Collaboration
Opportunities for students to work collaboratively have been shown to
enhance the quality and depth of student learning, retention and overall
success (National Survey of Student Engagement Report, 2006). When
working with peers, students are able to consider more complex,
authentic problems, with each students bringing a unique and valued
perspective to the group providing valuable opportunities for rich
discussion and debate, where students’ collectively can build upon one
and others prior knowledge and experiences in order to achieve success.
This resource has therefore been designed to encourage such collaborative
learning experiences, where students are required to work with their peers
to explore a range of data representations.
ProBoards- Online Collaboration in the 21st Century
As ICTs have long been recgonised as tool, which can enhance learning
when used effectively within the classroom, this resource uses ProBoards
as the foundation for group work. Proboards is an online forum, which
allows students to create small online communities with their groups
members, in which they can communicate openly. They can share
images, graphs, videos and text and communicate freely from a range
of devices. As a learning aid, discussion forums such as ProBoard have
shown to stimulate critical thinking, improve communication skills,
foster a sense of community among students, and encourage
collaborative problem solving.
Some of the many benefits are outlined below-
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Forums can be empowering for reserved students who prefer more "space" to formulate responses and opinions.
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Students can immerse themselves in alternative viewpoints and view how others develop their conclusions.
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Students can learn to communicate collaboratively and form relationships around academic goals.
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Active forum participation can improve students writing and communication skills.
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Individual knowledge and understanding is increased through shared student abilities and reasoning.
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Teachers can statistically monitor participation levels of students as well as review their individual contributions.
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Student interactions can be closely monitored, measured and assigned credit for their efforts.
It is simple and free to sign up, click here to be directed the ProBoards page where you can create a forum and ignite a rich and engaging collaborative forum, which can be used throughout this unit.
Assigning Groups
For this resource, it is recommended that students work in small groups of mixed ability, inclusive of around 4-6 students, dependent on your class size. Mixed ability groups are ideal for this learning experience as it provides invaluable opportunities for all students to learn from each other, both academically and socially (Click here to learn more about mixed ability groupings within the classroom).
In determining students for these groups, you might assign them randomly using a range of strategies such as-
Counting off- where you simply number students 1-6 and allocate their groups accordingly.
Picture Cards- Where you have 6 different picture cards (relatable to the learning area is preferable), distributed around the class and students’ who have the same pictures are in the same group.
Online Group Maker- This free, online website generates groups automatically for you once you provide all of your students names https://www.superteachertools.us/instantclassroom/group-maker.php#.Vzz9DGO_24I
Click here if you would like to discover more ideas for grouping your students.
Ethical and Social Protocols
Applying agreed ethical and social protocols is not only a precursor
to effective group work, but is also a content descriptor investigated
throughout this resource from the national curriculum. Therefore,
like all new content introduced within the classroom it is essential
that you explicitly teach what is expected.
This is important because-
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Ground rules hold students accountable for their behavior.
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They can prevent issues of incivility.
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Students understand more clearly the expectations of the
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instructor as well as their classmates.
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Students hold each other accountable in a variety of learning
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scenarios.
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They are a contract that can be referred to in instances where
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ground rules are being broken.
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Rules can create a safe learning environment for course
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participants where all know that their ideas and viewpoints
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will be respected.
One idea, is the creation of a class poster, using the letters from
the word ‘Group’, outlining what it entails to work in a group, which
serves as a clear, visual reminder for students.
Another effective idea is to facilitate a whole class, and subsequently group discussion around ground rules ideas, with proposals presented by both you as the teacher and students which collectively can be modified to create a set of protocols which agreed upon by all members of the group.
