{"id":388,"date":"2012-04-15T13:22:43","date_gmt":"2012-04-15T13:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=388"},"modified":"2012-04-15T22:58:54","modified_gmt":"2012-04-15T22:58:54","slug":"encouraging-student-collaboration-nour-alkhalidy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2012\/04\/15\/encouraging-student-collaboration-nour-alkhalidy\/","title":{"rendered":"Encouraging student collaboration – Nour Alkhalidy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>C<\/strong>ollaboration, C<\/strong>ommunication, C<\/strong>reativity and <\/em>C<\/strong>ritical Thinking in Action.<\/p>\n

Living in digital complex communities requires us to handle a lot of information that is beyond what we can manage alone. Therefore working in teams <\/em>becomes crucial to accomplish many complex tasks in less time and with more effectiveness.\u00a0 For a 21st<\/sup> century classroom, UNESCO <\/a>\u00a0has named \u00a0learning to live together as one of the 4 Pillars<\/a> of education along with C<\/strong>ommunication, C<\/strong>reativity and Critical thinking<\/strong><\/a>. These are the “4CS<\/strong> “<\/a><\/p>\n

Our goal of preparing our students for a better future becomes more achievable by teaching these skills and enhancing them in the classroom work we do.<\/p>\n

Because collaboration is a student choice, it\u2019s the teacher role to make students feel more passionate about it, and this can be done by creating a positive climate in the classroom, where learners feel more comfortable and willing to collaborate. To do this teachers can:<\/p>\n

Build Team skills
\n<\/strong>Build your groups’ skills once a week, through ice-breakers or cooperative games<\/a>\u00a0which emphasize having fun more than competition, while improving communication and collaboration skills , and sometimes enhance some academic ones as well.<\/p>\n

Celebrate Diversity
\n<\/strong>M. Scott Peck advises us to \u201cshare our similarities <\/em>(and) celebrate our differences.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Perhaps one of the most things we need to do is to respect the differences<\/em> among members of the same team, thinking of these differences as gifts <\/em>as they are in multiple intelligences<\/a> theory. \u00a0Everyone has a gift to share with others and should be encouraged to do so. Thus, no one is left behind, all students work together, and everyone is passionate and motivated.<\/p>\n

Have One Clear Goal
\n<\/strong>The definition<\/a> of collaboration is \u201cworking together to achieve a goal<\/em>“. Teamwork must be directed toward one real goal, where each member ‘s task depends on other tasks — not divided but integrated.\u00a0 Each task must be a challenging one, where all group members have to think together, and each member needs other team members to accomplish their work. Try strategies from the two PBLs: \u00a0P<\/strong>roblem B<\/strong>ased L<\/strong>earning, and P<\/strong>roject B<\/strong>ased L<\/strong>earning ” to achieve this goal, or you can try activities like ” Jigsaw<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

Encourage Commitment
\n<\/strong>Commitment comes from responsibility.\u00a0 That’s why it’s important to let students be responsible for their own work. Have them assess their teamwork, let them write their own work rules, and have them share their work in and even outside the classroom. I believe that having students do global projects with others around the world makes learning more fun and gets students working harder and more willing to share with others.<\/p>\n

Emphasize the idea that We are all Winners<\/em> and If you win I win
\n<\/em><\/strong>It’s not about competition but is more focused on contributions where there are no winners or losers, but only successful relationships, enhanced skills and group outputs. Keep this in mind when choosing \u00a0and assessing activities.<\/p>\n

Assess Appropriately
\n<\/strong>Value each member and<\/em> the group work.\u00a0 Focus on the output but also on \u00a0how students work together to achieve their goal. How did they communicate?\u00a0 Were they feeling happy with their work in the group?<\/p>\n

Use Technology<\/strong>
\nTechnology offers a virtual and a real place for groups. \u00a0It facilitates communication in and outside the classroom and allows students to save and share their work. Rather than suggest \u00a0a technology \u00a0tool or a device to your students, let them choose what they are familiar with. They are our digital savvy <\/em>heroes! Let them play that role.\u00a0 Still, may I tell you about some of my favorite simple web 2.0 <\/em>tools for collaboration? Here they are:<\/p>\n

GoogleDocs<\/a>, Stixy<\/a>, \u00a0Popplet<\/a>, Zoho<\/a>, Twiddla<\/a>, TypeWithMe<\/a>,\u00a0WallWisher<\/a>,\u00a0Voicethread<\/a>, and the social bookmarking tool Diigo<\/a>. BYOD<\/strong><\/a> (Bring Your Own Device) can also be great to help students feel more comfortable, independent and responsible for their learning as they work with their own tools \u2013 but don\u2019t just take my word for it.\u00a0 Embrace the 4Cs and try these ideas out in your own way in your own classes and then tell us about it. That\u2019s C<\/strong>ollaboration, C<\/strong>ommunication, C<\/strong>reativity, and <\/em>C<\/strong>ritical Thinking in action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collaboration, Communication, Creativity and Critical Thinking in Action. Living in digital complex communities requires us to handle a lot of information that is beyond what we can manage alone. Therefore working in teams becomes crucial to accomplish many complex tasks in less time and with more effectiveness.\u00a0 For a 21st century classroom, UNESCO \u00a0has named … Continue reading Encouraging student collaboration – Nour Alkhalidy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-collaboration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}