2.3 The 4 Collaboration Questions by EUN Partnership aisbl

Dalia, Lithuania

baltijadm — 2016-10-31 13:24:29 UTC

Only sharing responsibility students can reach their objectives. The product is the most important, however, without thorough planning and process there will be no wanted product

Stella Maris Berdaxagar from Argentina.

2016-10-31 13:32:41 UTC

The four questions reveal important features of collaboration : team awareness with shared responsibility based on effective communication and negotiation skills for substantive decisions and interdependence to achieve a goal and develop a learning path together. These four questions arise naturally when assessing the experience if they have not been considered when planning.

Chiara A.

chiarastella_albanello — 2016-10-31 14:41:23 UTC

Working in a group doesn' t mean being in front of a collaborative learning. It 's essential to design work and ask the quality of collaboration that we want to develop in our students, because it becomes a basic skill: learning with others. It is therefore essential that everyone can consider responsibility for their own role and responsibility of the decisions together, even confronting harshly. So we have to give quality to the process, not only to the content of a job. I totally agree

Grazia Paladino, Italy

2016-10-31 14:51:46 UTC

The four questions are the key tools for organizing a good collaborative activities that will lead to tangible results. The quality of a product made in a collaborative way we see how the four questions are experienced together.
The fundamental point is also the role of the teacher is very important guidance of members of each team. It 'also very important as the content is organized, so to speak processed up to the result. So it's not so much the result, but the process is constantly monitored by the teacher

Maria Daniela Roberto

gligomat448 — 2016-10-31 14:58:08 UTC

In cooperative learning there is positive interdependence, I meanstudents are bound to cooperation, because none of them can run thetask without partner with the rest of the group. In other words: we wintogether or we lose together.
Nell'Apprendimento Cooperative interdependence of goal is reinforcedwith:-the interdependence of resources;
the interdependence of identity: because the Group has a name and isdifferent from the other groups;
-the interdependence of prize: switch to reward the entire group, if allmembers participated constructively.
Positive interdependence while important is not sufficient to ensure asuccessful collaboration. The second basic element of cooperativelearning is, in fact, promotional, or the sense of group interaction.
As coaches and business managers know well, not enough force teammembers to work together, the next step is to create a sense ofbelonging to the group that will facilitate positive social relations andconstructive.
Other activities facilitating are those that promote mutual knowledgeamong students, because they build trust and support among boys.
Another basic element of cooperative learning is the teaching of socialskills necessary for cooperation. To further enhance cooperation,Cooperative Learning involves a fourth basic element which is individualresponsibility.
In fact, to avoid attitudes of delegation of responsibility, cooperativelearning includes specific strategies that allow the teacher to monitorthe participation of each student.

Angela C. Italy

angelacaruso — 2016-10-31 15:00:22 UTC

I have to be very careful designing learning activities about the type and quality of students collaboration

Ana Cristina Ginja, Portugal

kiginja — 2016-10-31 15:11:16 UTC

Working together, share responsibility, decide together but in a fixed manner and be autonomous in tasks are essential criteria for a good performance in the collaborative work

Massimo, Italy

massimo_pescato — 2016-10-31 15:12:53 UTC

I think the most important question is: do they have shared responsibility? Each effective learning process should deal with taking responsibility and the big step forward children have to do is taking the responsibility not only of themselves, but even of themselves as part of a group.

Viviana, Italy

2016-10-31 15:14:15 UTC

The four collaboration questions are very important in order to design learning activities which develop collaborative skills. Actually, it's not only a question of "let them working togheter", but "let them share responsability and make decisions about the content, the process and the product of their activity". When designing collaborative learning activities, i always asked myself these questions before, but i was not always able to let them make decisions about the process and the product. Sometimes, at school, time misses and teachers have to "encourage" their children by giving them some prompt... But, i promise, i will work hard in order to don't let this happen again.

Manoilă Maria, Romania

marimanoila1 — 2016-10-31 15:19:44 UTC

Strategy cooperative learning provides students an opportunity to deliver on the need to work together in a collegial atmosphere of mutual help and mutual support. Groups enable testing of ideas, opinions and review the development of interpersonal intelligence.

Valeria Manfreda

2016-10-31 15:21:03 UTC

When I project an activity I use 4 major question of Professor Deirdre Butler.
They are useful to create the right way to study, to project, to think about pupils' activities. The atmosphere of collaboration is really necessary to obtain good and shared product. Shared responsibility helps pupils to be punctual, precise and improve critical thinking. Every pupil is responsible of the outcomes.

Fabiana Italy

fabiana2 — 2016-10-31 15:44:09 UTC

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/coopcollab/index_sub3.html

What are the benefits of cooperative and collaborative learning?

Benefits from small-group learning in a collaborative environment include:

| Celebration of diversity. Students learn to work with all types of people. During small-group interactions, they find many opportunities to reflect upon and reply to the diverse responses fellow learners bring to the questions raised. Small groups also allow students to add their perspectives to an issue based on their cultural differences. This exchange inevitably helps students to better understand other cultures and points of view.

| Acknowledgment of individual differences. When questions are raised, different students will have a variety of responses. Each of these can help the group create a product that reflects a wide range of perspectives and is thus more complete and comprehensive.

| Interpersonal development. Students learn to relate to their peers and other learners as they work together in group enterprises. This can be especially helpful for students who have difficulty with social skills. They can benefit from structured interactions with others.

| Actively involving students in learning. Each member has opportunities to contribute in small groups. Students are apt to take more ownership of their material and to think critically about related issues when they work as a team.

| More opportunities for personal feedback. Because there are more exchanges among students in small groups, your students receive more personal feedback about their ideas and responses. This feedback is often not possible in large-group instruction, in which one or two students exchange ideas and the rest of the class listens.

Valerica-Romania

dvaly2010 — 2016-10-31 15:44:49 UTC

Watching and listening the video I was thinking of what I usually did. I always think of all the 4 questions because i am inteersted in a real collaboration not only in a final product.

sevim Hazar-Turkey

sevimhazar05 — 2016-10-31 16:10:47 UTC

I have asked myself these questions ,because teacher is not hero,teacher is created hero of class.

Heidi Belgium

heidi_schrijvers — 2016-10-31 16:12:55 UTC

I already make use of these questions. Here in the video they are explained very well. It is key to keep them in mind when creating a collaboration project. It also helps with evaluating the project.

Tamar Chalakheshashvili Georgia

tamarigia — 2016-10-31 16:15:41 UTC

These four issues are important for cooperation in order to develop learning activities that develop cooperative skills. The main thing to get the final product. In the development of co-curricular activities, I ask myself these questions, but I do not always find the answers. I am required to rethink the whole process. I think I will succeed

Mafalda Lapa, Portugal

lapa_mafalda — 2016-10-31 16:25:21 UTC

I have thought about this issues in a non organized way. Here all is very clarified and Professor Deidre Butler adives will be very usefull for me. I confess that sometimes I give students to much responsibility and some of them get lost. From now on I will use this questions

Jole, Sicily

jolecapo — 2016-10-31 16:31:15 UTC

When I am going to propose a collaborative activity usually proceed like this: prepare the project indicating: times, topics to be addressed cooperatively by students, topics to be addressed individually. It is important in-depth knowledge of the interests, motivation and capabilities of each. It is important that they are clear on what they need to do and what you will expect from them. For this always communicate, precisely, the objectives to be achieved and the tasks to be performed.
Later I divide the groups and check the ruoli.Definisco the evaluation criteria and the work carried out self-assessment and of the executed process.

Ann McHugh, Ireland

ann_mchugh — 2016-10-31 16:42:36 UTC

The questions are helpful to plan collaboration, and to define collaboration, as opposed to other types of peer work.

Roberta Scarselli

2016-10-31 16:55:57 UTC

ITALY
The process is so important! I agree that it is more important than thequality of the product in the beginning.
I agree with the fact that it is fundamental to observe the quality of their working together. Sometimes it is a challeng to have all the students working together in groups. A little percent of my students 2-3 in a class of 25 children, find it difficult to relate nicely in a little group, so the quality of the collaboration is compromised and I try to change groups regularly in order to help each student to partecipate and collaborate with other students.
I have seen that day by day they manage to work better together. And I hope to start cooperative activities (not only collaborative activities) as soon as possible.

Rosa / Italy

rosadilonardo — 2016-10-31 16:59:53 UTC

Working together means that they have an opportunity to work in pairs or groups to discuss an issue, to solve a problem or to create a product. I have to be very clear what are they doing. What type of activity are they doing as they work together. And they could actually work with people outside the classroom. Students in other classes, students from another school, or actually outside community members or experts in the field. However, they can also work face to face or they could use the technology. Moving on, so looking at working together, if they have shared responsibility, if they work in pairs or groups, if they have a common product they are working on, a common design or a response to something; then, I am looking at shared responsibility. But it has to be remember a common product, a common design, a common response. So they have to collectively own the work, and being mutually responsible for its outcomes. That is where feedback is very different. If I actually have to let’s say do a poem, you give me feedback. It is my poem. I can take your feedback or leave it. So we can work together but we are not mutually responsible for the outcome, so it is not shared responsibility. This is the point of the difference .

Angela, Italy

a_sanpietro — 2016-10-31 17:03:00 UTC

I think that the four elements identified in the video are the starting point for a correct setting of teamwork. In my experience, I kept them in consideration in the past, but not enough organized and structured.

Arnaud PERRIER, France

arperrier — 2016-10-31 17:16:52 UTC

The 4 major questions are 4 pillars of a collaborative learning activity. I haven't asked myself exactly this when designing previous activities. I thought about working together with an interdependent work. But responsibilities where not clearly defined as well as making substantive decisions. I must recon it's a big thing to do before.

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acjesus — 2016-10-31 17:19:07 UTC

Clara Abegão, Portugal

acjesus — 2016-10-31 17:19:08 UTC

Although I never thought about the 4 major questions presented by Prof. Deidre Butler in a organized way (as a fellow portuguese said here), when I´m designing a collaborative learning activity, I try to keep in mind some steps for supporting students in deep and meaningful collaboration.

First of all, students must understand the value of both the process and product/expected outcomes of the collaboration, and have guidance concerning how to work in a team, reminding that the group size must be small enough to allow full participation of all members and facilitate the assessment process. The activity must create a positive interdependence and each member perceives that they will succeed when the group succeeds. Self and peer evaluations are included in the process to monitor individual involvement and accountability.

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Eliana Di Bella, Italy

2016-10-31 17:35:38 UTC

To tell ethe truth, I have never considere the aspect of "making substantive decisions". In fact I tend to control both the product and the process setting a task, telling my students what they have to create (the product) and how they have to create it. Probably I should give them the opportunity to decide something, for example about the product, especially with students of last year that are 17-18 years old.

Martha Karvounidou, Greece

2016-10-31 17:39:19 UTC

Very useful the 4 collaboration questions.

Lorena Olaru, RO

leoatomix — 2016-10-31 17:41:16 UTC

Collaboration is one in 6 rubrics of 21st century learning. It is an important skill for students to develop. The 4 major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are useful in helping me to design a collaborative learning activity. Sometimes I asked myself these questions before when designing collaborative learning activities.

Cinzia F.

nicomd — 2016-10-31 18:06:40 UTC

The four questions are a good suggestion for a teacher to reflect on collaborative learning and I need to better organize collaborative work for my students and this course is helping me .I agree that it is better to start in developing one collaborative aspect in making substantial decision especially with younger students that need to be guided and not overwhelmed with tasks.

Popa Camelia Sanda, Romania

2016-10-31 18:16:16 UTC

The 4 major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are very usefulin design collaborative learning. Every time when I design a project with my students, I ask my self those 4! So, at the end of the project, I ask my students to present a project journal, the final product,usually made from recyclable materials, and a pps presentation . From these three objectives , I can easily deduce how they have collaborated.

Armindo Serra, Cristina Rocha, João Reigado, Fátima Nave, Margarida Coelho, Martine Mendes, Rita Gil, Stella Batinas, Conceição Varela, Dulce Carrelo, Sandra Alves, Sara Gamito, Cristiana Oliveira, Ana Silva - Portugal

mcrisroch1 — 2016-10-31 18:20:00 UTC

The four major questions presented by Deidre Butler are very important to design the collaborative learning activities because they allow the teacher to establish the guidelines: teamwork, sharing knowledge, allowing them to establish the roles of each student within the group. They must be autonomous and responsible in their choices in all process, starting with decisions on the contents and finding a valid product.

Marilena, Greece

becsa1 — 2016-10-31 18:30:16 UTC

I found the questions presented very helpful and I’ll certainly ask them in a future collaborative learning activity. I especially liked the last comment, about gradually building the students expertise in working collaboratively and not overwhelming them by giving them many decisions from the beginning.

4

2016-10-31 18:32:27 UTC

The 4 issues raised in the video guide the collaborative activities and practices: The students are working together, with responsibility between them and making decisions that influence the final result.

Maria and Anna, Italy

mariadecarlo — 2016-10-31 18:45:25 UTC

The four collaboration questions are very important for a collaborative learning activity...they help to work togheter; help to shared responsability; help to make substantive decisions and to help to work interdependent...
but the way is very long and tiring...
In our activity we started gradually with the help of these questions...

Anna and Maria, Italy

annagrignetti — 2016-10-31 18:45:41 UTC

The four collaboration questions are very important for a collaborative learning activity. They help to work togheter; help to shared responsability; help to make substantive decisions and to help to work interdependent. But the way is very long and tiring. In our activity we started gradually with the help of these questions.

Carmela Cundari - Italy

melcunda — 2016-10-31 18:48:48 UTC

The four questions are not only very useful, but they are really challenging for us (teachers), expecially the question about "making substantive decisions", because usually WE tend to make substantive decision both about the process and about the final product... for us (expecially primary teachers) is quite difficult let our pupils take the control of their learning process.

José María Díaz, Spain

josemaria_diazfuentes — 2016-10-31 19:01:54 UTC

I totally agree with the four issues and also agree with all of you that it is quite difficult to get everything. It is a long work that needs to start slowly and it will mature with the frequent practice and over time.

Paola Mattioli/Italy

pmattioli — 2016-10-31 19:23:28 UTC

The four questions are useful and they can change our expectative about making substantive decisions, they help to share responsibility and work together!

Cristina Teixeira, Portugal

2016-10-31 20:00:22 UTC

All four questions are truly important and may optimize students learning process. Personally I believe that questions about Shared Responsability and Substantive Decisions do take a grand part of the individual process of evolving in a collaborative process.

Giorgia, Romania

giorgiagroza — 2016-10-31 20:12:19 UTC

Those questions are important for a succesful collaborative activitiy. All students have to be actively involved in this process, they have to share responsabilities and to return a real feed-back related with their task.

rosa Calvino

nadiapagliaro3 — 2016-10-31 20:38:24 UTC

I think that the 4 questions are very useful for an activity based on collaborative learning

Anita/Italy

2016-10-31 20:49:51 UTC

Those questions are really a critical point before starting an activity based on collaborative learning .Making decisions is an aware act and difficult for students who can't follow their learning process.Also sharing responsibilities could be the same.In fact our role as teachers is give them tips and ways to reach their awareness in that process.

Kateryna Kramnychna, Ukraine

rocksy_12 — 2016-10-31 20:54:30 UTC

These 4 questions are actually some kind of a structural plan for us when we are planing the collaboration in the classroom.

Angelo, Rivoli, Italy

Angelo — 2016-10-31 21:17:08 UTC

I think Deirdre speech is very clear. When the project team work, I care interdependence of purpose. The essential point is to assign a performance task that necessarily requires the collaboration to be done (eg. to make a video). I think what makes the quality of a team work is really the possibility of taking substantive decisions. At first I let my students can only manage the process: I decide the contents and the product. Then, when the students become more secure, I leave them free to choose the product, and also some freedom on academic content.

Mariangela Bielli, Italy

mariangela_biel — 2016-10-31 21:29:51 UTC

The 4 questions make the difference between working in groups and working together/collaborating so they are crucial. I always try to keep to them when designing activities and EUN MOOCs have been of great help.

Nurcan, Turkey

2016-10-31 21:32:51 UTC

Yes, all these 4 questions are useful in collaborative learning. Process, responsibility , making decission together make learning more enjoyable and quality.

Mirjana Jovanovic, Serbia

mirjana_jovanovic_ns — 2016-10-31 22:03:47 UTC

In my opinion, those questions summarise the very essence of collaborative learning. They are extremely helpful for designing collaborative learning activity. Whenever my students work in groups, I pay attention to the first two questions.But the latter ones make the main difference between collaborative learning activity and group

Annibale Italy

annibalemorsillo_am — 2016-10-31 22:23:33 UTC

The 4 collaboration question are very important to develop an activity. Usually I ask myself this question

Arlindo Pereira, Portugal

arlindopereira3 — 2016-10-31 23:59:34 UTC

I think the vídeo very useful because they explains in detail the steps related to the collaborative work. I have asked my self some of these questions before designing collaborative learning activities.

Francesca, Italy

francescagiala — 2016-11-01 00:00:19 UTC

The ideas are good point of start, infact in a collaborative activity it is important that the students supporting one another, and growing as a learning community. make decisions based on creative thinking, communication, and collaboration

Alex_PT

teacheralex_dua — 2016-11-01 00:09:59 UTC

I believe that to design a successful collaborative learning activity we have to think about these main ideas. However, to be truly honest I can’t say that I had thought much about them or could organise them so clearly. All is clearer and more organised in my head now.

Carla Nascimento-Portugal The 4 questions make the difference between group work or collaborative work .. To be collaborative work is needed shared responsibilities, discuss a problem, solve a problem or create a product. There must be a common project and decide on the process .. They take substantive decisions when they have to solve important problems that will guide their work together. important questions about the content, process or product.

cmfn140263 — 2016-11-01 00:22:25 UTC

Giovanna Wiplinger Croce

giovywip — 2016-11-01 05:42:45 UTC

Those 4 questions must be shared with the students in a way that they may be aware that in a group work they are the goals to achieve for each team.

Maria laura, Italy

mammolimlaura — 2016-11-01 06:58:26 UTC

Of course these questions can be a sort of guideline when designing a collaborative activity. Have I asked myself these questions? The biggest challenge has been to make students share repsonsibilities for the common work , and I probably started giving them TOO MUCH to work on . I think that prof.Butler gave us a good hints about this crucial point, which is obviously related to all the others . Are they really working together? This question can summarize all the other questions, becasue if they really work together, they share responsibilities and also make decisions.

Ester Degennaro

esterdegennaro — 2016-11-01 08:17:44 UTC

Group work, shared responsibility, making substantive decisions, and interdependent work are fundamental elements in collaborative learning.
I always ask myself these questions when I design collaborative learning activities.

Alexandra Figueiredo, Portugal

xanafig — 2016-11-01 09:16:44 UTC

I always faced the working group as a collaborative work, so I have difficulty understanding the difference between collaborative work and group work. What I learned from this video, very well structured, is the need to organize all the work and give them short tasks!!

Marta Tarantino

maria_marzo1962 — 2016-11-01 09:35:07 UTC

It's kind of scaffolding this republic of learners, letting them gain more and more "freedom" as they acquire expertise, in order not to be overwhelmed!

Elisabetta, SA-ITA

anicia1 — 2016-11-01 09:43:12 UTC

I think the 4 major questions presented by Professor Butler are useful. I have never asked myself these questions in the way she suggested and I think also for me, as for other colleagues, the most difficult part is to not overwhelm the students and to know how to set tasks that led to true collaborative work.

Jasna;Croatia

2016-11-01 09:43:43 UTC

There questions are very useful. I always have problem with sharing responsibilities among the students in the group. So I ask myself the question how I can create activity which will involve all of them equally with the same level of responsibility

Emiliana Rufo, Italy

emiliana_rufo — 2016-11-01 10:07:37 UTC

These questions are very useful to start creating a collaborative activity in the classroom. I have already asked these questions before but I didn't think about tasks which let students feel overwhelmed. So in next activities I will pay attention to what kind of responsibility let students develop: content, process, product and help them become experts.

Asun Ara, Spain

2016-11-01 10:51:39 UTC

These 4 major questions can be very useful before, while and after planning a collaborative learning activity since collaboration must be present during the whole process of learning: before (the teacher plans the activity after knowing their students and backgrounds), while (the students and the teacher carry out the activity itself) and after (in order to assess the process of teaching-learning by the teacher and also by the students).

I have to recognise that before enrolling in this course, I thought I have carrying out collaborative teaching and learning activities, but right now, I think that I ask my students to work in groups and to work in a cooperative way, not in a collaborative way. From now on, I will try to put into practice all aspects I am learning in this course to teach my students in a collaborative way.

Serena Visai - Italy

serenavisai — 2016-11-01 10:53:16 UTC

The 4 major questions are of great importance when designing a collaboratice activity. I think that, more or less consciously, I ask myself these questions when I give them a pair/group work. Acttually these questions often arise when I see them working, because sometimes the ideas I have of a specific activity can be betrayed by the students attitude towards the task.

Carmen Carella, Marche, Italy

2016-11-01 11:17:50 UTC

Professor Butler’s great expertise has been really clear here. While working together, students must definitely have a common goal and work towards that goal, in my case being a teacher of English, is more about solving a “linguistic” problem which can be a game in teams for example, or creating an artifact, like producing an-ebook. Their responsibility has to be shared whereas they have to be mutually responsible for a good outcome. The decisions they have to take have to be substantial, which means meaningful decisions. Unfortunately, I think we Italian teachers tend to help them a lot at many steps, and this is not good first because we underestimate their potential and second because we don’t give them the chance to have a key part in the process of collaboration and work interdependently. Or probably because we have still to learn.

I already got these principles more or less, by pure accident, without being fully aware of the implications, when I implemented the Mystery Skype in the Classroom, a project that was totally based on cooperation among my students. I already explained that in my blog, Module 1, in the “High Level Collaboration Activity”. The guessing game is highly organized, with roles and objectives clearly stated to students from the beginning. It hasn’t been difficult and they loved it. Having said that, what has been difficult was to do it for the first time, and there is a lot of lesson planning beforehand. Thrilling!

Agata Kuźmiek - Poland

2016-11-01 11:44:08 UTC

4 The main questions are very important when designing Cooperation between students. I ask myself these questions when students work in groups of two or in groups of several people. These questions often arise, but sometimes students through His attitude to do the task They can tell us a good solution for improving this cooperation.

Ljiljana Lez-Drnjevic, Croatia

2016-11-01 12:19:47 UTC

Those major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are very useful in helping to design a collaborative learning activities. Those are questions which every teacher should ask himself before designing collaborative learning activity.

Carla Diogo, Portugal

tgeiepbjcporto — 2016-11-01 12:31:11 UTC

I have never thought about these four questions in a formal way. I think that I tend to organize my work based on them but not in such a structured way. But if we do this, maybe we get more aware of the subject nd of the real objectives of our task/ project. For instance, now I am just thinking that I tend to design the tasks of the students too much and that is something not to do...Nice tips!!

Maria Teresa, Italy

carmarter — 2016-11-01 12:45:42 UTC

Organizing collaborative work I always thought implicitly to these four questions. Watching the video leads me to think more about them and to consider them explicitly, paying attention to different elements

Carlos Matos, Portugal

2016-11-01 13:14:22 UTC

I thought about these questions and I said what I think about this issues in the previous point 2.2.

The type and the quality of the collaboration depends a lot on the type of design we prepared. We need to prepare a plan B and it takes a lot of time. When we depend on technology and we have 90 minutes to develop the activity if something, like the internet connection, fails we need to be prepared. We need to check the equipment before the class (if we have time). This means we should have a technical support collaborative team that can insure that everything we need and we requested to our activities is working properly in real time. If we don’t have these concepts included in our design, things can fail and we might not have time to accomplish our goals. We must ask if the plan B will accomplish the same results we intended when we planned the initial activities and how we will follow them in the next class. I think we need to include these problems in this new environment to prevent disappointment of the actors. I deal with some of these problems of checking everything before and solving the problems in real time. These “minor” problems have negative impact in the teachers that are beginning to use these new solutions. If we can’t grant the technical conditions we create a big gap between those who understand them and continue to use these and the new solutions and the others for whom any fail can make them give up and go back to where they feel comfortable.

Teresa Oliveira

toliv2 — 2016-11-01 13:14:32 UTC

These 4 questions are very important and they could be the key on helping the teacher to design the activities.

Kristina Kaučić, Croatia

2016-11-01 13:55:10 UTC

These 4 questions are very important. I wasn't aware of these questions before this course.

Iliyana, Bulgaria

2016-11-01 14:06:37 UTC

The 4 questions are important and I did ask myself them when planning activities for the pupils.

Elvia/Italy

2016-11-01 14:19:30 UTC

Initially, I had started working groups on content and process, so children knew that my evaluations had focused on these points. Carrying on, I have developed the collaborative tasks required and now they know that it is important how they work togheter to get to the goal

Elisabete Cruz - Portugal

elisabete_cruz3 — 2016-11-01 14:22:29 UTC

Of course yes. Through this process / method to solve problems, what is intended is that the students, stimulate your brain using or oral expression, written or plastic and operation of different structures production technologies. But attention, present an idea, investigate it, carry her and evaluate it is not easy but it is essential. Only incorporarthed collaborative learning we can develop in our students the areas of knowledge and know-how together with the civic and moral education, aimed at the development of active and conscious attitudes towards the community.

Despoina Amarantidou, Greece

damarant — 2016-11-01 14:38:21 UTC

The four collaborative questions are very crucial. Students should cooperate and have shared responsibilties to develop a common product and feel equal. Furthermore, they should make substantive decisions and be mutually responsible for the final outcome

Donato Martano, Italy Definitely fundamental, though the answers are always to some extent ambiguous. So much depends on the students will to be engaged and participate in the task, instead of dropping most of the responsibility on the others.

donato_martano — 2016-11-01 14:58:07 UTC

Angelamaria Galderisi, Italy

soleemare_a — 2016-11-01 14:59:54 UTC

I think the 4 collaborative questions are really useful in designing a collaborative learning activity, because it isn’t only a matter of working together, buti it is above all a magtter of sharing decisions and responsibilities. I really appreciate the suggestion to make students be free on how they are going to do the learning process suggested by the teacher. Honestly speaking, I have never asked myself these questions before designing a collaborative learniong activity, but I am going to ask them hereafter.

Heidi, Germany

hgi — 2016-11-01 15:04:18 UTC

The 4 major questions are really very helpful for planning a collaborative lesson. I haven't yet asked myself these 4 questions before designing a collaborative learning activity but I certainly will do it from now on.

Caterina Fantini, Italy

cate_67 — 2016-11-01 15:13:59 UTC

The 4 major questions are very important and very useful for planning a collaborative lesson. A collaborative work isn't only work together, but above all collectively own the work, share responsabilities have to make substantive decisions. I haven't asked myself these questions, but now I'll do.

Margherita Balistreri-Italy

margheritabalistreri — 2016-11-01 15:54:23 UTC

I think the 4 questions are definitely very helpful in planning a collaborative learning activity. It means not only working together, but solving a problem sharing responsibilities an then taking substantive decisions.This makes the team work more qualitative.I haven't asked myself such questions. In the future I'll do it.

Vasso Lalakidou, Greece

2016-11-01 16:06:19 UTC

I agree with all four questions in the video. Sometimes, the students themselves ask the same questions while working together. Indeed some students are arguing that the work is not equal for everyone and in many cases the groups work as units.

Inge, Austria

2016-11-01 16:10:47 UTC

Before I started the course I was not aware of how crucial these four major questions are for my lesson planning and the understanding of collaborative learning. In the future I will definitely pay more attention to it in order to create meaningful learning experiences for my students. The videos and ressources (especially the learning scenario template) help a lot!

A. Leen

annetteleen — 2016-11-01 16:17:07 UTC

Positive answers to these four questions is what successful collaboration will look like. In reality there will be varying degrees of success to each and every activity as some students/groups engage more than others.

Paulo Martins_Portugal

2016-11-01 16:17:15 UTC

I think the 4 major questions are very useful in helping to design a collaborative learning activity. In my level of teaching (primary school) I have the tendecy to simplify the working process when designing collaborative learning activities so that the students do not disperse. Now if I design a collaborative learning activity based in working together with shared responsability in a way that students make substantive decisions towards an interdependent work the outcome will be more productive. They will be developing collaborative skills.

Anna C. Italy

ciaramellaanna — 2016-11-01 16:46:08 UTC

Plan collaborative learning activities is important. Work together collaborating helps students to make decisions together, to find the solution of a problem, share responsibilities, definitely group work is more constructive and qualitative.
I agree when Prof. D. B. says you have to build the competence of students

Susana Varela, Portugal

7suslucas — 2016-11-01 16:52:02 UTC

The four major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Buttler allow us to ensure effective collaboration.
In my practice I design activities where my students work together and share responsibilities.
However, in these activities the substantive decisions taken by the groups are not significant and the students just check a little the interdependence of their work.

Catarina Rodrigues, Portugal

canrodrigues — 2016-11-01 17:40:28 UTC

These four questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are amazing ones. They put all so clear!

From today on I will put these 4 questions when planning an activity with my students.

Ida, Italy

DT22 — 2016-11-01 17:44:59 UTC

The questions give us the possibility to condict the activity abtaining results.
Very inspiring

Els Teerlinck Belgium

els_teerlinck — 2016-11-01 17:46:21 UTC

These four questions are very important.
The problem in reality is that the students are not always so sure about what this mean and how they can do that. So the activities have to be so clear, so that the kids are automaticly following these questions, and that is the hard part...

Rosella, Italy

rosella_manni — 2016-11-01 17:49:52 UTC

These questions serve as both a big picture framework and a constant reminder of what collaborative teams should address.
I not always asked myself these questions when designing collaborative learning activities, and my colleagues do the same, for a variety of reasons, which included time, priorities, and know-how.

Laura-Aurelia Serban, Romania

lauraaurelias — 2016-11-01 17:51:35 UTC

These four questions are really important for designing collaborative learning activities. I will use them in my work with pupils and in other collaborative tasks

Kaisa, Finlan

kaisalaunosalo — 2016-11-01 17:52:10 UTC

Thank you for these excellent questions!! These are really important and do help me a lot.

Maria Chiara, Italy

2016-11-01 17:52:34 UTC

4 questions certainly fundamental when designing a collaborative learning activity. I found the fourth particularly inspiring as I sometimes make the mistake to demand too much from my students (content, process, product ).

Raul Coutinho

2016-11-01 17:53:45 UTC

Answers to Four questions: FIRST, students working in groups develop their reasoning skills, capacity building, dialogue, resolve their problems and can create a product perfecting the object in order to achieve a common purpose. SECOND, when students their activities promote one logical development and multidisciplinary interaction or sharing face to face or using new technologies. THIRD, a shared responsibility given a product choice, new form of design and new horizons achievements. FOUR, the final product is always, THE VICTORY !

Marina Italy

2016-11-01 17:54:21 UTC

4 questions

Maria Teresa / Italy

teresarughi — 2016-11-01 17:59:53 UTC

The 4 questions are very useful to design a collaborative learning activity. I usually make students work together , and generally they have shared responsibility for the product.I also try to let them free to make substantive decisions. What I find it difficult is to check whether their work is really interdendependent,if this means that the work can't go on, unless each student gives his/her personal contribution.

Jasna Šojer/Croatia

jasna_sojer — 2016-11-01 18:15:08 UTC

The 4 collaboration questions are great guide for all teachers who just start to implement collaborative activities in their work. I think that main point is int he sentence: "You have to build up their expertise. "

Isabel Graça, Portugal

2016-11-01 18:20:20 UTC

I believe many of us had already thought about these questions, and even get them in to practice but not in a structured way. So this is the new gold key-word: structure!

Alessandra Murgia

prof_alemurgia — 2016-11-01 18:22:49 UTC

The 4 collaboration questions focus on the active role students undergo in activities designed to develop collaborative skills where they can actually take the responsibility to learn. Our role is to mediate and promote these good practices, if we want them to be active , independent, expert

Carmen Rodríguez UK

c_rodvix — 2016-11-01 18:48:21 UTC

These 4 questions are a great guide to start a collaborative activity. While listening to the video, I´ve realised that having a structure is essential and I think I´ll try to think more in deep and have them in mind while planning my next collaborative activity. Thanks for the reminder! :-)

Ana Franco, Barcelos, Portugal

ana_lufranco — 2016-11-01 19:18:13 UTC

Yes, in the background as mentioned in paragraph 2.2, it is important to have a thread. Somehow I think that already apply these questions to organize this type of work, probably not such a conscious and structured way.

Hülya,TURKEY

hulyaos31 — 2016-11-01 19:19:15 UTC

They have to mutually responsible of the outcomes and share the responsibility,: this is the team work. They have to make substantive decisions to solve important problems in their work bu using their own knowledge and they can make a decision about the process , may be they can build their own method to solve the problem. In this way, the final product will be unique.

Fátima Caeiro, Portugal

fffcaeiro — 2016-11-01 19:31:53 UTC

In fact, to plan, to organize, to question, to develop, to improve, to discuss is absolutely aresponsability for my students.
It is unquestioning to make them feel that they must share all these responsabilities and the teacher (me) will be there just to help them to achieve their goals.
students need to plan, to organize, to question, to develop, to improve, to discuss to present their final results.
The decisions must be taken in result of interaction and cooperation.
When the groups feel free to do their tasks, they also want to show that they are able to to do their assigned duties in order for the task to be completed

successfully. Students are not working alone, thet are working together and they will feel happy with the results.

Ana

anaznidarec — 2016-11-01 19:48:04 UTC

I do agree with Jasna!

Gisella de Liddo, Italy

2016-11-01 20:01:57 UTC

I have actually never asked myself these precise questions, and think they are quite useful at designing effective collaborative learning activities.

Giuseppe/Italy

profgcorsaro — 2016-11-01 20:16:19 UTC

This questions give me the possibility to conduct the activity obtaining good results.
Very inspiring... i hope to be able to try these soon as possible.

Maria I. Italia

ndrmra — 2016-11-01 20:22:47 UTC

When I prepare an activity to be implemented with the cooperative learning siuddivido the class into groups of four students.
1) The task is unique and all roles are interdependent
2) The responsibility is suddivis among all menbri
3) Decisions regarding each role
4) The product is unique menbro but each has a separate task from that of other.

Katarzyna Kwiatek-Grabarska

2016-11-01 20:27:36 UTC

Tasks, responsibilities, joint decisions, the final product - 4 specific elements of good cooperation. It is very important, and in my opinion crucial for the implementation of good design.

Iolanda Moya

2016-11-01 21:22:53 UTC

I have never asked myself these questions because I think I've never done a real collaborative task with my students. Maybe I thought I was doing a collaborative task but I didn't. So, these questions are very useful for me and I'm going to use them when I'll design a collaborative activity. Thanks for the video!

Mina/Italy

ponzianomina — 2016-11-01 21:35:09 UTC

I think that the 4 major questions presented by Professor Deirdre are very useful to design a collaborative learning activity and when I ask my students to work together I always pay attention if they are really working together, if they have shared responsibility and if their work is interdipendent

Sarah Mallia, Malta

sarahborg85 — 2016-11-01 22:03:07 UTC

The 4 major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are very useful and would like to keep them in mind for when I plan a collaborative task with my students as I never did one till now.

Emília Silva, Portugal

emiliasilva2 — 2016-11-01 22:11:08 UTC

Excellent questions!
I think that the 4 question present by Professor Deirdre are very important to design collaborative learning activity for my students. I have a lot difficulty in assessing the quality of the collaboration. At work together They are shared responsability? Do not know...

Teresa Pombo, Port

teresapombo — 2016-11-01 22:14:57 UTC

these apparentely simple 4 questione magically change the way we see and think collaboration within the classroom.

Maria Tiago, Portugal

mariatiago — 2016-11-01 22:51:18 UTC

These 4 collaboration questions can be used as great guidelines for planning and implementing collaborative learning ; positive interdependence; making substantive decisions together.
No, I´ve never asked myself these kind of questions although I have my own guidelines .

Ana Rebelo, Portugal

aisrebelo — 2016-11-01 22:58:11 UTC

I think these questions can be really useful when designing a learning activity. The one that made me stop for a while was “Do they make substantive decisions?”. For me, this is the key issue.

Elena B, Italy

teacherEB — 2016-11-01 23:20:58 UTC

Sharing is the key word for the new learning design. Letting the students free to make substantive decisions about the content, the process or the product is fundamental to help them taking responsibilities and growing up. Anyway, being able to monitor and assess this process is not so easy. I have to revise my approach keeping the 4 questions in mind.

Ana Rochinha, Portugal

ana_rochinha — 2016-11-01 23:30:04 UTC

The questions that arise are important. I have not done consciously when I think an activity to develop in the classroom, however my focus has been given to the clarity of the message broadcast over the end product; structure the work is extremely important.

Ariana, Romania

ariana_vacaretu — 2016-11-02 06:28:54 UTC

The 4 major questions presented (1. are they working together; 2. do they have shared responsibility; 3. are they making substantive decisions; 4. is their work interdependent) are useful when designing a collaborative learning activity and when assessing the students collaborative skills. The questions (and their answers) help us to find out what collaboration means.

Alessandro Ruffino / Ital

2016-11-02 06:36:40 UTC

They are good questions that each teacher have to ask himself as a guide to prepare a learning collaborative activity. I didn't think to ask myself these questions, maybe they were inside when I designed my learning collaborative activity, because my students collaborated with a quality collaboration. Now, I will pay attention when design an activity for groups.

Evelyne France

litenglish222 — 2016-11-02 06:39:51 UTC

I never asked myself those questions . I only think about the content related to my subject and the end product . I usually leave the process up to my students as I think it is difficult to interfere with the way they work . I just make sure that they will have to make substantive decisions by giving them instructions that are clear but broad .

Helena Paixão, Portugal

helenagpaixao — 2016-11-02 07:53:45 UTC

his questions help teachers to realize if their students are working collaboratively or not. They are also importante for teachers to understand what to plan to make the students work collaboratively.

Aggeliki Belehaki, Greece

2016-11-02 08:37:31 UTC

Very useful to make a lesson effective

Nikos(Greece)

ntsepelis — 2016-11-02 09:24:49 UTC

Of great help to teachers, in order to help teachers implement collaborative learning.

Loredana, Italy

volpe_loredana — 2016-11-02 09:42:18 UTC

These are the basic questions the teachers have to ask themselves
before starting collaborative learning projects.I agree with the
importance to start the activity choosing a topic
proper to your students' skills and interests.

IDA. ITALY

idadinatale — 2016-11-02 09:44:53 UTC

I used to ask these questions in the past. The problem was the answer:" not all the students are sharing responsability or working!" I hope I can improve my collaboration teaching and Learning after this course

João Sá, Portugal

joaosa — 2016-11-02 10:35:26 UTC

These questions are key questions that certainly help in the design of collaborative learning activities. I never asked it in this structured manner. However, some ideas behind these questions occasionaly guide my class planning and my teacher activiy in the classroom.

Rossana De Martino , Italy

rossana_demartino — 2016-11-02 11:45:39 UTC

I think these 4 questions are very important and useful for preparing a collaborative activity. it's necessary to establish these tasks for the students, the fact that they have to work together , to share responsability, to create an interdependent work and to make substantive decisions. I find quite difficult to understand their effective active role in the whole process. i want to improve all my teaching activities.

Paola (Italy)

paola_biondi19 — 2016-11-02 12:00:37 UTC

I found it very exciting and helpful to think about the attention and care that you have to have on Making substantive decisions. In fact I have never seriously reflected on these questions.

Sander, Belgium

sander_vreven — 2016-11-02 12:44:17 UTC

This made me think about my future assignments in class, next week. I will build up the process of collaboration before giving them 1 big task. Also I'll make sure that the goal is just a common product so they only have to make decisions about the product (at first).

Francesca, Italy

francesca_lombardi1973 — 2016-11-02 12:56:41 UTC

I think asking these big questions is very important and useful for any teacher before starting to plan a lesson, in order to design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on students. Usually I’m quite careful to the project parts of my activities in the classroom but maybe not enough…

Elena FP, Italy

2016-11-02 14:55:17 UTC

I think Professor Butler's questions are the main ones each of us ask him/herself when doing some collaborative activities in the classroom. The quality of the 'final products' can be assessed quite easily, but we cannot say the same as far as the collaboration process is concerned. As Ms Butler points out, collaboration does not equal working together. I do agree with the gradual steps' she proposes, starting from the teacher giving directions till the students acquire the skills they need to be responsible of their own work.

Antónia Brandão; José Ruão /PT

dolores_brandao — 2016-11-02 15:35:26 UTC

We think that the 4 questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are major questions.

Are students working together? to solve a problem, a to discuss a issue, to create a product?

Have they shared responsibilities? Are the collectively responsible by the product?

Do they make substantive decisions? Do they decide on product, how they do the process, about the content?

Is their work interdependent?

Those are fundamental questions and we never asked them so clearly. Watching this vídeo warned us to the differences between working together and work collaboratively

Those questions will be useful in helping us to design, in the future, collaborative learning activities

Elisabete Carvalho, Maria Araújo, Olga Seabra, Paula Cavadas, Paula Usha_Portugal

olga_seabra — 2016-11-02 15:36:29 UTC

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 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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Elisabete Carvalho, Maria Araújo, Olga Seabra, Paula Cavadas, Paula Usha_Portugal

elisabete — 2016-11-02 15:37:26 UTC

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.

Costas Moschonas

2016-11-02 15:59:34 UTC

I found these major questions very useful for designing a collaborative learning activity. To be honest I haver never thought of them before.

Cinzia Centrone

centrone_cinzia — 2016-11-02 16:20:32 UTC

Thanks to prof. Butler now I understand better what cooperative learning mean and how I can plan collaborative activities. The four questions in order to sharing responsability, making substantive decisions, making work interdipendent are very useful for teacher. In this way also the assessment will be more simple. Now it's all more clear for me

mbacita — 2016-11-02 16:33:56 UTC

I have often tried to design collaborative activities and some of these questions were in my mind. I believe it is easier to design such an activity after they have been pointed out and explained by someone who is an expert in the field.

Chiara Sabatini/Italy

chisab72 — 2016-11-02 16:45:29 UTC

I sometimes have in mind the 4 questions but not always develop the activities according to them. I should take more time to plan carefully!

Nicola S. - Italy

spotonicola — 2016-11-02 17:26:30 UTC

I think these questions are fundamental in order to plan really cooperative acitivities. Till now, when I tried to use a collaborative approach in my class, I was always disappointed by the fact that in every team there was a leader, who did eveything, and many passive students, who didn't work enough. Now I realized that the problem was that I hadn't a clear view of what collaboration is and therefore I wasn't able to make my students work in a collaborative way.

In my opinion, at the beginning of the learning activity it could be useful to explain to the students what a collaborative approach is, giving them some examples and some behaviour rules (in the group the work must be equally divided, decisions must be made together, when team members don't agree about something they have to negotiate a common solution, etc). Professor Butler said we can not expect our students work in a collaborative and interdependent way if they are not used to it. So in the beginning we have to guide them using self-assessment grids in order to make them aware if they are collaborating or not.

In addition to this, I have to admit that it's a great idea to express the key points of collaborative learning by asking some easy questions. For me, as the teacher, this is a quick way to check not only if I have planned carefully the activity, but also if my students are involved in really collaborative tasks or not. To sum up , answering these questions, teachers have a guide to plan the activities, students can understand if they are working in a collaborative way, teachers and students can assess and self-assess the entire learning activity

Anabela Gonçalves, José Rui Ferreira and Teresa Fonseca, Portugal

2016-11-02 17:30:01 UTC

The questions presented are very useful and straightforward. They work as important guidelines so that the teacher can plan activities being fully aware of the choices made. And that’s not always the case. Clear, balanced, timely planning are key words to a fundamental change in thinking and practice. We think we have asked ourselves similar questions whenever designing collaborative activities but the analysis made by Professor Deirdre Butler shows how deep and tiny the differences between “the big ideas of collaboration” might be. Teachers have to be ready, and willing, to engage in constant reflection and discussion about every detail of the process. The idea of building students’ expertise, not overwhelming them with every decision that will shape their work, struck us as a quite important one.

Isabella Santoro, Italy

issabella1 — 2016-11-02 17:34:53 UTC

This video is very ispiring for me. Now the difference between work together and collaborative work is more clear for me. the four questions in order working together, making substantive decisions, making work interdipendent are very useful when we design a collaborative activity.

Emma Giurlani Italy

2016-11-02 17:37:27 UTC

I think this video and the 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics I had the opportunity to consult in a previous course are really inspiring and useful. I used the learning activity rubrics to examine the work we did during the last eTwinning project trying to assess the activity we did and I found it very very useful. The 4 big ideas of working together, making substantive decisions building knowledge , working interdependently are really crucial by designing PBL activities

Roberta Minì, Italy

robertamini — 2016-11-02 17:55:20 UTC

This video has been ispiring for my activity, as it gives precise guide lines to follow before starting a collaborative learning activity.
I've always taken them into considetaion, but perhaps never pointed out clearly.
I read now these questions in a logic sequence as a guide towards the assessment moment, so it is of great importance building the whole activity upon the goal I want my students to reach collaborating each other.
My first task will be, of course, explaining them the meaning of collaboration, the importance of collaborating, their goal.
The 4 questions:
1. Are they working together?
2. Do they have shared responsibility?
3. Are they making substantive decisions?
4. Is their work interdependent?
are the starting and final point of the process.

Zeljka Korlevic, Slatina, Croatia

mravak57 — 2016-11-02 18:05:04 UTC

Well I can only say that these questions point at the very essence of collaborative working. I started this Course because I want to find out the answers how to do my work right. Here I found the very best explanation of the meaning of crucial facts.

Rosaria Marino

marinorosaria60 — 2016-11-02 18:34:36 UTC

The videos proposed puntalizza the key questions that serve to evaluate the effectiveness of the collaborative work done by students.
1. They're working together?
2. They shared the responsibility?
3. They are making substantive decisions?
4. Their work is interdependent?
The issues of liability and the shared decisions seem central. It remains in my view, the difficulty of assessing the final product because we can not be sure that every student has given his contribution and did not accept passivamete the decisions of other members of the group. In this regard in class today considering the creation of models of different isotopes, I did describe the various students of the small group of the difficulties encountered and the decisions on which they are compared.

Olga Keramida-Greece

olkeramida — 2016-11-02 18:39:39 UTC

Very useful and inspiring! May be i have asked myself such questions but not so organised. Now it is more clear. Thank you!

Michal

2016-11-02 18:43:36 UTC

I find these four questions useful as they can make planning easier for us.
When thinking about a new collaborative activity, I think I take my experience into account and probably think about the similar things, however, it seems good to follow these 4 questions and I would say that I will take them into account when working on a new activity.

Giovanna Hi, I started this course because I would like to understand how to do my work in a usefull way and in a collaborative sense. I think this course is going to give me an answer about it.

giostesciortino — 2016-11-02 19:04:57 UTC

mariagranatiero — 2016-11-02 19:17:37 UTC

I share fully and often in my teaching I pose this question: They share the decisions? They work together? when the answer is yes, through results are seen because they learn and have fun everyone.

Maria, Italia

mariagranatiero — 2016-11-02 19:17:38 UTC

I share fully and often in my teaching I pose this question: They share the decisions? They work together? when the answer is yes, through results are seen because they learn and have fun everyone.

Maria, Italia

mariagranatiero — 2016-11-02 19:22:29 UTC

I share fully and often in my teaching I pose this question: They share the decisions? They work together? when the answer is yes, through results are seen because they learn and have fun everyone.

Tiago, Portugal

tiagotadeu — 2016-11-02 19:34:55 UTC

The questions seem interesting and useful. questions. I would usually only ask one of them.

Eros Grossi, Italya

eros_grossi — 2016-11-02 20:10:19 UTC

This video proposes very interesting questions. I've understood that, when in the past I planned a collaborative work, I only focused on the product my students had to realize: in other words, I didn't evaluate the quality of collaboration. I was sure that, if a product is good, also the quality of collaboration is at the same level (without evaluating if the entire group works well with good interdependence). I think that this mistake was due to my past attitude to evaluate only the individual performance...

Chris H, Ireland,

2016-11-02 20:40:00 UTC

These questions will be very beneficial for designing activities in the future. I would not have thought of all four of these questions when designing activities before this.

Salomé, Portugal

2016-11-02 20:48:31 UTC

There are four important questions to ask when we talk about collaborative teaching. They are useful questions that claim to help in activities to develop. Personally, I not always thought of them all.

Olga Oliveira, Portugal

olga_amaro — 2016-11-02 21:13:56 UTC

Yes, those four questions are very important and useful when we design a collaborative learning activity.
When I think about collaborative learning activity, somehow I think about those questions but not in a such structured way!

Cristina Paliotes, Portugal

paliotes_cristina — 2016-11-02 21:21:33 UTC

4 questions certainly fundamental when designing a collaborative learning activity.

I never thought about these questions.

DEBORA

debora_defina — 2016-11-02 21:29:12 UTC

A good collaboration among students take them to be more responsable of their decisions and the way to move to solve eventually problems that verify during a workshop.

Arminda Pereira, Portugal

armindapereira1 — 2016-11-02 21:54:06 UTC

In the video Professor Deirdre Butler explains to teachers the 4 major questions it is necessary they ask themselves when designing a collaborative learning activity:

Are they working together?

Do they have shared responsibility?

Are they making substantive decisions?

And is their work interdependent?

What does working together mean?

It means that they have an opportunity to work in pairs or groups to discuss an issue, to solve a problem or to create a product.

The teachers have to be very clear about what type of activity are students doing as they work together. They could actually work with people outside the classroom, students in other classes, students from another school, or outside community members or experts in the field. However, they can also work face to face or they could use the technology.

It is important when the students are working in pairs or groups, if they have a common product, a common design, a common response, if they have shared responsibility. "So they have to collectively own the work, and being mutually responsible for its outcomes."

They make substantive decisions when they have to resolve important issues that will guide their work together. Important issues about the content, the process or the product.

In my practice I design activities where my students work together, share responsibilities, make substantives decisions, and interdependent work.

Maria Stalia

mastalia — 2016-11-02 22:13:09 UTC

It was quite enlightening to hear about the 4 questions we should ask ourselves when designing a collaborative learning activity. I must admit that although they seem quite straightforward and simple, I never had them in mind before when designing my own collaborative learning in my classroom, at least not so distinctly and clearly underlined. I will definitely have them in mind from now on.

Ana Fernandes, Portug

apmfm — 2016-11-02 22:22:20 UTC

I believe that the 4 question presented about collaboration are very useful to elaborate the design of activities that aim collaborative learning. I've never asked myself these questions before when I designed and developed learning activities but from now on I'll take them into consideration.

Katarina,Serbia

2016-11-02 22:31:34 UTC

4 very good questions
1.Are they working together?
2.Do they have shared responsibility ?
3.Are they making substantive decisions?
4.Is their work interdependent

Ana Pinheiro, Portugal

air_pinheiro — 2016-11-02 22:36:34 UTC

When planning a collaborative activity is important to know how to evaluate the whole process and not just the final product. First of all, realize well what it means to collaborative learning and then think about the quality of this collaboration.Students are working in groups but:- The development of job responsibility is everyone?- All group members take constructive decisions?- Sharing responsibility leads to an interdependent work?In other words, do not just put the students to do a working group. Collaborative learning is much more than that.-

Elisabete Carvalho, Maria Araújo, Olga Seabra, Paula Cavadas, Paula Usha_ Portugal

2016-11-02 22:47:12 UTC

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.

Carlos Silva, Portugal

2016-11-02 22:51:02 UTC

In my opinion, these 4 questions are important and useful to design a collaborative learning activity. I have already asked myself and I usually get some time with students trying to make them understand the importance of the relationship between them during the process. I feel they are not used to work really together when they are invited to take part in a new group.

Jesus Leão, Portugal

2016-11-03 00:47:01 UTC

In fact, the questions asked by Professor Deirdre Butler are very relevant and pertinent. Can we describe the type and quality of collaboration?
1 - They are working together?
2 - They have shared responsibility?
3 - They are taking substantive decisions?
4 - And your job is interdependent?
If we can give them a positive response, then the students are working in collaboration and activity was well designed. Therefore, these questions can be valuable guidance in the design of a collaborative learning activity.
But in reality, before planning a collaborative activity, I never asked me about it!
From now on I will think about it.

Cinzia Billa, Italy

cinzia_billa2 — 2016-11-03 06:35:53 UTC

Yes, these questions are fundamental, not only guiding learning design, but throughout the activity. Every students should be assigned a role and expertise can grow as far as they are helped in reflecting, evaluating their work.

Dorota Sobierańska, Poland

ds_sobieranscy — 2016-11-03 07:35:55 UTC

Some of my thoughts - answers to important questions

Are the students working together?

Contemporary, collaboration with other students and experts outside the school and using the technology are particularly important. This type of cooperation develops many practical skills that are necessary in life.

Do they have shared responsibility?

Inner sense of responsibility by a student is particularly important for me.

Are they making substantive decisions?

Students need to work on tasks that interest them, stimulate concentration, motivation and commitment, evoke emotions. Students must recognize the practical utility of acquired knowledge and developed skills.

Is their work interdependence?

Participation of students in the group's work must be based on their needs and capabilities, and they are different.

Nils, Germany

2016-11-03 08:26:29 UTC

Very useful questions but unfortunately every day school life doesn't offer the time to plan every learning activity like that.

Helen, Belgium

2016-11-03 09:25:16 UTC

These are good questions to bear in mind when designing collaborative learning opportunities. I particularly liked the last question, which helps us to think about streamlining the task to avoid overwhelming students. This is particularly relevant to the age group I work with.

Suzana Santos Portugal

2016-11-03 11:06:34 UTC

These questions may be the guideline for the design of the collaborative learning activities, because I think they focus on the main competences that this type of activity is supposed to develop.

Catia, Sweden

katyfpr — 2016-11-03 12:14:04 UTC

In my point of view, those questions are very relevant. It will help teachers and students to have a track during the project. During a collaborative learning activity it is very important to know if students are sharing their knowledge and ideias, if they are focus in relevant things or if they are going in opposite way. It is crucial that everyone is engaged with a task and if the tasks were well distribute.
Students should know that the process sometimes is more important that the result, and teacher should evaluate the process not just the result

Elisabete Carvalho, Maria Araújo, Olga Seabra, Paula Cavadas, Paula Usha_Portugal

paula_cavadas — 2016-11-03 12:39:56 UTC

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.

Teresa Pires, Portugal

2016-11-03 12:55:47 UTC

These are pertinent and necessary issues.
When designing collaborative activities, I think about the goals I propose and how I can implement the activity.
I have never reflected much on the evaluation of collaboration, directing my interests to the end product and concern for harmony.

Cristiana, portugal

cristianafreire — 2016-11-03 13:36:00 UTC

I consider these 4 important questions must be taken into account in the planning of collaborative learning task. My worry is about the difficulty to verify / evaluate that, in fact, these four items are being fulfilled while working ... "

Paula Gomes, Portugal

paliotes_cristina — 2016-11-03 14:57:40 UTC

I never thought about these questions, but I will think, because they are important.

Joaquim Melo, Portugal

pessanha_melo — 2016-11-03 15:06:49 UTC

yes, my pupils have an opportunity to work in pairs or groups to discuss an issue, to solve a problem or to create a product. I have to be very clear what are they doing. What type of activity are they doing as they work together. And it works perfectly.

Kimberley Edwards, Ireland

2016-11-03 15:20:17 UTC

I think the 4 major questions are very helpful in designing a collaborative learning activity as it reminds us of the basics of collaboration and that the activity should agree with the questions suggested. I have designed group work activities in which students discuss a topic and form opinions however I do not always ask myself these questions but I will from now on as they act as a good guide to an effective collaborative lesson.

Ilaria, Italy

2016-11-03 15:30:45 UTC

i think that these 4 questions are important and that it would be useful to create a checklist for different collaborative learning activities in order to check before and after the activity if these 4 aspects have been developed enough

Enrica Maragliano - Italy

EMGe — 2016-11-03 15:48:48 UTC

The 4 questions are very inspiring and help a lot to design a collaborative learning activity.
They are crucial questions in the learning process as you can plan a group work but for some reason students don't really collaborate. I usually observe if they share responsibility when I assess their job during the presentation. If the group work well, I think all of the members should contribute to take substantial decisions, else or they won't deliver any good output as result of their job or only one (or a few) take decisions, that are not shared. This is something easy to verify at presentation time. Finally I asked myself those questions, even if probably not in this formal way- This video is very useful to help us to be more aware of what we want as a result of the learning process.

Adina Marcu,Romania

adinamarcu9 — 2016-11-03 16:00:33 UTC

The 4 questions are very important and very useful,because it help a lot to design a collaborative learning activity.It helping me to plan a group work,to observe my students .

Vanesa, Croatia

2016-11-03 17:21:59 UTC

These four questions are very important and very helpful in designing collaborative learning activities.

Dora, Greece

2016-11-03 17:55:09 UTC

These questions are essential in design collaborative activities. Although it is logical to have them in mind, it is difficult to apply. I personally face a difficulty in sharing responsibilities. My students have a difficulty to accomplish their responsibilities which makes me think about my mistakes

Atanasija, Croatia

atbilic — 2016-11-03 18:28:54 UTC

These questions are quite helpful in planning collaborative learning and understanding of their difference.

Sara Viotti, Italy

sara_viotti — 2016-11-03 18:58:37 UTC

I think the more important question we should ask us is: do we really want they drive the activity we only designed? Many teachers doesn't like a classroom where they are not the leaders.I would start from the final question: are students making sustantive decisions? This is possible only if they facing with a problem, something to investigate, an output to produce and present. The aim causes the motivation and create the conditions to develop the new learning way. In the video of the Portuguese Children we watched in last Module, one of them said he liked work in a group because he could decide. This is the key: let them free of making decisions.

Evangeli

2016-11-03 19:26:54 UTC

EvangeliaC

2016-11-03 19:26:54 UTC

Evangelia Chasapi, Greece

2016-11-03 19:26:55 UTC

Having these questions in mind will helps us improve our collaborative learning design.

Grazyna, Poland

sp171wesola — 2016-11-03 19:32:50 UTC

The questions presented are very useful because they always guide me when I design my activities. Sometimes I have to compromise, choose part of the collaborative learning, because most of my students have little knowledge of English and teaching them English as my subject and doing complicated activities is frustrating - they may not be able to use the foreign language at some points.

Angeliki Kouigourouki, Greece

akougiou — 2016-11-03 20:01:38 UTC

These 4 questions mentioned by Dr. Butler are very useful in designing collaborative activities. We should have them in mind every time we focus on developing collaborative skills with our pupils. I use to observe them while working in groups and have in mind if they share responsibilities, if they try to work together to solve a problem or to product something.

Helena Louzeiro, Portugal

2016-11-03 21:45:07 UTC

These 4 questions are very important and I think that they help to do the disign to do a collaborative activity.
You should explain them to the students, because they will know better what is a collaborative work.
I thought in some of them, and I tried to explain them to the students, but I don´t know if they understand what is collaborative work, because they are very young (6 and 7 years old).

Ioannis Velonakis, Greece

ivelonak — 2016-11-03 23:04:13 UTC

These four questions are substantial for the design and success of a true colaborative learning. Although they are helpful for disgning a learning activity, it is quite difficult to work in practice... According to my experience, the main problem is students taking substuntive decisions and have shared responsibility, since in most cases most of the necessary work is done by few of them.

Sonia Scribano Italy

soniascribano53 — 2016-11-03 23:10:48 UTC

Yes these questions are guidelines leading to effective collaborative work. I have not asked myself these questions but I have guided my students in this direction. Now I should ensure that they are making substantive decisions (context/process and product

Isabel Nunes, Portugal

2016-11-03 23:16:06 UTC

The 4 key issues in the planning of a collaborative learning:

Are they working together?

Do they share responsibility?

Do they make substantive decisions?

Is their work interdependent?

These issues are very important to create collaborative activities. So I think at work in collaboration the students assume responsibility for their own learning and develop Metacognitive skills to assess and address their learning and performance.

When there is collaboration between students and teacher through a collaborative activity, they bring their own schemes of thought and their perspectives for the activity. Each student involved in the activity you can view the problem from a different perspective and are able to negotiate and generate meanings and solutions through a shared understanding.

Šárka, CR, Děčín

sarka_opatova — 2016-11-04 00:09:39 UTC

4 collaborative questions:

Actually, when I look at the questions, and think about activities I designed for my students in the past, there are things I did. BUT: the collaboration with an expert has never happened in my classes, I would say. And, as I teach English, not a science, my students have never checked a hypothesis in a collaborative work. This is very interesting. Does anyone know an example of such an activity for r a language subject?
The shared responsibility should be stressed to the students, I would say it activates them. They do not want to disappoint their peers.
I am looking forward to the assessment module since it is an important part

Vitalija, Lithuania

2016-11-04 07:16:58 UTC

To my mind, the 4 questions, presented by Dr. Butler are very useful in designing collaborative learning. They are like quidelines when we design our activities and focus on developing collaborative skills of our pupils. When pupils work in pairs or groups, I try to watch how they work, how they plan and share the responsibilities (that is very difficult to assess). Then the final product is important whch they have to present to other groups. Very often we think that we are doing a collaborative task, but in reality - we are't. Now these questions will be like a plan to me to design a real collaborative activity.

Giovanna, Italy

giovanna_biceg1 — 2016-11-04 07:57:44 UTC

These 4 questions can be the guide to start but also to conclude and evaluate a collaborative activity.

Piia Estonia

2016-11-04 11:39:35 UTC

I do recognize those questions - I have asked them myself when designing learning activities. I have mostly done it by unconscious - I was actually not aware how to formulate it. I find this course very useful. I learn now to be more aware of what I am doing :) Thank you!

Margarida Sousa PT

2016-11-04 13:02:31 UTC

I think that the four questions are ver useful in deed. My question is : How do I evaluate that?
I have asked myself these questinos , of course. Do they make substantive decisions? This question is the most difficult one for me. I hope to learn how to do it, with this course.

Francisco Pinto, PT

franciscopinto — 2016-11-04 14:02:44 UTC

The big ideas in collaboration:
Are the students working together?
Do they have shared responsibilities?
Do they make substantive decisions?
Is their work interdependent?
In some activities I have planned some of these ideas have been taken into consideration. I confess that never used or thought to use as described here. Obviously it will be useful in planning collaborative learning.

sara, italy

sarossa — 2016-11-04 14:05:47 UTC

i have only very rarely attempted cooperative learning in my classroom, partly because teaching English FL to young teenagers they lack the language proficiency to interact and to act while speaking L2, but also because they have generally very little autonomy. what i find very enlightening in Ms Butler's suggestions is to proceed by steps, for example for what concerns the substantive decisions (content, process, product), because we cannot ask for everything at the same time, but we should build up their expertise.

Ana Schade, Portugl

ana_vaz — 2016-11-04 15:46:06 UTC

The 4key issues are important to design a collaborative activity, althoug I never thought about it, as it reminds us the basic structure of the collaborative learning.

António Gonçalves, PT

2016-11-04 15:56:27 UTC

The questions raised by Prof. Deirdre Butler are structural in a collaborative learning context. For the great difficulties in collaborative learning is to ensure that students collaborate effectively on the task to perform, since often cooperation with collaboration.

When we plan a lesson with collaborative learning we have to guide the work in a way that is collaborative.
It puts students and their collective learning experience at the centre of learning, and includes
students’ interaction by sharing ideas, knowledge and resources with peers, gaining experience in conflictresolution, self- criticism, self-evaluation and self-reflection.

Brenda, Italy

brenda2warren — 2016-11-04 16:00:03 UTC

I think the idea of posing these questions while actually planning the activity, rather than reflecting on them at the end of the activity, is interesting and definitely worth bearing in mind.

Stavroula Lada, Greece

pde4424 — 2016-11-04 16:27:30 UTC

For me these questions are really important because they target to the heart of COLLABORATION. Every teacher who designs a project of a lesson plan must take them into account. I will try to keep all these questions in mind more. So, I created an infographic.

Alberto Brochado

bertobrchado — 2016-11-04 16:28:55 UTC

A never thought in this questions, but they are the key of the colaboration.

Annamaria/Italy

anidigre1 — 2016-11-04 17:15:08 UTC

So the main question is the quality of collaboration and I've understood maybe it depend by how everyone in the team has clear the content, the process and the product that are going on, and how can we share our responsability working toghether. We “have to build up their expertise”....

Teresa Rowett, Portugal

2016-11-04 17:45:07 UTC

These are the key questions of the collaborative learning. I think we may say the interdependency and shared responsibility of all members of the group are the main issues that make teachers feel reluctant towards using this learning design. If we have a positive feed back when making these questions we will have achieved the main goals of collaborative learing.

Cristina, R

cristinapeicuti — 2016-11-04 18:27:27 UTC

Filipe Mira, Portugal

filipe_mira — 2016-11-04 18:37:25 UTC

The four questions raised are really relevant and critical in projection of a collaborative activity. I never questioned me about it before planning. From this moment I will take account of these questions.

Eduardo Pinheiro, Portugal

eduardojgpinheiro — 2016-11-04 18:55:54 UTC

I had already thought about same of these issues, particularly the question "Do they have shared responsability?"
The students when they are in groupe to solve a problem does nor seem to have the same level of commitment. There are some of them the seems to engage less then others. For me the question is what can I do to know if they have shared responsability? or to know if their work is interdependent.

Lina Mosca Italy

2016-11-04 19:00:17 UTC

these questions are very important ti start an effective collaboration

Odete Pinho

modetepinho — 2016-11-04 19:16:28 UTC

These four questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are amazing ones. They put all so clear!
We learn that we have to put these 4 questions when planning a group activity to our students.

Reneta, Bulgaria

renyraicheva — 2016-11-04 19:43:17 UTC

Nice thoughts & ideas, great questions! Thanks! :)

Natália Ferreira, Portugal

2016-11-04 20:22:53 UTC

These four questions are the basis of collaborative work. When I develop group work with students these issues are present when do your script and particularly when preparing its assessment. Then I question me about the evidence showing that students are working in collaboration; that reveal shared responsibility ... This is my difficulty.

Orsola,Italia

2016-11-04 21:51:17 UTC

These questions are very interesting and helpful for designing a learning activity. I'll take them into consideration when I plan collaborative activities.

Ivana, Slovakia

luptacikova_ivana — 2016-11-04 21:53:41 UTC

I think that are very useful ideas about collaborative learning and it will be helpful for me in the future. I've usualy asked myself the fisrt and third ideas.

Peter (Ireland)

maxipetemcc — 2016-11-04 22:07:52 UTC

1. are they working together; 2. do they have shared responsibility; 3. are they making substantive decisions; 4. is their work interdependent)

These are questions which are useful when preparing a group to work collaboratively but are not ones which I actively put into use prior to this. It seems a good idea to also use these questions after a project has been completed to see if you have actually put them into use. A Greek teacher has prepared a info gram for these questions which i have downloaded and will have on the wall in my room to remind me of what I need to do to ensure that my pupils work collaboratively

Cinzia Spogli, ITALY

cinzia_spogli — 2016-11-04 22:16:21 UTC

I didn't thought about the 4 questions so deeply. But now I believe they are the focus of the collaboration. Very useful the advice about not to overwhelm students.

The four questionsThere must be an intention and an outcome in everything we plan to do in class. The most difficult thing for a teacher is to optimize the development of the learning process empowering students to choose how they can show what they know. Having the 4 questions in mind is crucial to foster students' mastery . I will have them in mind from now on.Maria de Fátima Silva

fatasilva — 2016-11-04 22:53:24 UTC

Ana, Portugal

analivramento — 2016-11-05 00:16:59 UTC

I never thought about this when designing collaborative learning activities but I think they will be helpful from now on.

Susana Neves, Portugal

shesuhed — 2016-11-05 00:56:42 UTC

The four major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are very useful and should be considered in the planning of collaborative learning activities. They summarize clearly the objectives that should be pursued in the collaborative work and so I think they can also be taken into account in the design of assessment instruments. When I develop collaborative learning activities with my students I do not always consider the fourth question.
Although I try to ensure that all students become involved in the work, I rarely have in mind if students work interdependently and now, seeing this video, I clearly understand that to not take «interdependence» into account is to forget a key aspect of the collaboration.

Amélie Silvert

silverteacher — 2016-11-05 07:03:25 UTC

Evaluating the quality of a collaboration is a trick question. I would say that it can start by knowing each and every pupil's profile and see how he or she could help the others in class. Then we would get strong element and weaker elements for the task at hand. By assigning students clear roles, it takes the anxiety away of having to behave the "right" way or the way the teacher expects. For instance, I am a captain in my group, I know I am responsible for leading the group. I'm the expert so I'll give advice...Making decisions is a huge deal getting them ready to grow up and think independently. The teacher also has to learn to fade away and to toss those colourful powerpoints. :)

Betina Astride, PT

betinaastride — 2016-11-05 07:18:14 UTC

I guess I haven’t been thinking about these 4 questions by purpose. Some ideas are there when I plan, but now I’m aware of these 4 topics and I’m sure I’ll do it in a more conscious way.

David Doherty Co. Donegal Ireland Module 2

daviddoherty — 2016-11-05 12:34:26 UTC

I think the questions are clever and are relevant but it is not always necessary to ask yourself all of them everytime you plan a lesson.
It really depends on what you are trying to achieve in the lesson and the degree of collaboration you are seeking to achieve also.
If I am intending to teach through instruction rather than facilitation, I may just drop a little paired work into the mix simply to alleviate student boredom from listening to me. No need to consider the questions past the first one.

Rossella, Italy

2016-11-05 13:56:41 UTC

I believe that the four questions in the video are very useful and should be taken into account to create truly cooperative learning among pupils. Cooperate is not limited to work in groups, but to share the responsibilities of the path and the common end result. This implies strong critical thinking and decision-making that often the primary school children do not have and it's up to us as teachers to teach them to work collaboratively and redistributing the tasks for the good final result. it is difficult to describe the quality of collaboration and I realize that I will commit myself more on this point for the next activities that i will propose to my students.

Evi Karella-Greece

spevispevi — 2016-11-05 15:27:16 UTC

All four questions are of major importance for a real collaborative activity. I try to keep them in mind when I try to design a collaborative activity. It quite difficult because I am a kindergarten teacher. Children at this age are still developing their social skills and they need guidance all the time.

Tim Gayton - Sweden

timgayton — 2016-11-05 15:56:35 UTC

Four great questions!
I like what this professor says!

Giovanna G.

giovannagulli62 — 2016-11-05 16:08:23 UTC

we have to be very careful what we are talking about. if the people are equally responsible, and mutually responsible for the tasks give them the responsibility to decide the process and the product. don’t design tasks in the beginning that leave them overwhelmed.
You have to build up their expertise. .

Cristina

voicuelena18 — 2016-11-05 16:33:14 UTC

They are very useful indeed! I never asked myself this question before, but thanks to professor Deirdre, I know what to do from now on! I will be more careful when design group activities with my students and I will keep in mind those 4 question.

Joana, Portugal

juanagomes — 2016-11-05 17:51:02 UTC

The questions are pertinent and I think they come up when you're planning and assessing the work, serving as guide. I wish they answered the fourth one...

Vanda, Portugal

vbatista70 — 2016-11-05 18:56:18 UTC

The issues are very pertinent and allow us to state whether the groups are developing collaborative work as well as identify the weaknesses that the group may feel.

Antonia, Nethelands

chanja — 2016-11-05 19:42:30 UTC

Working together, shared responsibility, substantive decisions, interdependent work....
Important questions to be answered when designing activities for collaborative learning. Questions that are not always easy to answer or that were not taken into account when designing an assignment.
I'm looking forward to see the corresponding rubri

Alena, Czech Republic

2016-11-05 19:51:57 UTC

When I´m preparing collaboration activities, I have in mind their cooperation, distribution of tasks according to their skills. They are usually independent about content and progress of an activity.
The 4 questions will help me with preparing my future collaboration activities.

Paola Arduini, Italy

paolarduini — 2016-11-05 20:59:41 UTC

4 keys for collaboration: are they working together? Do they have shared responsibility? Are they making substantive decisions? And is their work interdependent?
I try to care of all these aspects working with young pupils. Setting an environment good for collaborative work it's hard and it lasts months. But the very first time when a group of 4 or 5 children come with a piece of drawing or a map or a poem, saying " That is OUR work" it's a magic moment.

Sabrina Petrillo, ITALY

spwillothewisp9 — 2016-11-05 21:14:31 UTC

The 4 Collaboration Questions:

are they working together? Do they have shared responsibility? Are they making substantive decisions? Is their work interdependent?

I think that it is not easy for our students making substantive decisions together about content, process and product of their group work unless we teachers establish clear objectives and set rules concerning the level of contribution that every member has to give inside a team. I must say that the four questions presented by Professor D. Butler helped me find effective strategies in the design of future collaborative activities.

Cátia Santos

2016-11-05 22:19:02 UTC

PORTUGAL

I think the Butler teacher's questions are very importan. I had never seriously thought of all the questions, although when students are working collaboratively, sametimes, I question myself as to evaluate the work in group and the contribution of each to work, for example

Melisa A., Italy

ambrosini_melisa — 2016-11-05 22:21:51 UTC

About the explanation of the Professor Deirdre Butler, I found interesting the suggestion of proposing activities with different degrees of freedom for the students, so that they can engage immediately in tasks not too complex.

Conceição Aleixo, Portugal

caleixonline — 2016-11-05 22:56:02 UTC

These 4 major questions are very important. Thinking about «are they working together?... Do they have shared responsibility?... Are they making substantive decisions?... and… is their work interdependent?» are questions that cover the various dimensions of student’s work when they work together and particularly if we want that collaborative learning occurs.

Donatella, Italy

donatellacavion — 2016-11-05 23:03:20 UTC

I think that these 4 Collaboration questions are very important to verify if we design good collaborative learning activities. So not only "if they are working together" but "the quality of their work", the responsability, the substantive decisions ant the interdependent work. Last year I did something like that in a class. Students worked in small groups and prepared their presentations. I used a grid in order to evaluate their group work and a different grid to evaluate their presentations.

Maria Concetta Catalano, Ital

cettinacatalano644 — 2016-11-05 23:08:58 UTC

The four key questions are decisive for a good part of the students, the shy ones. Infact not all students find it easy to take an active role within at group. Shy students can tend to feel overwhelmed when the focus is put on them in class and it takes time, patience and skill to draw them out and help them to become a confident contributor in group activities.

Graça Carvalho, Portugal

graca_carvalho — 2016-11-06 03:41:54 UTC

These four issues are relevant to the success of a true labor of collaborative learning. When planning I try to keep in mind :
- Are they working together?
- Do they have shared responsibility?
- Are they making substantive decisions?
- Is their work interdependent?
... but to students from a young age is not easy to work in pairs or groups to discuss, solve a problem or create a product, and take mutual responsibility for the tasks. We must be prepared to manage conflicts.

Maria, Greece

tyxi48 — 2016-11-06 06:36:18 UTC

Those questions are very important for the design of a true collaborating project. It's not always easy to fulfill them though, specially in school systems with a very individualistic orientation.

Maria Papavasilopoulou, Greece

user_1412170174 — 2016-11-06 08:39:07 UTC

I agree that it is very important to focus on the quality of collaboration. and those 4 questions could be a very useful tool to define it.

Marco Martinelli, Rome, Italy

radagast1974 — 2016-11-06 09:50:06 UTC

The questions seem a useful tool: I have noted them and I will try to use them in planning my next collaboration activities. It is true that sometimes we just group them together but they are not mutually responsible. For me, beyond the individual process or product, they should be mutually responsible for each others' learning. This is what I see as the ultimate goal of collaboration.

Sue AUS

suzanne_durick — 2016-11-06 10:34:31 UTC

I think the 4 major questions are a great starting point to designing true collaborative learning. It's an interesting point the shared responsibility - the teacher must really design a learning task in which students are truly equal in their role for decisions, important issues etc. The Content, Process or Product is key to planning. I can see how this is a target to build student's collaborative expertise.

Ionela Lazea, Romania

kameeliah16bis — 2016-11-06 11:09:45 UTC

I admit I never thought like this about collaboration. These questions provide a good framework for us to use and build upon.

Urszula, Poland

utula1 — 2016-11-06 12:00:50 UTC

Is it possible to design group/pair working without answering 'yes' to these questions? It is ABC of team work.

Mihaela Băluţă,România

2016-11-06 13:12:24 UTC

One good thing is accomplished through collaboration and product quality and requires much appreciated collaboration with colleagues.

Daniel Caridade, PT

dcaridade — 2016-11-06 13:12:32 UTC

These questions are a useful guide to framing the workflow. I found more significant the 'making substantive decisions' question as it allowed me to grasp better the importance of separating collaboration through content and process in a first approach to this learning methodology. It left me a question on my own: What's the best approach to collaborative learning, starting out with tasks about content or with tasks relating to process?

Camelia Vesa RO

cameliarusiusan — 2016-11-06 13:41:37 UTC

These 4 questions guide the design of an activity that involves real collaborative work and help us to avoid possible mistakes.

Tina M_Macedonia Greece

tinamellos — 2016-11-06 15:51:22 UTC

The 4 questions are core, very clarrifying and of great guidance for teachers when designing a collaborative learning activity.

Anna Rosa, Italy

ar_b — 2016-11-06 15:58:36 UTC

This video helps me remember that students can work together when they have a common real task to face up, starting from the awareness that both the group and the task itself are indivisible. Therefore, all members are mutually responsible for the outcome.
So, the group is the only entity able to take substantive decisions.
About this I helped students to avoid voting and use discussions and sharing, in order to better understand the views of all group’s members and identify common points strengthening the group itself.
In this way, discussions and feedback could create interdependence too.
Sometimes I asked myself some questions like those of this module, but now I have more awareness about priorities and strategies.

Eleonora, Italy

eleonoragiordan — 2016-11-06 16:41:37 UTC

Four basic questions to build the expertise of the students that I will take into high consideration before designing the next learning activity.

Isabel Rato, Portugal

2016-11-06 16:57:54 UTC

It seems to me essential to take into account, to the preparation of collaborative educational activities, the four issues addressed in the video (working with others, share responsibility, make decisions and substantive work on interdependence). It is to value the advice given by Dr. Deindre Butler who will start this work: start by designing activities that require substantive decisions of the students, as the learning process: what will they do, when to do, what tools to use and what role and responsibilities of each in the team.

Annamaria, Italy

2016-11-06 17:07:53 UTC

The 4 major questions are very helpful to create a flow in the work to assign.

Emilia, Romania

Emilia_T22 — 2016-11-06 17:07:59 UTC

The four questions about the content, the process and the product are very useful and important as well in order to design a successful collaborative learning activity.I haven't asked myself all those questions, just a part of them.

IvanaNenadic

nenadic_ivana007 — 2016-11-06 17:16:00 UTC

the shared responsibility is something I did not give enough emphasis on. The 4 questions are a great guide in designing the project.

Svetlana, Estonia

svetlana_dychen — 2016-11-06 17:29:29 UTC

Team work skills are very important in our time and also in future. 4 major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are helpful, especially for collaborative learning users - beginners. Those questions are a base of PBL.

Nikos, Greece

nikosmouratog — 2016-11-06 17:38:21 UTC

They are indeed helpful as they can provide not only a "designing" framework, but also a reflective one, in order to carry out a collaborative learning process.

Helly, Vienna

h_swaton — 2016-11-06 17:41:33 UTC

I think the 4 questions are very important:
Most of all the question: Do they make substantive decisions?
It’s not so easy to engage the students to do so and you have to train them to do it.

Michel, Netherlands

michelfreriks — 2016-11-06 17:50:03 UTC

The four questions are nice to have when designing a lesson, especially when you are dissecting a lesson to see whether collaborative learning is actually going on. I do need some examples though, but they are coming in this module, so that's good!
Number 4: interdependent is not mentioned in the video. Was it cut short? I can think of something myself, but still...:)

Jaime Martins, Portugal

joncmartins — 2016-11-06 17:57:40 UTC

These are really a very important questions. Maybe I have never asked myself but to work collaboratively it is what you do without thinking to answer these questions. We always have to see if all the students are really working together or if only 1 or 2 are working and the others playing or laughing. We really have to observe if they have shared responsibilities if they have made substantives decisions. I'm talking about students from basic or secondary schools, because I know as a lecturer I trust them because I know they are really doing collaborative work, they discuss the issue, they solve the problem, they create a product. The mark of the work is very important for them.

Cidalia Marques

cidaliam — 2016-11-06 19:18:12 UTC

If we don't adress these questions, we won't have a collaborative learning activity, so they are extremely important questions. Since some years ago I always lead my students to have different roles in each group trying to make then have shared responsability in the same project otherwise some students tend not to work, whyle some lead all the tasks. That way everyone is incharge of some tasks in the major task.

Adelaide Jordão, Portugal

2016-11-06 19:56:41 UTC

The 4 Collaboration Questions:

- Are they working together?

- Do they have shared responsibility?

- Are they making substantive decisions?

- Is their work interdependent?

These are indeed helpful questions when you are designing for collaboration. All of them are present whenever I design a collaborative learning activity.

Ana Chambel

2016-11-06 20:30:53 UTC

Portugal
The 4 Collaboration Questions

I think that they are really important the 4 issues that are presented by Professor Deirdre Butler I do not usually use them consciously or methodically but I hope to start doing it and certainly my work and the students will be more productive.

Maria Rizza/ Sicily

rowri — 2016-11-06 21:22:45 UTC

The 4 questions asked by the Prfessor Deidre arevery useful because managing group work is not easy for a techer. At least this is my experience, I often try to get my studentsw ork collaboratevly, I am aware that the students of present time have to acquire social skills as well as communicative skills, They have to devolop self confidence in order to express their opinions without being afraid or feeling ashamed of voicing their thoughts. Unfortunately this is not the normal way to have lessons. In my school most of the classes are teacher oriented, so the students are not used to working in groups, that is why I have difficulties in getting them work efficiently without wasting time. In short, I had already had the feeling that I have to learn how to manage group work., but In spite of this feeling I had not thought in such precise way the 4 steps to make group work efficiently. I mean I had never thought before listening to Professor Butler about shared responsability, substansive decisions Actually, I have always felt the responsability if the content and products were not so good, and it ws always me making desions. Now I Know that Imade mistakes and I have to improve in reation to these advice .

Marta Pereira

mpereira89_1 — 2016-11-06 22:00:30 UTC

The 4 questions addressed by Professor Deirdre Butler have made me reflect on the difference between working together and working collaboratively, are in fact issues that I will reflect on before planning a collaborative learning activity.

Clara Gulino, Italy

2016-11-06 22:03:16 UTC

It isn’t easy to manage all these aspects but they are essentally if we want our students to become collaborative learners; the approach is not just putting some students together and let them negotiate or work because unless they are used to, they can’t have the right skills: they need our help and we have to give them rules and suggestions. Sharing responsibility is the main issue in a working group and students must become aware of it, each member is essential for the others to let the group be ‘alive’.

Nehir ÇABUKER

nehircabuker — 2016-11-06 22:23:21 UTC

yes that s a usefull video for me. When I plan to make collaboration between my pupils firstly I ask myself that they reaaly need to do that and if they wouldnt make a collaboration what ll happen

Pedro Elias, Portugal

pedroelias — 2016-11-06 22:26:33 UTC

The 4 issues raised by Professor Deirdre Butler are really important when designing a collaborative work. These issues made me reflect on how can I improve the design and management of collaborative work with my students.

Teresa Moedas, Portugal

teresapaulamoedas — 2016-11-06 22:32:37 UTC

The issues are really important. For me the most important ones are:
-Are they working together?
-Do they have shared responsability?

María Napal/ Spain

mnapalf — 2016-11-06 23:21:11 UTC

As other students have already mentioned, these 4 questions are key to tell "collaborative learning" appart from cooperative learning, or working together. I think they will be a great help for examining my own practice when I design learning activities.
It's not neccesary that the students are working together. To promote true collaboration, their work must be interdependent, and mechanisms should be supplied to ensure they share responsability on the product. An important question teachers should remember is to measure well the degree of freedom over substantive decissions (on the content, the process or the product) that is given to the students.

Roberta, Italy

carnevale_roberta4 — 2016-11-06 23:23:58 UTC

The 4 major questions presented are:
-Are the students really working together?
-Are they making substantive decisions?
-Are they working interdependently?
- Are they really sharing responsibility?

I've always asked myself weather my students were really working together and sharing responsibility, but I don't think I've ever asked myself weather they were really making substantive decisions. As for the interdependence I've always found it hard to assess weather they were really developing a positive interdependence or not..

I think if you plan a collaborative activity with these questions in mind, you are more likely to achieve good results in terms of collaboration. The problem is to find effective ways to foster collaboration, shared responsibility, positive interdependence, effective decision making etc. I mean: these 4 questions deal with the goals we want to achieve, but do not say much about practical strategies to achieve them..

PA/Portugal

rolo_paula — 2016-11-06 23:47:43 UTC

I think that 4 questions are very useful to help us guide and understand if students are working together and how they are doing that. Some of the times we forget the process and it is the process where they produce knowledge and develop the competences they need to the future

Marina, Croatia

2016-11-07 09:04:49 UTC

The 4 major questions are really important. I always try to answer these question when designing learning activities.

Cristina Fuertes, Spain

2016-11-07 09:51:06 UTC

They are key questions for analysing if we learning activities are collaborative. Of course, they will be very helpful, because one of the problems of collaborative tasks is the correct design of the task.

Simona, the Czech Republic

simonabrothankova — 2016-11-07 10:11:33 UTC

All the questions make perfect sense to me. I have never thought about them but I hope I design tasks which include all the given questions.

Isabel Costa

susanarodrigues — 2016-11-07 12:23:52 UTC

I believe very much in this type of collaborative work, this school year all my activities are being thought through 5 major steps:1.º Discuss an issue (most students like to do brainstorming), 2.º Solve a problem, 3.º make a self and a peer assessment to tracking the group work, 4.º create a product, 5.º make a final self and peer assessment not just about the final product but also about the way the group members worked together

Ruggiero Balice, Italy

ruggierobalice1 — 2016-11-07 14:49:58 UTC

Collaboration and cooperative learning are a good way to increase students’ Knowledge. Collaboration is based on questions that a group should answer and these are the same questions that everyone has to ask himself when working with other in different fields and not just at school. So these questions have a greater value due to the indirect benefit to a good working method in life.

Maria, Roman

maria_mzapa — 2016-11-07 15:54:13 UTC

This four questions are very important and useful for a real collaborative activity. In my point of view the 4 help us find out what collaborative means.

Ana, Portugal

anasalonso — 2016-11-07 15:58:15 UTC

The four major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler make perfect sense to me because they are very useful at helping designing our collaboration learning activity. I think collaboration and cooperative learning are a good way to increase students knowledge.
Also, I must say these issues made me reflect on how can I improve the design and management of collaborative work with my students and it's a fact working together is different working collaboratively.

Rosália, Portugal

rosaliaribeiro_ — 2016-11-07 16:58:18 UTC

" Are they working together? Do they have shared responsibility? Are they making substantive decisions? And is their work interdependent?"
I think these four questions are important because they allow us to check if the students are really working collaboratively and the level of collaboration that is occurring when this happens.

Merle, Estonia

merle_pahn — 2016-11-07 18:41:05 UTC

Merle, Estonia

merle_pahn — 2016-11-07 18:41:05 UTC

These 4 questions are very important in collaborative learning. Without them can´t create lesson /project plan

Cristina/Pisa

2016-11-07 19:10:47 UTC

I start to wonder in which reality these academic poeple live. Do you you all have classrooms where groups are so homogeneous that responsibilities and tasks can equally shared '?classes where all students can give a contribute and be responsibile for the outcome of the product ? ..What can I say? lucky you!

Sirkku / Finland

sirkku_alin — 2016-11-07 19:22:41 UTC

These are very good questions for an educator to ask himself/herself whilst planning a learning project. Very often I find myself planning way too much in advance, not leaving enough space for the students to work on. The right kind of problems and questions as well as working opportunities give the students a chance to really meet the questions one by one. I know I have to give the control of the learning process more to the students.

anasaojoaoteixeira — 2016-11-07 19:56:57 UTC

The four main issues presented by Butler teacher are important for planning a collaborative learning activity.
The group work, shared responsibility, taking substantive decisions and self-employment are key elements in collaborative learning. Students will have the opportunity to work in pairs or groups to discuss a problem, to solve a problem or create a product. The teacher has to follow the work of the students. They can work with others outside the classroom, including students from other classes, other experts in the field they are studying.
I never questioned me about these questions the way she suggested.

Google translation

Ana Elisabete Teixeira, Vila Nova de Cerveira- Portugal

anasaojoaoteixeira — 2016-11-07 19:57:38 UTC

The 4 Questions Collaboration

The four main issues presented by Butler teacher are important for planning a collaborative learning activity.
The group work, shared responsibility, taking substantive decisions and self-employment are key elements in collaborative learning. Students will have the opportunity to work in pairs or groups to discuss a problem, to solve a problem or create a product. The teacher has to follow the work of the students. They can work with others outside the classroom, including students from other classes, other experts in the field they are studying.
I never questioned me about these questions the way she suggested.

Google translation

Lorraine Cardona, PR

2016-11-08 05:32:22 UTC

Basically what we get from the questions presented is the basic functionality of the groups, what type of collaboration is going to be engage and it's explained that this is an skill learned through out different learning experiences and that for an effective planification we need to be clear of the objectives and goals that the group should reach, for example what kind of collaboration is going to take place, what part of the work is responsibility of what member, how much participation will be needed to finished the work an de how this will be measure and what to evaluate and how and based on this is how we make rubrics and planning. So it's essential we asked ourselves all these questions before engaging in the activity because students have to know the rules of the game beforehand so they can perform as it is expected.

Jana, Germany

oldpadlet — 2016-11-08 07:14:16 UTC

These are good questions if we only focus on collaborative learning. However, we have to find a compromise between the students' abilities and interests, the subject matter, the parents' expectations and our own, the classroom restrictions of time and space. Consequently, it is extremely rare for us to say YES to all of these questions regarding one project.

Dulce Freire, Fernanda Cunha, Marco Fernandes and Vítor Silva, Portugal

2016-11-08 10:12:29 UTC

Following what we learned in Module1. these four precise questions now make much sense. We recognize that by now we'd never actually put these issues despite observe / follow students during their work group and we base the accomplishment of the task on that idea, that we now call collaborative work, we never thought them the way we are doing now "Unus pro omnibus". Students work with a single goal.
This four questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler will undoubtedly guide our work in the preparation of activities for students.

Cinzia Masia, Italy

attasonitabas — 2016-11-08 11:53:08 UTC

The 4 major questions help me to reflect and think about how my pupils work, specially when they are in pairs /groups and the task they have to carry out. That's really interesting!

Manuela, Portugal

mortigao — 2016-11-08 15:39:38 UTC

The four major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are all important for me when I'm designing a collaborative learning activity. I already asked myself the first and second questions but to do a deeper reflection on students work and the quality of their goals I should pay more attention to the last ones. I think I will have some difficulties in observing those big ideas.

Ângela and Tânia, Portugal

taniaalves23 — 2016-11-08 16:37:30 UTC

In our view, these are the four pillars for design collaborative learning. Students need to work together, share responsibilities, make important decisions together, and be autonomous. Usually, prior to starting collaborative work, students have these four questions at the foundation of all collaborative learning. It is not always easy to manage these issues in the group, but with dialogue and teamwork, it will be easier.

Fatih / Turkey

mrtoy — 2016-11-08 16:42:41 UTC

To me, these four questions are required for creating a rudimentary collaboration in an educational setting.But I don't think these four questions are adequate in a collaborative environment. We can also add some other questions. One of the questions to be asked can be like following. "Are all the individual needs, learning styles and interests embedded into the collaboration.This is another perspective but this does not need to be thought as isolated from collaboration. As for the questions, I have always asked myself these questions but not only these questions. Shared responsibility, interdependency, substantive decisions and working together can be more attractive for all the group members when they are also motivated as individuals.

Diana, Romania

2016-11-08 17:45:34 UTC

Ofcourse! This questions is important for planning a collaborative learning activity. Into group need to establish responsibilitys, to analyze the situation, make decisions, to work interdependent in achieving objectives

Letizia Zozi, Italia

2016-11-08 19:24:15 UTC

I agree with these 4 questions/viewpoints and with the necessity of developing these skills
at school. I would like to work with like minded colleagues, we should have been trained this way!

Maria Vasilopoulou, Greece

mbasilopoulou — 2016-11-09 04:54:18 UTC

Very useful questions to consider before planning collaborative learning indeed.I've been trying to implement them but I feel I need more training myself too so as to feel really happy with my work. I usually provide lots of guiding and support and the way I see it now, I deprive them of free choice as far as substantive decions are concerned.

Thomas, Austria

2016-11-09 10:13:26 UTC

I agree with the four questions though I think that the last one "Is their work interdependent?" could be obsolete when the students work together, have shared resposibility and make substantive decisions. I think that if you comply with the first three questions the last one becomes sort of a consequence.

Lívia, PT

2016-11-09 10:33:44 UTC

Of course we think about collaboration when we are preparing a lesson. What we don't always think is whether the outcome will be everybody's responsibility. The questions asked here are important to define the type of work you want, the aim and the outcome you expect. Work with others...face to face or not, having a shared responsability for a common project, for its outcome, and make decisions together of how to do it,...those are things we don't think about entirely.

Venceslau Teixeira

venceslauteixeira — 2016-11-09 12:00:08 UTC

I consider that the questions raised by Professor Butler are interesting and should be taken into account in the planning of collaborative learning activities. Most of the time when I plan activities involving collaborative learning, I have the awareness that I did not direct myself and these questions directly and objectively, but that they were subconsciously involved in a certain way. However, from now on these issues must be taken into account when planning such activities.

Venceslau Teixeira

venceslauteixeira — 2016-11-09 12:00:11 UTC

Venceslau Teixeira

venceslauteixeira — 2016-11-09 12:00:20 UTC

Vila Nova de Cerveira - Portugal
I consider that the questions raised by Professor Butler are interesting and should be taken into account in the planning of collaborative learning activities. Most of the time when I plan activities involving collaborative learning, I have the awareness that I did not direct myself and these questions directly and objectively, but that they were subconsciously involved in a certain way. However, from now on these issues must be taken into account when planning such activities.
Google translation

MARIA RITA SEMINERIO, SICILY

mrseminerio — 2016-11-09 19:22:55 UTC

I share and I agree with prof Butler said, so I give an opportunity to my pupils. They  work in pairs or groups, discuss about a topic, solve  problems and they can create a product. They have many and different possibilities of learning and helping each others.

Marianthi Arvanitidou -Greece

1canislupus22 — 2016-11-09 19:33:59 UTC

I agree with 4 questions

Marta, Portugal

istruka — 2016-11-09 21:30:53 UTC

I think that these questions are important. Sometimes we do not predict that the collaborative work that we planned may be sabotaged by good students that want to have good grades and make all the important decisions themselves. Because nowadays there is a lot of competition among good students. So, we must have alternative ways to show the students that the work is a team effort and not a battle for good grades.

Domenica Marino, Italy

marinomimma16 — 2016-11-09 22:13:07 UTC

I fully agree on the importance that the four questions, highlighted by Prof. Deirdre Butler, have in the design, management and evaluation of collaborative learning.

Sanela Jukic, Croatia

2016-11-09 22:22:42 UTC

Now I see that sometimes what I thought if as a collaborative work actually wasn't one.
It makes things much clearer now and it will make my lesson planning more effective. Thank you prof. Butler.

Mafalda Basto, Portugal

ana_mafalda_basto1 — 2016-11-09 23:08:10 UTC

Quatro questões?

Four questions? There seemed more… but all of them important in the creation of a collaborative activity, even though I don’t always observe them…

Sandra Teixeira, Portugal

2016-11-09 23:34:12 UTC

I think the questions are very interesting. They will help me when I'll design a collaborative learning activity. I really never thought about it. We learn with the experiences we have access.

Maria Panou/ Kalymnos, Greece

maria_themelis — 2016-11-10 17:21:55 UTC

I agree with four questions and I think it's really important to be able our students make decisions they can shape content, process and results.

Mimma, Italy

mimma_gioia — 2016-11-10 17:38:25 UTC

The collaboration questions work as important guidelines, so they are very useful for collaborative learning activity. The four questions: Are they working together? Do they have shared responsibility? Do they make substantive decisions? Is their work interdipendent? explanin how I can plan collaborative activities. Students have to be clear what are they doing and being responsible for their outcomes.

viki doga,grreece,

2016-11-10 21:04:37 UTC

making decision about the content, process, product

Concetta Drago, Italia

concetta_drago — 2016-11-11 10:42:54 UTC

Working together doesn't mean always collaborating or cooperating. When designing the collaboration these are the main question the teacher should asking himself:
Are they working together?
Do they have shared responsability?
Do they make substantive decisions?
Is their work interdependent?
Teacher should keep in mind that the main aim is to build up the student expertise.

Giuliana P. Spain

2016-11-12 12:59:59 UTC

Understanding the difference between working together and collectively working and being responsible is important.

Helene Stavropoulou, Grece

elenistavro7 — 2016-11-12 16:21:50 UTC

I have repeatedly asked such questions whenever I proposed collaborative learning activities in my classroom, but it was impossible for me to give a global and above all "non-sentimental" response. Now, thanks to these 4 major questions and the explanations offered by Professor Butler, all my questions have been answered. Thank you very much Professor !

Laurentina Soares, Portugal

2016-11-13 00:06:22 UTC

I think de main idea of this video was:
- We work together when we share responsabilities
- We must work in groups and have our own responsabilities
- Working together is important when we have equal responsability
I never think in these questions when I design a colaborative learning, but it´s realy important.

Victoria De Mulder, Belgium

victoriademulder11 — 2016-11-13 08:14:21 UTC

I was looking for an effective way of learning for a particular course "RetailSoftware". The 4 major questions will be very useful in helping me design a collaborative learning activity and explain my students the interest of learning this way. Thank you.

Sónia C., Portugal

sonia_castanheira — 2016-11-13 11:52:33 UTC

These are actually four relevant topics to define collaborative learning. I must tell that I never though on these topics as being the basis of all the work I do, nevertheless all the observation and guidance I already do to all students when they work in groups. Students need to work together, to share ideas and responsibilities and take decisions together. Only working like this they can be autonomous.

Cristina Antal - Romania

cristiantal44 — 2016-11-13 11:56:09 UTC

These questions are not only useful but important, too. I asked myself part of them but not all. I never asked if they shared their responsabilities. I wonder, now, why? This is an important step but I always failed.

Anna Maria, Italy

mattielloannamaria — 2016-11-13 12:01:28 UTC

The 4 questions are really useful in helping designing a collaborative learning. I have yet designed collaborative learning but I didn't have asked them to me before. Now I'm sure it will be easier to design a collaborative learning because the 4 questions are a great tool.

Sandrina Ribeiro

2016-11-13 12:28:50 UTC

Those are,in fact,4 big issues when we are planing a collaborative learning activity.
Students must learn how to work together, sharing their ideas and the responsability of the results. It's not the thing they do: "let's split tasks; mine, yours...". It's much more than that.
Those questions will help me to preparemy collaborative learning activity from now on.

Sophia Kouzouli, Greece

sophiakouz — 2016-11-13 13:14:29 UTC

All of them are so crucial!
They are not easy to do and they need careful planning. It is difficult even or the teachers

Lucia, Italy

lustri55 — 2016-11-13 13:46:45 UTC

Yes, I think the four questions are very helpful to plan and arrange a proper collaborative learning activity. While working in a project my students often ask me for very clear guidance, they think they will receive orders and of course it would easier and faster for the teacher , but it is not what we want to do!
It is important that they discuss,solve, create, share responibilities and take risks...

Olga, Ukraine

ovotsaruk — 2016-11-13 20:45:49 UTC

It is always difficult to design a collaborative learning activity. Unfortunately Isee how many gaps I have. Thanks for the video!

Margit, Austria

margit_pollek1 — 2016-11-13 23:14:11 UTC

Yes, i agree. These are always the most important questions in project management. So we as the project managers should also make that clear for the students. They also should reflect the actions and desicions in the group regarding these questions.

Lucrezia Di Molfetta Italy

edimol — 2016-11-14 16:41:19 UTC

All the four questions are very important. It is necessary that students get clear explanations of what do do and what is expected from them
before they start the activities. That means a carefully organized plan.

Conceição Varela / Portugal

conceicao_varela — 2016-11-14 20:47:03 UTC

The four major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are crucial guidelines for the design of collaborative learning activities. By asking ourselves if the activities we're designing fulfil these four major requirements we're ensuring that our students will develop the corresponding skills: ability to do teamwork, ability to share responsibility, ability to make substantive decisions together and the ability to depend on the work of the other group members to achieve a common outcome or product. I also agree that collaborative work is not something that our students will grasp from the very begin so we're starting with collaborative learning activities that focus on shared decisions about how to carry out the activity instead of about the content or product of the activity.

Célia Dias

2016-11-15 09:48:32 UTC

Are they working together?

Do they share responsibility?

Do they make substantive decisions?

Is their work interdependent?

Therefore the four questions are a perfect way to evaluate whether there was collaborative work or not.

Jose, Portugal

jafscruz — 2016-11-15 17:53:21 UTC

This questions are very important to start a collaboration activity, because we can stay in track with assessment issues, and to make a efective feedback of the collaboration to students, making a student centred learning focus during the activity. Quite often I try to think on some of this questions and design assessment grids or checklists during observation of group work/pair work.

2016-11-15 18:12:27 UTC

Palmira Serrano, Portugal

palmiraserrano — 2016-11-15 22:37:32 UTC

The four major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are very important and the basis of collaborative work. They are useful in helping to design collaborative learning activity and also in evaluating it. It is unpredictable for teachers to ask these questions before designing collaborative learning activities.

Marília, Portugal

mariliabacao — 2016-11-15 23:38:30 UTC

Yes, these 4 questions are very important because they'll allow us to reorganise our teaching and center it on the students work and on working really together

Maria Isabel Pinto, Portugal

2016-11-16 01:22:34 UTC

The four issues presented are very important for the organization of group work and for obtaining a final work that is really the result of everyone's work. Team members have to enjoy working together, there must be responsibility for everyone and clear task definition. Of course, the teacher acts as moderardor and guiding the work that is being done.

Daria Artsymieieva, Ukraine

dawkevi485 — 2016-11-16 10:18:34 UTC

Excellent for checking! These 4 questions are as an algorithm for self-reflection. When we are designing collaboration activity we should ask ourselves these questions. And the level of collaboration will be identified by our answers.

Isabel Cabo

isacabo_1978 — 2016-11-17 19:00:42 UTC

Are they working together?

Do they share responsibility?

Do they make substantive decisions?

Is their work interdependent?
I think that 4 major questions are very useful to design a collaborative learning activity. I think that making decision about the content, process and product it´s essencial to collaborative learning.

Paula Duarte, Portugal

2016-11-17 20:40:27 UTC

I think it's important and necessary learn to distinguish the concepts of Cooperation and Collaboration.
We need to realize this to really start collaborating.
Collaborating is more than just cooperating.

We work collaboratively when working with others and making substantive decisions together about: Content, Process, Product ; sharing responsibilities.
I had already thought about this because I have tried to promote collaborative work among the teachers of my math group.

Nazaré Firmino, Portugal

nazare_firmino — 2016-11-18 11:04:51 UTC

I think these four questions are useful for planning a collaborative learning activity because if the teacher reflects on them it will be able to more easily measure the level of collaboration among their students. Even so, I do not think it will be so straightforward and clear how to assess aspects such as shared responsibility and positive interdependence.

Maria Tomaz, Portugal

anjostomaz1 — 2016-11-19 12:14:19 UTC

These 4 questions are fundamental in designing strategies to be developed in the classroom. They help us to reflect in advance on how to propose challenges to the students in order to involve them all in a final product where they will have the answers and where they will have appropriate the contents of learning. This presentation remind me that we can integrate here the strategies developed in Project-based Learning and the strategies used in Inquiry Based Science Education ( "Engage", "Explore", "Explain", "Elaborate" Exchange "and" Empowerment "), will it?

Münevver, Turkey

2016-11-19 12:58:15 UTC

I haven't thought critically and deeply about these four questions in my lesson plans beforehand and I believe that they really pinpoint the necessary elements in an assessment rubric. As far as I have learned from the video:
This video also helps us creating a rubric for evaluating collaboration. Deidre Butler is asking four questions in the video:
Are they working together?
Do they have shared responsibility?
Do they make sunstantive decisions?
Is their work interdependent?

1. According to her, working together means that students have an opportunity to work in pairs or groups to discuss an issue, to solve a problem or to create a product. So teachers have to be very clear what are they doing. And students could actually work with people outside the classroom. Students in other classes, students from another school, or actually outside community members or experts in the field. However, they can also work face to face or they could use the technology.

2. If they have shared responsibility, if they work in pairs or groups, if they have a common product they are working on, a common design or a response to something; then, you are looking at shared responsibility. But it has to be remember a common product, a common design, a common response. So they have to collectively own the work, and being mutually responsible for its outcomes. If the group involves students or adults from outside the classroom, it only qualifies as shared responsibility if the people are equally responsible, and mutually responsible for the tasks. Otherwise it is only working together.

3. They make substantive decisions when they have to resolve important issues that will guide their work together. Important issues about the content, the process or the product. So initially,teachers may actually make them design the activity in such a way that they only have to make decisions maybe about the process. You have set maybe the questions to be investigated, etc. shared responsibility, but they will decide on how they are going to do it; the process. Or it could be content, so they actually have freedom over the content.
They may also have to make a decision about the hypotheses that they will test. So they are making substantive decisions about the content or they are making substantive decisions about the process, or they are making substantive decisions about the product that will develop in response to the task. As they get more expert, you will actually be able to maybe give them the responsibility to decide maybe the process and the product. But please don’t design tasks in the beginning that actually leave them overwhelmed. You have to build up their expertise.

Rui Vieira, Portugal

miguelvieira_com — 2016-11-19 15:18:52 UTC

Deirdre ideas are very good. When people work in team , I consider very important to understand the interdependence. The goals is to assign tasks that require collaboration skills. I believe that decisitions made by students can dictate the quality of work produced, and the quality of colaborative work. Students should be able to manage the process, leaded by the teacher orientations. This way they can manage the learning process, improve collaborative skillls. evaluate coleagues, evaluate theirselfs...

Stefania N., Italy

user_noninost — 2016-11-19 16:53:47 UTC

A major breakthrough in teachers' practice is when we shed our role as loudspeakers of bookish knowledge and realize that we can build broader skills in our students.

Irena, Gdansk,Poland

2016-11-19 20:41:09 UTC

Personally I am convinced that questions presented by Professor Butler are very important and should be taken into account any time we involve students to do group / team work. It is not easy to design the work so as to engage all the students in the same way. But we can do our best to help them take "equal " responsibilities for their parts. We can teach teach how to make sunstantive decisions by observing the process they go through to get the goal. We can also let them feel independent being only experts who help when necessary.

Virgínia Esteves, Portugal

virginiaesteves — 2016-11-19 21:44:14 UTC

I think that these questions are really important if we want our students to do a collaborative work instead of working together.
Collaborating is complex during the group or pair work the students must share responsibility, make substantive decisions to come to a final product as a mutual responsible outcome.
As teacher we should give our students freedom to shape the content, process and product.
Collaboration is much more than cooperation!!!!

Cristina Parete, Portugal

CrisParente — 2016-11-20 11:49:03 UTC

I believe the 4 major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are not only useful but also essential when teachers are designing a collaborative learning activity. Working together isn't the same as collaborating. Collaborating is more complex; it involves sharing responsibity, making decisions and work interdependent. When I design collaborative learning activties I have these questions in mind. I agree that in the beginning we have to keep it simple or our students will be overwhelmed.

Honorata Pereira, Portugal

honoratapereira — 2016-11-20 15:54:18 UTC

I think that the questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are not only fundamental to drawing a collaborative work, but also for the teacher to be able to evaluate the participation of each element of the group in the process.

Cristina Abegão

2016-11-20 16:07:28 UTC

The 4 major questions presented by Professor Deidre Butler are very useful but is also fundamental to design a collaborative learning activity. The teacher lead the students to manage their skills.

Anna Bormida

annabormida — 2016-11-21 17:32:53 UTC

Genova, Italy
I think that the 4 major questions presented by Professor Deirdre Butler are really essential when teachers are designing a collaborative learning activity.

Working together isn't the same as collaborating. Collaborating is more complex; it involves sharing responsibity, making decisions and work interdependent. When I design collaborative learning activties I have these questions in mind. I think then when we work in Etwinning project we can use and share these tasks at the best . You can also share your product with other classes that are working on the same goals.

I agree that we have to start to keep it simple in order to involve our students in activities they can do and less by less increase their work.

Patrizia, Italy

patrizia_brion — 2016-11-22 15:39:49 UTC

Patrizia Italy

pattymat52 — 2016-11-22 17:37:05 UTC

Pedro Nunes, Portugal

pedronunesnomundo — 2016-11-23 11:44:28 UTC

[I would start by pointing that the fourth "question" isn't really addressed in the video...]

In my opinion, the video presents a very comprehensive set of questions we must consider when we are "Co-lab" designing.
Developpping the necessary skills to work within a group is fundamental for youths. In a modern reallity (that we can just roughly project in the future) "working" efficiently becomes a direct synonim of working in a cooperative context. The habilities of collectively define a problem, analyze alternatives and picture a solution must be worked from early ages in our schools.
Sharing responsabilities is also of great importance in adolescents' personal formation. There must be always an ethical concern in working routines that goes beyond the simple efficiency of delivering a product. The purpose of my effort, the reason why I choose a method, the way I evaluate the result of my project, are very sensitive aspects, that assume an exponential importance when I'm working with others to achieve a common goal. And that's something we must devellop from a very young age.

Marina/Italy

marina_bottacin — 2016-11-23 14:19:20 UTC

Thanks to Professor Butler to make us reflect on these points. Too often we just look at the group work in a superficial way and this does not make things easier, not for the students, or for us. These questions must be kept in mind all along the learning process.

Maria Diaconu-Hegyi, Romania

2016-11-24 06:31:01 UTC

The questions are very helpful for us to really understand what the collaborative lesson means in all its stages. Before learning about these four questions I was asking myself about how to design colaborative learning so that children make as much time as possible their own movements throughout learning items.

Monika Nemeth /Hungary

2016-11-27 16:25:04 UTC

The 4 major questions are useful in helping I design a collaborative learning activity. I have asked yourself these questions before when designing collaborative learning activities.

I think these four questions are fundamental to ensure the high quality of the project work and should be asked all over again. I have reflected upon them but these activities have made me even more aware.

paulina_rozmus — 2016-11-27 21:05:06 UTC

Marian Dragomir

2016-12-13 08:27:52 UTC

I have never asked myself these precise questions, and think they are quite useful.

Ahmet Faruk YILDIRIM - TURKEY

ahmetfaruk76 — 2017-11-02 11:04:33 UTC

All they are so usefull and effective solutions about tending colobrative learning and designing teaching&learning environmens.Working together and making decisions about their hypothesis will encourage to best Communication on way to solutions of their problems

Ipermahia Christodoulou Greece

2018-06-26 04:25:18 UTC

I agree with Maria Diaconou from Romania.I would also like to add that it is very important to consider the cognitive level of the students in each collaborative group

Ipermahia Christodoulou Greece

xanafig — 2018-12-10 11:42:36 UTC

I agree with Maria Diaconou from Romania.I would also like to add that it is very important to consider the cognitive level of the students in each collaborative group

BARBERA Marveen & NDIAYE Demba

marveenpoprock — 2019-02-07 21:26:39 UTC

For this quote : "in the futur, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes! " i think that Andy meant that later the mdia will be developed and more accessible to general public like today where everyone is connected on social networks. Everyone posting a photo, video or even a tweet that can be funny, shocking, sad, plausible shared by thousands of internet users and even relayed by the big media can become famous.

marveenpoprock — 2019-03-07 22:23:33 UTC

Serpil, Turkey

2019-03-28 08:46:25 UTC

Thee issues are important.