little difficult since those children in those age group category only favour the ones they are close to. They  do not yet exhibit sufficient maturity to assess their peers without being attached to them. Chrysa should probably not have to make the 6- to 8-year olds assess their peers. She could have done the teacher assessment on her own in this case.

The questions asked by Chrysa near the end of the presentation prove valid and something we could ponder on when measuring individual contribution to group efforts in collaborative work.

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Assessment for improving collaborative learning - response

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Assessment for improving collaborative learning - response

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For group work that can be better referred to as collaborative work, my assessment is usually in the form of rubric which I present before my students prior to the completion of their group presentation. This assessment somehow encourages my students to better achieve what is being graded in the components of their work. The only thing I should have emphasised in my rubric assessment is to have this displayed either in my Edmodo posts or in hard copy to be distributed to the student groups.

With regards to formative assessment that can be administered after a class discussion, I usually have these when all the students are not in groups, which may take place during the break-out session from their  group activity. The assessment would consist of questions that the students can complete under a specific time limit and need not necessarily have to be in-depth in coverage.

I must admit that the school I work for only takes into account project assessment with a weight of 10% of the final marks of students. Also, the learning outcomes in the course of the student learning, which may come in the form of digitised format, are not yet given enough credence by my school. Tangible projects that come in the form of physical creations are allowed to be displayed in class and those science research projects that can be showcased are usually exhibited during science fair held once a year.

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Assessment for improving collaborative learning

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Assessment for improving collaborative learning

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Do you think your assessment of collaborative work sometimes discourages students or encourages competition? If yes, how you do think this could be avoided? Is the assessment you carry out brief, clear and timely, and how do you ensure it is so; do you have tips to suggest for others? Does the summative assessment of each student in your school/subject take into account the learning outcomes related to collaborative work (such as project work/results)?

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The learning objectives for this module are:

1. Understand the principles of assessing collaborative learning

2. Appreciate the various challenges teachers face in assessing collaborative learning and the tips, tools and solutions available

3. Understand the value of using rubrics and checklists for assessing collaborative learning, and how to construct them

4. Appreciate the importance of involving students in the definition of assessment tools used for collaborative learning

5. Start creating one or more lesson plans integrating collaborative learning and assessment using the Learning Designer

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Learning Activity Highlighted -  Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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Learning Activity Highlighted -  Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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I am glad that rubric only serves to reinforce my categorisation that the low level of collaboration I specified in module 1 does indeed only allowed one or two members of the group to work and plan for the PowerPoint presentation and only a few of the members contributed to the research work supposedly done by the group. Also, for the high level of collaboration activity I mentioned in Module 1, the rubric pointe out that there was indeed some collaboration that took place among the members of the (experimental inquiry) groups.

The CLD Collaboration rubric enables me to really examine what is expected of students' roles in terms of working together with their group mates, how they could show that the members are indeed making substantive decisions and the kind of interdependent works the members must show in their group undertaking. In other words, I need to be more circumspect in my observation of the student dynamics and at the same time, ensure that the students are up to task in their work as collaborators. I shall refer to this rubric from time to time to ensure that I am indeed preparing the learning activity for my students along the line of meaningful collaboration.

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Collaborative learning scenarios - Bella (Indonesia)

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Collaborative learning scenarios - Bella (Indonesia)

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The template looks more of a unit plan but requires more details in terms of stating the digital tools needed for the collaborative  activity and what are involved in the seven phases of the collaboration.

The 6 sample scenarios look exhaustive -- in terms of documenting every aspect of the goals, the description  of each learning activity unto every phase of collaborative work, the roles of the teacher of the students in specific terms, not to mention the reflection and assessment portions as well.  But the flipped classroom scenario looked not as detailed as the others but provides plenty of room for reflection and assessment.

The scenarios by themselves look inspiring if somewhat daunting. I could probably tackle flipped classroom scenario as something I could adapt for my planned collaborative activity for my teaching of a chemistry unit. What I find useful, however, for the physics scenario was the resources provided for the template that included the PowerPoint presentation, the factsheet, glossary and the peer assessment sheet -- these lend the physics scenario more comprehensive in treatment and in undertaking such an activity. But nevertheless, these instruments were useful in the conduct of the activity. The sample scenarios would still prove helpful in my plan for a learning activity that involves collaboration.

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CLD Collaboration Rubric - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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CLD Collaboration Rubric - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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The rubric would enable me to properly envision the kind of tasks that I want my students to engage in. The rubric would not only be helpful in that regard, in designing a learning activity for collaborative work, but this would serve as well as an assessment guide for me in grading my students' works. Usually, I design a rubric (with the aid of http://rubistar.4teachers.org) after I told my students of their learning activity and the rubric would somehow tell the students what are the things I am looking for/at when grading their learning activity. With the rubric, my students are then guided on what are expected of them to do. Only that sometimes students work for the grade rubric after they satisfied the grading component of the rubric.

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Collaboration among students - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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Collaboration among students - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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Learning activity that requires low level of collaboration among students: When students in 5-6 member-groups are made to work on a presentation that requires PowerPoint production on a research topic assigned for them to study. Usually, the more able students tend to dominate in coordinating the tasks to be done by the members. They also end up doing most of the work for the group.
Learning activity that requires high level of collaboration among students: When students numbering to only 3 - 4 members per group come together to work on an experiment design about finding the rate of chemical reactions. All members are involved in designing the experiment, carrying out the activity, documenting the process the whole time, and presenting the results before the class. Though this activity is time-consuming, but it nevertheless, allowed students to collaborate more effectively. In the end, I still feel that students should evaluate themselves on how well they work together as a group.

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Collaborative work between colleagues - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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Collaborative work between colleagues - Bella Montero (Indonesia)

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In my school, there is collaborative work among teachers in lower primary. But this kind of work methodology is not present in upper primary nor in secondary. I must say that teachers in these levels are rather comfortable teaching in their own teaching styles and there is no real working relationship that is driven by school management that teachers can adapt into. It is true that the more able students would sometimes complain about being asked to do more for the group than the less able students. They do lament the fact that they share the same group grade as the other members of the group. Though this can't be helped at times, I, as a teacher, needs to explain the implications of group dynamics to all my students.

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Bella Montero - Indonesia

Collaborative learning requires that all members of the group share the common task of coming up with ideas or solutions to address a problem, or produce or enhance a product, whereby every member can assume different roles in the group so long as every one pools their efforts together regardless of how long the process might take or how frustrating the discussion might turn into.

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Collaborative learning in a flexible classroom

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Collaborative learning in a flexible classroom

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Bella Rose Montero - Indonesia
If my students should work into their assigned group, I would bring them to the science lab where every group is given a large table and students can freely collaborate while seated around the table. But when discussing a specific topic, I believe that making use of technology in order to put my students' thoughts into writing would indeed be helpful. I would definitely try this idea.

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Bella Rose Montero - Indonesia
I have never tried the 'circle time' whereby students identify the positive and negative aspects of their group work. I think that this approach to evaluating collaborative work is a novel idea and worth emulating. I do agree that technology helps a lot in collaborative work. Fast real-time search for information in the internet can best be facilitated through technology. I am especially impressed with the video conferencing with students in Ireland that led to greater understanding of the Italian students' study of Celtic history.

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A foreign language teacher's experience of collaborative learning

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A foreign language teacher's experience of collaborative learning

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Bella Rose Montero - Indonesia
Students disengaging and getting off track during group work are indeed some of the challenges that teachers face when managing collaborative work. Assessing teamwork can only be based on observation and the teacher needs to see every group in action and try to assess the teamwork by a set of rubric. Peer assessment can be slightly biased especially when students evaluate their peers whom they are not in good terms with. I would rather ask another teacher to assess with a rubric the team performance of the student groups. The online tools mentioned in the video are indeed helpful. I have been using Edmodo tp channel all my posts and messages to my students in a focused education network platform, Edmodo just serves this purpose.

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Collaborating while in a flexible environment and making use of technology to aid in the group discussion

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Collaborating while in a flexible environment and making use of technology to aid in the group discussion

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I shall definitely try to encourage my students to put their thoughts into writing while they are engaged in small group discussion.