C is for Collaboration
How is collaboration used in learning?
Learning does not happen in a "black box." The majority of kids are not sponges who take everything you say and internalize it; students benefit from collaborating and sharing with their peers. Talking, writing, and demonstrating what they are learning to a peer can help to consolidate learning, but it can also help struggling students to pick up concepts that they haven't learned from the teacher. The obvious example would be group discussions, but there are many other ways that students can collaborate to enhance their own learning including posting and commenting on a blog, editing another student's writing, video-recording another student demonstrating a task, brainstorming ideas for a project, or solving a problem together. It could also be as simple as students reading to each other. The teacher is no longer the keeper of knowledge, and students have much to learn from each other.
Learning does not happen in a "black box." The majority of kids are not sponges who take everything you say and internalize it; students benefit from collaborating and sharing with their peers. Talking, writing, and demonstrating what they are learning to a peer can help to consolidate learning, but it can also help struggling students to pick up concepts that they haven't learned from the teacher. The obvious example would be group discussions, but there are many other ways that students can collaborate to enhance their own learning including posting and commenting on a blog, editing another student's writing, video-recording another student demonstrating a task, brainstorming ideas for a project, or solving a problem together. It could also be as simple as students reading to each other. The teacher is no longer the keeper of knowledge, and students have much to learn from each other.
Why does collaboration enhance learning?
In today's digital world, there is very little that is created that is completely unshared with anyone else before the finished product. Brainstorming ideas with classmates can help students get started on a task, and it can help the struggling students who have difficulties coming up with abstract ideas on their own. Discussing in a group can enhance student understanding of a topic, expose them to differing perspectives, cause them to change their mind about a topic, or defend their reasoning for having a different answer. It leads to higher learning and higher understanding of topics because students are actually working with the information and not just memorizing or taking on the teacher's perspective of the "correct answer." Reading another student's blog is similar to discussion, and they have a chance to comment on the blog. Using student blogs in the classroom helps with writing, typing, giving constructive criticism, digital skills and mobility. It is so important for students to realize that there are different ways of thinking and that not everyone has the same ideas as them. Collaboration broadens their perspective, and is a real world skill that they can hone in the safe environment of the classroom before using it in the real world. |
How is collaboration used in teaching?
Gone are the days when a teacher closes their door at the beginning of the day when the kids have arrived and opens it at the end of the day to send them home. Now, teachers are encouraged and required to share and learn from each other. Collaboration could take the form of co-teaching time when two teachers are in the room at the same time. The model they use for co-teaching could vary from one teacher working with small groups of students to both teachers simultaneously teaching the kids, to one teacher taking a lead role one day and the other the next. The key concept is that both teachers are in the room at the same time working with students, and they plan for classes together. Collaboration could also mean working with other teachers at like or un-like grade levels to share resources, techniques, strategies, and technologies. Sometimes school divisions set up PLC groups so that teachers have specific planning times to meet with others. Contact does not have to be face-to-face. It could be in the form of emails, shared documents on Google Drive, sharing documents to a shared space, or even reading another teacher's blog. In a way, even Twitter and Pinterest are a form of collaboration.
Gone are the days when a teacher closes their door at the beginning of the day when the kids have arrived and opens it at the end of the day to send them home. Now, teachers are encouraged and required to share and learn from each other. Collaboration could take the form of co-teaching time when two teachers are in the room at the same time. The model they use for co-teaching could vary from one teacher working with small groups of students to both teachers simultaneously teaching the kids, to one teacher taking a lead role one day and the other the next. The key concept is that both teachers are in the room at the same time working with students, and they plan for classes together. Collaboration could also mean working with other teachers at like or un-like grade levels to share resources, techniques, strategies, and technologies. Sometimes school divisions set up PLC groups so that teachers have specific planning times to meet with others. Contact does not have to be face-to-face. It could be in the form of emails, shared documents on Google Drive, sharing documents to a shared space, or even reading another teacher's blog. In a way, even Twitter and Pinterest are a form of collaboration.
What are the benefits of collaboration?
The old saying rings true, "Two heads are always better than one." Working with other teachers can aid with creativity, differentiation, and brainstorming. It helps to have someone else there when you are planning who has had different experiences because they bring something new to the table, and different perspectives are key in growing your own practice as a teacher. Another benefit of collaboration, in particular for co-teaching, is that the teacher's strengths can compliment each other. It is extremely effective for a beginning teacher to work with a co-teacher who is willing to share resources and experience in classroom management. The beginning teacher can bring new ideas about technology and differentiation while the experienced teacher has specific ideas about how to set up the classroom, where to seat students, which activities to use and how long they will take, and how to find the necessary resources. |
Where can I find more information and resources?
Below I have attached a document that is a reflection about a co-teaching experience I had in my first two years of teaching. I worked with an SST who had over fifteen years of experience in education, including working overseas, as a classroom teacher, and as a SST. The document was submitted as part of a paper she wrote about co-teaching and collaboration. I have only attached my own reflection piece so you can get a sense of how it was a benefit to me.
Below I have attached a document that is a reflection about a co-teaching experience I had in my first two years of teaching. I worked with an SST who had over fifteen years of experience in education, including working overseas, as a classroom teacher, and as a SST. The document was submitted as part of a paper she wrote about co-teaching and collaboration. I have only attached my own reflection piece so you can get a sense of how it was a benefit to me.