Collaboration


 * How can the instructor facilitate an authentic collaborative learning experience to promote deeper student engagement with content skills and concepts? How can students’ efforts to identify solutions to the problem of the PBL instructional unit be supported? **

The instructor’s main responsibility when facilitating a collaborative experience for students is to arrange the learning experience, provide guidance throughout, and assist with the assignment details as students seek help. Preparation for the learning experience should include planning for all stages of the learning experience, from start to finish, such that deeper connections to the content are planned for. Students who are not used to collaborative work in class, often require assistance in getting along, making decisions, relying on one another’s judgements, and working out conflicts in opinion. The teacher’s role is to facilitate each group’s collaboration, while ensuring student focus on the content, and helping students with their skills in technology as they work toward accomplishment of the unit’s goals. At the same time, teachers can direct students to further exploration, and making connections from their prior experiences, to lead students toward deeper understanding of the content.

Praise goes a long way to providing support for attempts at problem solution. When working with struggling students, one may need to assist by directing students to rely on one another’s ideas, reminding that each attempt is one more attempt closer to a solution, or suggesting the aspects of the solution that might work given other variables in the solution process. Teacher dependence on problem solution should be avoided. Over time, as students work collaboratively, they become more confident of their own abilities, such that initial attempts at collaboration should clearly be praised.


 * What criteria will you use to assign learners to collaborative groups, including a rationale? What will be the size of the collaborative groups you will include in your unit? **

Diversity in group members provides a learning situation requiring interdependence of group members, while making it possible for students of varying learning rates to help each other. This learning climate is beneficial to struggling learners as they each feel necessary to the task completion (Silver, Hanson, Strong & Schwartz, 2003). Therefore, groups will be assigned by ranking students in the class according to reading ability, as this is a literacy-related a larger group is used, the group selection continues by choosing the next members from the middle of the ability ranking. The number of groups will be determined by the class size, preference is made for group size of three to four members to allow for maximum collaboration (online groups may need to be larger to ensure a group of four remains, should one or two drop out).

As a resource class, my class size is quite small, determined by state guidelines for special education, so that two groups of four will be group size. This ensures a “group” remains when one or the other child is absent on a given day. Each group will consist of one higher ranking, one lower ranking, and two middle ranking students.


 * Which digital tools and websites are you considering for collaboration in your unit? **

The following websites provide background information to students on the Revolutionary War, methods of spying used during the war, and historical figures who were integral to both sides during the Revolutionary War. [] [] []


 * How will you assess participation of the students in their collaborative groups? **

Rubrics will form the primary method of assessment of students during this instructional unit. The rubrics will focus student learning on the primary instructional goals of the unit, including their contribution, and performance within the collaborative groups. Each student will be responsible for contributing toward the project completion, as evidenced by observable effort made, as well as conversational input. One method of obtaining input as to each member’s contribution, is to solicit post-evaluation data from each student on each of the other student’s participation, as well as self-reflective information that each teammate responds to after the project completion. Both of these data sources may be included in teacher evaluation.


 * References **

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use:A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). //Integrating technology across the content areas.// Baltimore: Author. Silver, H., Hanson, R., Strong, R. & Schwartz, P. (2003). Teaching styles and strategies. Thoughtful Education Press, Inc. New Jersey.