Collaboration

Incorporating Collaboration

In order to promote deeper student engagement with content skills and concepts, I will facilitate an authentic collaborative learning experience through cooperation and communication. Positive interaction between the teacher and students will assist in working out any problems that may arise. As the facilitator, I will ensure that all students are productively working together to meet a goal. By working together, each student must be prepared to make vital contributions to the success of the group. In order to solve the problem at hand, each group must understand the importance of communicating everything to one another. This will allow for everyone in the group to be on the same page and have a complete understanding of the expected outcome. It is my responsibility as the facilitator to push the idea of proper preparation prevents poor performance.

To support students’ efforts to identify solutions to the problem, I will be monitoring their progression as each group work through their problem by the use of a wiki. By using a wiki, it will allow for all participants in the group to have discussions, make comments, suggestions, edits and corrections to the assignment. A wiki will also allow for me as the facilitator to make comments and suggestions where necessary for each group.

To assign learners to collaborative groups, I will choose groups by their ability and behavior. This will allow for each group to have students that range in different academic abilities. It will also cut down on behavioral problems that may occur when students choose their friends as group members. Allowing students to mix in such a way brings in different learning styles that are pertinent for the success of each group. Each group will consist of five students. Each group is encourged to arrange to meet outside of the immediate classroom to collaborate. Some meeting places may include but are not limited to the school library, the public library, computer lab, other classroom swithin the school, and at one's house.

The digital tools and websites that I am considering for collaboration in my unit is a wiki. Each group will have the opportunity to discuss, communicate, share ideas, make suggestions and edit by using a wiki. Some other websites and digital tools that I am considering for collaboration in the unit are Google Docs, Blogs, wikispaces, youtube, google video just to name a few.To assess the participation of the students in their collaborative groups, I will use a rubric. The rubric will highlight the expectations for each individual student and group. The rubric will include criteria that will help each student and group understand the expectations that are expected by the teacher. I am considering creating a rubric through rubistar.4teachers.org.