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Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom Is Key

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Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom Is Key

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In order to expect children how to be able to work together in collaborative groups, they must be taught the proper way of doing it.  This article discusses steps in supporting students in deep and meaningful collaboration.

Citation

Alber, R. (2017, June 19). Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom Is Key. Retrieved December 26, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/deeper-learning-collaboration-key-rebecca-alber

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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The role of elementary school counselors compared with their middle and secondary school counterparts.

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The role of elementary school counselors compared with their middle and secondary school counterparts.

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In comparison to middle and secondary schools, elementary school counseling is treated differently.  In some states, only middle and high school are required to employ counselors for continued accreditation, whereas it is pertinent for school funding for other schools to employ elementary school counselors.  Because elementary counseling is a younger profession, it is viewed differently.  School counseling evolved out of vocational counseling, which was predominantly at the secondary school level; and the day-to-day activity of secondary school counselors may be more valuable than that of the elementary counselor.  There are four main functions of counselor actions: guidance curriculum, individual planning, responsive services, and system support. Research has backed the idea that elementary school counselors spend more time on the guidance curriculum and less on individual planning than other school counselors.

Citation

Hardesty, P. H., & Dillard, J. M. (1994). The role of elementary school counselors compared with their middle and secondary school counterparts. Elementary School Guidance & Counseling, 29, 83–91. Retrieved from https://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=508539172&site=eds-live&scope=site

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Evidence Based Collaborative Practice Model

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Evidence Based Collaborative Practice Model

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Collaboration is a tool that is beneficial for students of all ages to be successful in the 21st century workforce.  This model demonstrates the work related tasks (instructional strategies and student engagement) and cognitive strategies that are associated with work related strategies (building trust and empathy, communication, collaboration, engaging in inquiry, problem solving, receiving feedback, metacognition, and reflection) that is important in collaborative practices.

Citation

Communities of Practice and Collaborative Teaching Practices - Intern Coaching and Mentoring. (n.d.). Retrieved December 26, 2018, from https://sites.google.com/site/interncoachingandmentoring/communities-of-practice-and-collaborative-teaching-practices

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5 Strategies to Deepen Student Collaboration

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5 Strategies to Deepen Student Collaboration

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Collaboration is a tool that is beneficial for school age students to learn in order to be successful in the 21st century.  Engaging in the art of collaboration can be a daunting task with the lack of communication between group members, complaints that group members are not pulling their weight, or individualized goals.  There are 5 strategies to assist in encouraging effective collaboration:

1.    Create learning activities that are complex

2.    Prepare students to be part of a team

3.    Minimize opportunities for free riding

4.    Build in many opportunities for discussion and consensus

5.    Focus on strengthening and stretching expertise

Citation

Burns, M. (2016, November 22). 5 Strategies to Deepen Student Collaboration. Retrieved December 26, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-strategies-deepen-student-collaboration-mary-burns

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Use these five best practices to help your students build a valuable 21st-century skill.

iStock.com/Christopher Futcher

Most of us who teach believe in the power of collaboration and frequently engage our students in collaborative activities. But how many times have we put students in groups only to watch them interact with their laptops instead of each other? Or pursue their own individual goals instead of consult with one another? Or complain about a lazy teammate?

Promoting real collaboration is hard to do well-and it doesn't just happen on its own. If we want real collaboration, we need to intentionally design it as part of our learning activity. These are five strategies to encourage effective collaboration.

Create Learning Activities That Are Complex

Students need a reason to collaborate. If the assignment is too simple, they can more easily do it alone. At most, they may check in with each other or interact in superficial ways. The real reason to collaborate is because the task is complex-it is too difficult and has too many pieces to complete alone.

Complex activities are challenging, engaging, stimulating, and multilayered. Complex activities require "positive interdependence" (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 2008), a situation in which attaining the goal, completing the task, being successful, and getting a good grade require that the team work together and share knowledge.

One way to do this is through rigorous projects that require students to identify a problem (for example, balancing population growth in their city with protection of existing green spaces) and agree-through research, discussion, debate, and time to develop their ideas-on a solution which they must then propose together.

Prepare Students to Be Part of a Team

Help students understand the benefits of collaboration and what successful collaboration looks like.

Guide students through the stages of team building (forming, storming, norming, and performing).

Give students time and opportunities within the activity to develop leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management skills.

Establish expectations and norms for working together.

Design, or have students design, protocols for handling conflict disagreement so they can resolve issues within their teams.

Teach students active listening skills.

Collaborative groups can't be assigned-they have to be built and nurtured. Students often need to learn how to work effectively with others and as part of a team. We have to help students understand the what, why, and how of collaboration. We can do this in several ways:

Minimize Opportunities for Free Riding

Create small groups of no more than four or five people. When there is less room to hide, nonparticipation is more difficult.

Ensure a high degree of individual accountability (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 2008) by assessing students both individually and as a group. For example, at the end of the day give students an individual quiz based on the intended outcome of their collaborative activity.

Design meaningful team roles that relate to the content and to the task. Roles like time keeper are episodic and don't intellectually engage students in the content, and this can encourage free riding. In contrast, more meaningful roles such as manager, monitor, and leaders for each subtask of the activity give students ownership in the process and allow the teacher to assess students based on successful completion of these roles.

Have students evaluate their own participation and effort and that of each team member and triangulate those assessments with your own

When students complain about collaborative groups, it often has to do with the free riding of one member who lets others do all the work and then benefits from the group grade. We can eliminate free riding in a number of ways:

Build in Many Opportunities for Discussion and Consensus

Many group projects are based on efficiency, dividing labor to create a product in the most effective way possible. This focus on the product means that we often ignore the process of collaboration. Rich discussions that connect students with the experiences of others, that engage them deeply in a shared intellectual experience, and that promote coming to consensus are essential to collaboration.

For instance, students can come to consensus around a solution or decision where they must defend or propose a common vision or develop a set of beliefs or principles. This focus on discussion and consensus builds both academic and social skills-students learn to defend their ideas through evidence and analytical reasoning, to negotiate meaning, and to argue constructively.

Focus on Strengthening and Stretching Expertise

The challenge of designing good collaborative activities is ensuring that all students, even those who struggle, play an important role. Collaboration should not just strengthen students' existing skills but ensure that their interactions stretch existing knowledge and expand one another's expertise. If, for example, a student is much stronger in one skill than her peers in her group, she can teach others and her grade can be contingent upon how much her peers learn.

In collaborative activities, we want to ensure that students don't just occupy the same physical space but that they share an intellectual space-that they learn more, do more, and experience more together than they would alone. As teachers, we can promote real collaboration by shifting our role from instructor to coach-promoting team autonomy, checking in on students and providing instant feedback, and helping them increasingly learn to work together productively to attain a common goal.

Reference:

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (2008). Cooperation in the Classroom.

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5 Strategies to Deepen Student Collaboration

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Use these five best practices to help your students build a valuable 21st-century skill.