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The process of working together to achieve a common goal:

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The process of working together to achieve a common goal:

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Collaborating to improve learner outcomes

Collaboration is the process of working together to achieve a common goal. In teaching, the common goal is always improved learner outcomes.

Teacher collaboration involves:

debating, planning, and problem-solving together

inquiring together, using evidence and research to guide decision-making

capitalising on each other's strengths and working with each other's weaknesses

actively contributing to a respectful and supportive learning environment.

Active collaboration is particularly important for creating a growth-based learning environment and for increasing student learning progress. Research shows that teachers who work together and learn from each other are more successful in improving student outcomes than those who work alone.

Through growth to achievement: Report of the review to achieve educational excellence in Australian schools ,(March 2018)

Shifting from "my learners" to "our learners"

Active collaboration requires a shift from managing the learning of a single group of learners to taking collective responsibility for the success and wellbeing of all learners. Innovative learning environments (ILEs) are changing the ways that teachers teach, plan, and inquire into teaching together, but regardless of the teaching environment, effective collaboration requires a shift of thinking from "me" to "we" and from "my learners" to "our learners".

We must stop allowing teachers to work alone, behind closed doors and in isolation in the staffrooms and instead shift to a professional ethic that emphasises collaboration. We need communities within and across schools that work collaboratively to diagnose what teachers need to do, plan programmes and teaching interventions and evaluate the success of the interventions. We need communities that promote and share professional development aimed at improving teacher effectiveness and expertise, that devise performance 'dashboards' to show success in learning and achievement and that build a coalition of the successful.
What works best in education: The politics of collaborative expertise

Teachers at Stonefields School discuss teacher collaboration in an innovative learning environment, including the shift they have taken from individual to collective effort. The teachers discuss the mentoring, support, dialogue, and questioning that come from teaching in a shared space.

Collaboration and inquiry

Collective inquiry is at the heart of teacher collaboration because it brings teachers together as learners, with a shared goal of improving learner outcomes. In professional learning communities, all teachers contribute as equals, seeking to understand and respond to what is happening for their learners. The focus is on problem-solving together, drawing on both research and student evidence to inform and evaluate changes to practice.

Collective inquiry fosters a trusting and open learning community in which mistakes are an accepted part of learning.

Teachers at St Patrick's Silverstream discuss the benefits of participating in a professional learning community. They comment on the importance of taking ownership over your teaching practice, examining its impact, and being open to making changes.

Key benefits include:

a sense of "all being in it together"

having a critical friend to support you

trying new things and getting feedback from students and colleagues on their impact

being part of an ongoing process on reflection.

Benefits of active teacher collaboration

All members of learning communities benefit from effective collaboration.

Learners benefit from collaborative teaching because teachers take collective responsibility for the progress of all learners. Teachers who know how to collaborate effectively model skills of collaboration to their learners.

Collaborative teaching environments provide opportunities for teachers to learn from and with each other on an ongoing basis. Teachers can observe other teachers in action, engage in professional conversations about the impact of different approaches, and get feedback on their own teaching.

Collaborative teaching teams capitalise on each other's strengths, support each other's professional growth, debate ideas, and problem solve together. This creates synergy, allowing teams to achieve more than they would if teachers work independently.

Educators and students at the Grow Waitaha Eduhui in Christchurch share the impacts of collaborative teaching and learning. Teachers are seeing higher levels of student engagement and improvements in achievement. Students comment on the benefits of working collaboratively and having agency over their learning.

Dr. Julia Aitken discusses the benefits of students being able to observe teachers collaborating, a skill that has many real-world applications. She comments that effective collaboration may involve working constructively and professionally with people you don't naturally get on with.

More information "

Developing collaborative capabilities

To collaborate effectively, teachers need to be deliberate about developing their collaborative capabilities. This includes:

actively contributing to a safe and supportive teaching environment

being skilled at managing conflict

having a growth mindset

taking collective responsibility for the wellbeing and success of all learners.

Key factors that contribute to collaborative teaching

This diagram from Stonefields School illustrates key factors that contribute to collaborative teaching.

More information "

Relational trust

Relational trust is a prerequisite for engaging in challenging conversations and for creating an environment where participants are open to their practice and the outcomes they achieve for students being made transparent. Where there is relational trust, members feel free to open up and acknowledge what they do not know, take risks, and use their knowledge and expertise to support others in the community. Trust relationships facilitate the sharing of data and information about students and the provision of supported educational pathways.

ERO (2017) Collaboration to improve learner outcomes, p 12

Relational trust takes time and effort to establish. Key factors that can contribute to relational trust include:

keeping learner needs at the centre of everything you do

encouraging each other to try new things

being familiar with people's strengths and suspending judgement about their weaknesses

being open about your own mistakes and challenges

accepting other teachers' "non-negotiables"

learning how to engage in difficult conversations

having strategies in place for when things aren't going well.

Teachers at the Grow Waitaha Eduhui explain successful collaboration is supported by:

building relationships with your colleagues - identifying teacher strengths and areas that need work

understanding what collective responsibility means

knowing your learners and keeping the needs of the children at the centre of decision making.

Establishing a shared vision for collaboration

Having a shared vision is an important part of successful collaboration. Teachers who understand the impact collaboration can have on learners, and on their own teaching practice, are more likely to commit time and energy towards collaborative practices.

A key part of the process is deciding together on the systems, approaches, and measures that will help the team collaborate successfully.

Dr Julia Aitken discusses the importance of having a shared vision for the purpose of education. She highlights the importance of understanding the "why" of change rather than just changing for the sake of it.

Professional conversations

Professional conversations are conversations that focus on improving learner outcomes. Examples include:

observations and improvement-focused feedback

identifying issues of practice and problem solving them together, often as part of a professional learning community

critically examining student results and exploring what they mean for professional practice.

Dr Helen Timperley, Professor of Education at the University of Auckland, discusses key findings from her literature review examining the research on professional conversations at schools. She describes enablers for effective professional conversations .

Resources - the tools, materials, protocols, and expertise that help to shape conversations.

Relationships - relationships of trust, challenge, and mutual respect that lead to participants feeling empowered to make a difference.

Processe s - processes that keep the focus of conversations on learner outcomes.

Knowledge - enabling knowledge that leads to changes in practice.

Culture - an inquiry-focused and problem-solving culture in which participants take collective responsibility for problem solving and creating change. A key factor of developing such a culture is teachers being prepared to examine their own practice.

More information "

Managing conflict

Developing the communication skills required to manage conflict is essential for successful collaboration.

A key challenge for all teachers is knowing how to have difficult conversations with colleagues (conversations that you might prefer to avoid).

The small stuff, often quite low level, can have huge "get up your nose" potential. How tidy, how timely, of how your hub colleagues do a wall display has the potential to cause dissonance, or what we have simply come to term rub amongst team members."

Martin & Bradbeer (2016)

Learning how to address points of difference with a colleague includes understanding the conversation that needs to be had, when it needs to happen, and the right person to have it with.

Kirsten Harris-Tatana from South Hornby School discusses the steps teachers employed to establish trust and build relationships that support collaboration. Using Joan Dalton's Learning Talk series, the team identified keys to building successful relationships, including:

discussing, acknowledging, and agreeing on non-negotiables before working in a collaborative space

taking time to discuss small problems

supporting new team members by seeking their ideas and input into already established systems and processes.

We have watched the most synergetic teams provide time and forums to have conversations about how individuals like to be supported, how they like to be communicated with - "elephant time" on meeting agendas, where potential elephants growing within the hub are addressed and worked through.

Martin & Bradbeer (2016)

A continuum of conflict management

This table shows how teachers at Stonefields School define a continuum of conflict management.

Manages conflict: The capability to proactively address and resolve conflict through collaborative sense-making

Conflict addressed through sense-making conversations.

Source: Creating collaborative effectiveness: One school's approach .

More information "

Team teaching

In innovative learning environments (ILEs), teachers often work directly with another teacher (or teachers) to meet the learning needs of a large group of learners. Benefits of this approach include:

the ability to group learners according to need, for example, by running needs-based workshops

combining expertise, including cross-disciplinary knowledge

opening up the teaching and learning environment so that teachers and learners learn from one another

opportunities to experiment with alternative approaches to teaching and learning.

Dr Julia Aitken discusses the benefits of working in a collaborative learning environment. Teachers are able to provide targeted support to small groups of students. Collaborative learning environments provide opportunities for teachers to learn from each other through observation and feedback. Dr Aitken provides examples of ways secondary school teachers collaborate across disciplines.

Educators from secondary schools around Canterbury share their cross-curricular approach to collaborative teaching and learning.

Participants of the Canterbury Delving Deeper Conference 2016 share how a change to more collaborative practice has worked for teachers and learners.

Models of team teaching

ILEs provide opportunities for teachers to structure the way they work with students in different ways, depending on the learning needs of the students.

Models of team teaching include:

One teach, one observe: teachers take turns teaching and observing. The purpose of the observation is to gather data that can be analysed later.

Station teaching: each teacher takes responsibility for teaching a different skill or area of content. Students move from one station to the next. Some of the stations can involve independent student learning.

Parallel teaching: teachers teach the same content to different groups. This can be used to differentiate the learning experience, covering the same content but at a different pace or with extra scaffolding.

Tag-team teaching: both teachers share the delivery of content to a group of learners.

Read more about models of team teaching:

Collaborative planning and assessment

Planning and assessing collaboratively helps teachers to better meet the needs of diverse learners.

Collaborative planning

Collaborative planning provides opportunities for teachers to work to their strengths. At secondary schools, collaborative planning can help to make cross-disciplinary connections evident, with students exploring key concepts in different contexts.

Anita Head, year 5-6 team leader at Halswell School, discusses the enablers of student success within their innovative learning environment. Shared planning via Google Docs has been important to ensure that each staff member understands what's happening for each of their students. Anita explains, "The key things that have enabled successful learning for our students have been that the staff are all working collaboratively together. So we're learning from each other and developing any of our needs and our strengths in our own practice and we're able to offer a wider range of opportunities for the students.

Planning tools and templates

Everyone's In - An inclusive planning tool that supports teachers to apply principles of Universal Design for Learning when planning.

Collaborative planning template examples - Crowd sourced Google slides with screenshots of teachers' shared planning.

Collaborative assessment

The primary purpose of assessment is to improve students' learning by identifying gaps in what students know, understand, or can do. Because most assessment occurs naturally through everyday classroom interactions, collaborative assessment can require some creativity. For example, some schools track information on behaviour and learning using SMS. (The SMS has been set up to produce a monitoring grid once data has been submitted via text, so teachers only have to enter the data once.)

While larger classes may mean it takes more time to get to know students and their learning needs, having more teachers means that while one teacher works with a group, another can gather data from individual students. Conducting one-to-one formative and summative assessments provides a much clearer understanding of individuals' skill levels. This data can then enable teachers to group and regroup learners for activities according to the skill being taught or practised. Share data gathered through online tools that work best within your team, for example your SMS, Google spreadsheets or docs.

Supporting students to use online tools to demonstrate their learning provides teachers with easy access to their learning processes, enabling virtual feedback and feedforward.

Lisa Dovey, year 7-8 team leader at Halswell School, discusses the benefits of collaborative teaching. Her team uses Google Docs and Google Hangouts to support collaborative planning, teaching, and assessment. She explains, "We do a lot of planning together, which is really fantastic. It means that all of our strengths are put together."

Formal assessment tools

Formal assessment tools can be used to provide valid and reliable information on student learning. Here are some examples:

Other examples of assessment tools are available via TKI .

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Resources

Grow Waitaha

The goal of Grow Waitaha is to assist schools to achieve pedagogical change in a meaningful and manageable way, with a network of support, and to put learners at the centre of that change. This page links to Grow Waitaha's list of resources on approaches to collaborative teaching.

Research and readings

The key components to creating effective collaborative teaching and learning environments

This research project investigates the key components necessary to create effective co-teaching relationships and environments.
What is professional collaboration and how can its practice be enriched and led to support student learning within and across schools?
Gina Benade researched what leading effective and disciplined collaboration within and across schools looks like to better understand how this process can enhance and influence student achievement.

A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry

Using a range of examples from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, this paper makes the case for new approaches to designing learning and teaching and how we might achieve this. It also provides a model for long term PLD within schools.

Hattie, J. (2015) What works best in education: The politics of collaborative expertise, London: Open Ideas at Pearson

Hattie explores developing collaborative expertise across of all parts of the education system - collaboration horizontally (from teacher to teacher, from school to school) and vertically (from teacher to school leader to policy-maker).

High-quality collaboration benefits teachers and students

A summary analysis of the study by Ronfeldt, M., Farmer, S., McQueen, K., & Grissom, J. (2015). Teacher collaboration in instructional teams and student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 52 (3), 475-514.

Martin, S. & Bradbeer, C. (2016). Creating collaborative effectiveness: One school's approach. SET: Research Information for Teachers, New Zealand Council for Educational Research, (2)

Creating the conditions for effective teacher collaboration has been seen as a critical component of the work that leaders have been engaged in at Stonefields School since it opened in 2011.

ERO (2017). Collaboration to improve learner outcomes. Wellington: Education Review Office, Te Tari Arotake Mātauranga

This publication is designed to support Communities of Learning | Kāhui Ako by bringing together research findings about effective collaboration in education communities. It is supported by the publication Communities of Learning | Kāhui Ako: working towards collaborative pratice.

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Collaboration is the process of working together to achieve a common goal. In teaching, the common goal is always improved learner outcomes. Teacher collaboration involves: debating, planning, and problem-solving together inquiring together, using evidence and research to guide decision-making capitalising on each other's strengths and working with each other's weaknesses actively contributing to a respectful and supportive learning environment.

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Interaction is a vital part of learning:

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Interaction is a vital part of learning:

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This means being able to communicate with others through different modes and means. As teachers move to online methods of teaching, it can be hard to keep the same level of interaction up as there would normally be in the physical classroom. That’s why it’s important to find ways of allowing your students to continue interacting with each other, and even with those beyond the virtual classroom. One way of doing this is through online collaboration tools. In this post, I will provide some tips on how to identify effective online collaboration tools for your online learners.

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Good collaboration tools should meet several core principles of learning:

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Good collaboration tools should meet several core principles of learning:

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1. Meaningful interaction – we learn best when we use language in a meaningful way

2. Positive engagement – we learn best when we’re engaged, motivated and challenged by the  learning process

3. Autonomous learning – we learn best when we develop the skills to manage our own learning

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1. What do you already know about collaborative tools?

2. What do you want to find out about collaborative tools?

3. What have you learnt about collaborative tools?

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Gather your thoughts, then make them even better

Revise your notes with type, highlighting, or ink annotations. With OneNote across all your devices, you'll never miss a flash of inspiration.

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Microsoft OneNote Digital Note Taking App | Microsoft 365

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Microsoft OneNote has your digital notebook needs covered. With OneNote 2016 we've made our notebook organizer tools even stronger and collaboration easier.

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30 digital collaboration tools for students:

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30 digital collaboration tools for students:

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contributed by Nicholas Martino & TeachThought Staff

We are living in a digital age where students shuffle between learning apps and social and communication platforms constantly.

We can now communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime through the simple click of a button, and it is our job as educators to leverage these collaborative tools in the classroom. Many schools are finding creative ways to incorporate blended learning in their curriculums, and THINK Global School, where I teach, is no different.

Due to our focus on blended learning and travel, it is imperative that we remain as paperless as possible. Technology can often make or break our experiences as we study in different countries around the world, so we must hit the ground running during our seven-week intensive country visits. And depending on how they are integrated into our teaching toolkits, the tools used for our blended learning units can either help or hinder our student learning experiences.

Like you, we've tested our fair share of tools in trying to make the digital collaboration process with our students as seamless as possible. Some have worked incredibly while others not so much. But there are five that we've ended up going back to time after time-tools that just make student collaboration online (and thus blended learning) that much easier.
Student-To-Student & School-To-School Digital Collaboration: 30 Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students 1. Dig social bookmarks? You'll love Diigo
Remember the old days when a librarian came carting books into your classroom for an upcoming report?

Imagine Diigo as a digital version of that librarian and the entire internet as her cart. Items in this cart, however, can be retained for as long as you like without the fear of overdue book fees. Diigo, which stands for 'Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff,' is a great social-bookmarking tool that helps students or classes capture relevant research articles on a given topic.

By offering mobile versions via Android and iOS and add-ons downloadable for Firefox and Chrome, Diigo can be accessed anywhere, anytime-perfect for lessons in the classroom and those that extend out into the field.

See also 12 Of The Best Bookmarking Tools For Teachers
How We Use Diigo
This tool has become a crucial part of our school's approach to managing project-based learning resources. Since we are constantly on-the-move, a few books, let alone entire physical libraries, are impossible for us to reasonably transport. Diigo eliminates that concern, and helps our students curate and build an ever-growing library of bookmarks for our modules year after year.

Countries and specific place- and project-based modules have their own groups for students to contribute to and annotate resources. When a guest speaker visits, we can quickly create a research group to curate a list of resources so that our entire student body is informed and attentive before the speaker arrives.
2. Tap into your students' love of video with Flipgrid
FlipGrid is a video tool that is meant to encourage discussion and engagement. These short video-logs allow students to share ideas and opinions in a fun and hands-on way, as video submissions are often more enticing to students than a written response (this is especially true for teachers of ESL learners, who sometimes get anxiety about their written work.)

FlipGrid provides another approach for long-distance collaboration: The time limits are an added challenge to students who sometimes struggle with brevity. It's important to note that the free version offers limited features, while the paid version features offer full student collaboration and video conversation.
How We Use FlipGrid
In our Economics and eCommerce module, students use FlipGrid to summarize, discuss and review two different resources for the project-based learning module. In the module, students learn social entrepreneurship and e-commerce by developing a web store to support rural artisans.

Before their arrival in India, students researched the stories behind successful brands and shared them in a 'grid.' In the 'grid,' students use rhetorical devices to compete with their classmates to pitch the story of the brand they selected. This early application of rhetoric devices develops throughout the module before students present a business pitch to a panel of potential investors.
3. Collectively annotate YouTube videos with VideoAnt
As a former history and anthropology teacher, I was thrilled to stumble across VideoAnt. In the past, my students would laugh at the number of times I would pause a video to ask a question or interject a counterpoint. Now, instead of just showing a YouTube video, you can annotate YouTube videos to maximize efficiency and learning.

Students and teachers can add comments to video 'Ants,' adding all sorts of untapped academic potential. Students can point out bias, critique video style, and ask probing and clarifying questions, just to name a few uses.

Also, if any coaches are reading this, this makes for an excellent review tool when analyzing practice drills, pre-game scouting, and game film breakdowns.
How We Use VideoAnt
In our Zero to Infinity module, students carved up an hour-long documentary about mathematics titled "The Story of One." Educators annotate certain times with questions for reflection and short answers, while students annotate with different follow-up questions, and clarifying comments.

Due to our students' geographic diversity, there can be large gaps in their understanding of mathematics. This tool helps educators gain more insight into the student math experience before starting the module.
4. Create & Collaborate Anywhere in the World with Padlet
Padlet allows for creative collaboration using a range of different mixed media sources.

In real-time or across time zones, students can contribute videos, images, comments on a virtual corkboard. Each student can comment or reply to the work of another student or add a new strand on the topic that is introduced.
How We Use Padlet
During our ongoing "Water and Sustainability" module, students are using Padlet to document their experiences with data collection and the use of statistics in their daily life. They are sharing passions, applications, and websites to help each other realize the everyday benefits of understandings statistics. These include a range of topics such as distance running, gardening, vegetarian nutrition, and sleep maintenance.

By learning about each other, they are in turn gaining a deeper understanding of the wide range of applications of statistics.
25 More Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students
5. Skype: Video chat, text chat, etc.

6. Zoom: Live stream video and video chat

7. Google Drive: Collaborate on multimedia projects, share files, collaborate on documents, etc.

8. WeTransfer: Transfer files of almost any size with WeTransfer. Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive (9) are decent alternatives.

10. Scribblar: Online collaborative whiteboarding. Also consider 'Explain Everything.'

11. Microsoft Translator: Translate languages via text, voice, or photograph to more easily communicate in other languages. Also, consider Google Translate (12)

12. Twitch: Stream games for game-based learning. Channels, chat, and more.

13. Pear Deck: According to the developer, Pear Desk is a tool for Google Slide presentations and templates that allows you to transform "presentations into classroom conversations with an array of interactive and formative assessment questions."

14. Kahoot: Game-based learning and content reinforcement through competition and collaboration

15. Drawp: According to the developer, Drawp is "a K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content, and workflow management" Also consider (16) learning journal.

17. Minecraft for Education: Students can work together to explore ecosystems, solve problems through design, architecture, etc. See also teaching with Strategies To Teach Like Minecraft.

18. Voicethread: Content-based conversations about selected media through 'threads'

See also 10 tips for using Voicethread in your classroom.

19. Explain Everything: Similar in function to Voicethread but focused on students visually demonstrating knowledge rather than through voice.

See also Free Explain Everything lesson ideas.

20. GooseChaseEdu: Online scavenger hunts. for team-building and content reinforcement.

21. Microsoft Teams: A digital hub likely best-suited for project-based learning support. Also consider Slack (22) Redbooth (23) or Trello (24).

25. Spiral: A formative assessment tool with video, group and quiz exercises, completed in class or at home, collaborative review, etc.

26. Piazza: A free, K-12+ Q&A platform

Also consider Quora (27) or reddit (28).

29. Peergrade: According to the developer, Peergrade is a "free online platform to facilitate peer feedback sessions with students."

30. Playposit: According to the developer, Playposit is "an online learning environment to create and share interactive video lessons. Teachers begin with any online video (screencasts, Khan Academy, TED, etc.) and transform what is traditionally passive content into an active experience for students, with time-embedded activities."

Tip: Most tools are either for 'school' or 'not school.' That means tools like Seesaw and Explain Everything are made for school and tools like Quora and reddit aren't. Obviously, school-friendly tools have many benefits (e.g., data privacy) but drawbacks as well (e.g., lack of authentic content). When using 'not made expressly for school' tools, try to leverage its strengths while minimizing its pitfalls.

See Also A Guide To Finding Digital Books: 20+ Free Online Libraries
Conclusion
While the TGS Changemaker Curriculum is unique in its approach to blended and field learning, any institution can adapt these tools for their personal teaching methods. Portable, user-friendly and effective, these tools can and will help anyone, anywhere, as they make content more fun for students to digest.

Absences are a daily occurrence at any school, but these tools can ease the burden on both the teacher and the student by keeping them informed and engaged regarding the day's lesson plan. Teachers who flip their classrooms (here are 54 tools for a flipped classroom) can also use these tools to ensure students collaborate productively from home.

With the application of any new tech in the classroom, it is important to remember that web tools do not replace sound pedagogy. When adding these to your toolkit, treat them as learning supplements, not as a magic wand for better teaching.
Follow @maats_defenders for more on education 30 Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students

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30 Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students

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What are the best online student collaboration tools? That depends on the nature of the digital collaboration.

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Select a few of your favourite or try new tools:

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Select a few of your favourite or try new tools:

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1. Create an online collaborative project for your class to work on in small groups.

2. Select a method of communication with your class: Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc.

3. Use Nearpod to present an engaging and interactive lesson on the project, during your online calls.

4. Assign students into groups with specific project tasks to complete using Padlet.

5. Use Break Out rooms during your online calls.  Place the various groups into break out rooms, to allow students to collaborate during your calls.

6. Finally, allow students to present their group projects during a final webinar.  Use Peer feedback to encourage reflection.