After students have had time to
interact with the content through the focus lesson and/or guided learning, teachers should make a
plan for students to interact with familiar content and tasks with one another through student
collaboration. The key to successful
collaboration is simple. Each student
must work together and learn from one but be responsible for creating an independent product as a result of collaboration with his peers. “When collaborative learning is done right,
our experience suggests that it is during this phase of instruction that
students consolidate their thinking and understanding.” By negotiating their understanding with one
another, students further synthesize their own understanding while
simultaneously reinforcing the learning of their peers.
To make collaborative learning
successful, teachers must create learning situations that help students think
through ideas, answer challenging questions, identify multiple ways to solve
the same problem, and teach one another about the content. Furthermore, collaborative activities must scaffold learning for students
by offering structures that help collaborative groups not only engage in
learning but remain cognitively engaged.
To engage students cognitively, teachers must ensure that collaborative
learning tasks require students to demonstrate their learning to one another so
that students can be prepared to apply what they learning through collaboration to independent learning tasks.
Engagement Activity
|
Description
| Questions | Content | Time Frame |
| How are DOK 2 & 3 questions provided and responded to? | What content is addressed? | The approximate time that the activity should take. | ||
| Collaborative Groups | Activity that allows students to interact with familiar content through collaboration with peers while teacher provides on-going support to groups or individuals who struggle. | Provided to or created by the group. | Content that students can handle independent of teacher. | 10-20 minutes |
Labs are an excellent source of collaborative groups. The students must work together to complete the lab, and I will assign individual tasks to students during the lab. (Person 1 must compete steps 1, 3, 5...). I also monitor the labs to ensure everyone is doing their part.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to labs, I also use task cards. This can be as complicated as a quest, or as simple as working on a scientific concept (usually hands on). Groups work together to solve. I monitor to make sure conversation and work is happening by all students. I also look for students who are not getting the concept and ensure that groups are working together. I always discuss expectations before the activity in what it should look and sound like. I try to walk around and ask more questions....trying to get students to solve their own problems and use critical thinking.
ReplyDeleteI use collaborative learning in different parts of my lesson. It may be in the focus, guided practice, or during math stations. An example of an activity I have used while teaching rounding is giving the group a rounded number such as 400. Each student in the group must generate numbers that would round to that number if we were rounding to the nearest hundred. Afterward, we talk about each groups numbers and the class decides if the numbers chosen rounds to their given number. Stone 3rd Grade Math
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