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Collaboration mode - on

Image retreived from Pixabay under CC0  licence

From very early days of our life we are learning…we are learning independently by trials and errors. I cannot count how many times I’ve heard from my 2-years old son „no, no, no, don’t help me, I want to do it by myself”. By learning from others, by getting ready-made solutions, I guess we lost some part of our innate creativity. But there is no other way. By living in society, small children start to absorb  information at an exponential rate. So we, as the teachers, must learn how to teach wisely to protect/strengthen our students critical thinking and how to show our students that balanced collaboration can be so powerful.

A key issue to start with is the importance of getting to know each other, when working in the group. I noticed that that in standard classroom, Students are really sensitive on whether I remember all of their names. Sometimes it’s hard with large groups, but it’s worth to find a way to memorize them. So in case of online courses, it’s also important that both sides know each other. However, it’s also crucial how and to which extent we present ourselves in digital world.

I had, and still have many classes during which Students need to collaborate (also online). At least I hope that they collaborate. I presume that sometimes it ends with the work of one, the most engaged/gifted/conscientious one. My way of thinking, especially just after I had started teaching, was that the key to the success is a good topic or engaging task...now I know, it’s not so easy! Issues discussed during topic 3 and organization of our group work, gave me some tips on how to improve learning in community.

As for a good start, the way we started in our PBL groups - establishing the principles of the group functioning, may be a good idea. What I’ve heard many time: we did not do it, because member of the group “X” didn’t tell us, or it was the part of member of the group “Y” and he/she is not here right now at the meeting. I really appreciate that we have the rules in our PBL group. That we inform each other whether we can join the meeting or not etc. It gives the atmosphere of friendship and respect. Some ideas how to set the rules and develop meaningful and fruitful online collaboration can be found here [1,2,3 ].

We had a small discussion in our PBL group, concerning the rules for effective online collaboration. Whether they are really so different from those that apply in the classroom? My opinion is, that it’s still a little bit harder to collaborate online. There are some exceptions eg. anonymous tools, like mentimeter votings can activate shy and insecure Students. But it’s usually much easier to drop out from the online group, to be a silent learner…How to activate and engage people to work together? There are so many ideas. e.g. I really liked the strategy called „Save the last word for me”, which improves Students listening skills and engages everyone in the group.

Working in a collaborative group can be so amazing, but it also requires some preparation. It’s worth to work on it, because….
„In teaching, you do not want to COVER things, you want to UNCOVER them. The best way to get good ideas is to have lots of ideas.”
Linus Pauling

References:
1. http://www.thinkingcollaborative.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Norms-Full-Toolkit-TC-20171.pdf
2. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/675/1271
3. https://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html


Komentarze

  1. Alastair Creelman27 listopada 2017 00:09

    Collaboration and networking are skills that take time to learn and do not just come naturally, as you observe here. It's so important that school and university students are encouraged to collaborate both in class AND online and learn these skills that employers value so highly today.
    Great quote at the end and thanks for the method "Save the last word for me" - that was new for me.

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  2. Unknown27 listopada 2017 01:35

    Right - teaching how to learn, work in communities, collaborate should begin very early, just not to be forced to change your habits when you are a grown up (it would be harder then). Children learn by experience naturally, let's not allow the education system destroy it! :)

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    1. Unknown19 grudnia 2017 10:51

      that's the hard task...with our education system :( work to do at home ;)

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  3. Unknown27 listopada 2017 22:40

    I agree that collaborating online can be difficult to get right as it is so much easier for students to drop out. However, I think one of the pros of the online collaborative learning is that everything is recorded and it is easier for the tutor to see who is online and for how long. This compared to face to face where it is difficult to monitor the conversation and analyse the workload of each member. I think each have pros and cons, but I think the corner stone of good online collaborative work is an engaged leader who assists with motivating the students.

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    1. Unknown19 grudnia 2017 10:59

      Yes, the good Facilitator - i think we really experienced in our PBL group how, as You said "engaged leader" , can warm up the group to work and maintain the group!

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  4. UrbanGöransonONL1727 grudnia 2017 11:52

    Thanks for your blog. Good one!
    I´m not so used to work collaboratively since the school I grew up with was awful organize such work. But on this course I´ve found it real interesting and I´m glad for all of these aspects you get when working this way on the web. Good luck!
    /Urban

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    1. Unknown19 grudnia 2017 11:03

      Good luck to You too ;) I'm lfortunate in this area, because e.g. at work we have a strong, collaborative team. It doesen't mean we always work together. But when it's needed - collaboration saves us sometimes!

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