Module 6 Collaboration

  1. Get Oriented

“When it comes to creating a highly collaborative classroom, teachers need to frequently model listening, paraphrasing, artful questioning, and negotiating. In a student-centered classroom, there’s less direct instruction."

-Rebecca Alber, "Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom is Key"

 

Despite the hurdles of different spaces and places students can collaborate, connect, and communicate in meaningful ways in your distance learning classrooms. They can leverage their voices and make thoughtful choices to help drive their own learning forward. Module 6 explores the possibilities of collaboration and student agency in distance learning. We will consider:

  • How do we create student driven learning opportunities and foster agency?

  • How do students maintain connections and relationships?

  • How can students meaningfully collaborate?

Each module in this series encourages you to customize your experience to what you personally need.

Pick and choose what best applies to you, your context, your comfort level, and your learners. Along the way, leverage Slack for questions, connections, and further resource sharing.

Ideally, please explore Module 6 prior to your cohort’s Zoom meeting. Your Zoom opportunities in Modules 5 through 8 are office hours where your facilitator will go deeper into module topics, structure opportunities to connect with others on the work you’re doing, and provide time for Q & A. Previewing the modules prior to those Zooms will help you maximize your time.

2. Read & View

“Teachers encourage student-centered learning by allowing students to share in decisions, believing in their capacity to lead, and remembering how it feels to learn”.

-John McCarthy, "Student-Centered Learning: It Starts With the Teacher"

 
 

Collaboration and student agency go hand in hand. When students have the opportunity to learn and play together, they inherently have opportunities to make choices, ask questions, and direct next steps. This leads to deeper learning.

Collaborative classrooms encourage student voice and choice. They start with warm classroom cultures where relationships matter. In distance learning, we can intentionally plan for students to connect, collaborate and drive their learning. Collaborative classrooms ask:

  • When do my students get to see and hear each other?

  • How do students get to play and connect together?

  • When are students collaborating in ways drive deeper learning?

  • When are students making choices and directing their own next steps?

The resources below offer insights on collaboration and student driven learning.

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The resources listed here invite choice. Read and view what seems most applicable to your learning and your practice. Just click on the buttons to visit the article sites and view the short videos.

VIEW IT

Using Suggestions in a Google Doc

Joyful Office Hours

How Students Stay Connected

FlipGrid for Video Peer Feedback

3. Reflect

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Module reflections are self-directed opportunities to synthesize what you've explored and to consider your own practice. These are fast journal entries to invite new thinking and to inspire action steps.

 

"Collaboration and growth mindset are key." -OSPI

Take a moment to take stock of how students are connecting, collaborating, and taking ownership fort heir own learning in your current distance learning plan. In quick bullet points, respond to the following prompts:

  • When in a week do students get to collaborate in ways that support learning right now?

  • When in a week do students get to connect in ways that promote relationships, joy, and a warm classroom culture?

  • When in a week do students get to make choices on what they are learning and drive their own next steps?

Read over your quick responses. Where do you see room to grow? What is one way you want to improve in the upcoming week?

The “Practice” section that follows offers strategies and ideas to try out. Does one align to your reflection?

4. Practice

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Exploring this module with colleagues? Consider collaborating on one of the practice activities below and share feedback to one another on your experiences.

 

The following exercises are short action steps that offer you optional resources and activities to support your work in cultivating student-driven, collaborative classrooms. Consider trying one (or more!) out this week to enhance your practice. To reveal the instruction, click on the “TRY THIS” title(s) that interest you.

+ TRY THIS: Assess Your Process

In her "Gently Curated Collection of Resources for Teachers", Jennifer Gonzalez advocates, "It’s essential that you have clear, consistent, accessible channels for communicating with your students." We know that the cognitive load in distance learning is high and clarity is essential so that our students are able to focus on learning. Students need very clear pathways for how they will communicate with you and each other and for where they will demonstrate and show their learning. This also means that we are intentionally planning for how we'll leverage asynchronous and synchronous time. Synchronous time is ideal for relationship building, feedback, connections, and collaboration on processes. Asynchronous time is ideal for choice, deep learning, and student-directed learning pathways.

Consider what you've read above and take an inventory of your past week. Ask yourself,

Do my students have clear channels for communication and submitting assignments that they are using with me and with each other?

Am I leveraging synchronous time for community-building?

Am I creating asynchronous learning opportunities that offer choice?

What is working in your inventory? Consider sharing this celebration in Slack to inspire others. Where would you like support or what is a challenge? Consider posting that request in Slack to invite responses.

+ TRY THIS: Consider Collaboration

When students collaborate on a process rather than a product, they have the opportunity to extend one another's learning through feedback and protocols while demonstrating their own learning gains in alignment to the product standards. Process collaboration is a rich opportunity for students to grow in essential cooperation skills while driving their own learning and the learning of others forward.

Think ahead to a learning opportunity in the upcoming weeks. Where would students benefit from peer to peer feedback, collective brainstorming, or a shared experience? Craft an opportunity for students to connect synchronously or asynchronously on a process and not a product.

Some options to try out:

A synchronous Zoom where students follow a structured peer feedback process to give and receive feedback on writing, drafts, prototypes, or ideas. Asking students to come to the meeting with a question they hope the group can answer promotes student directed learning and gives everyone a starting point.

A shared Google Doc conversation where students leave comments for one another on a working draft aligned to friendly sentence starters (i.e. "I noticed that you..." "I wonder if you want to try..."). (Read this quick blog post for more stems)

A synchronous brainstorming session at the start of an assignment where students gather to share their ideas and to follow a protocol for asking questions to help one another develop their concepts. The Right Question Institute offers a variety of question frameworks.

+ TRY THIS: Plan for Play

"Joyful learning can flourish in school-- if you give joy a chance." -Steven Wolk

Consider the tools from Module 5 and your Core 4. What could you harness right now to develop student interaction that is fun, playful, and joyful? How can you launch the next week or the next Zoom with a moment of play and connection?

Icebreakers and other community designed activities give all students an opportunity to share their voices and experiences

Flipgrid videos allow students to record responses at their own pace and see and hear their community

Padlets of images encourage students to share glimpses of their "worlds"

Bingo cards create community in a shared experience (download and share this option)

After designing your activity, consider sharing it in Slack for others to borrow.

+ TRY THIS: Plan for Choice

When designing weekly learning opportunities, students can make choices in how they develop, practice, apply, and share their learning. From the tools they use (pencil or Google Doc) to the strategies they apply (typed text or audio), students can make choices that harness their interests and strengths and allow them to steer more of their learning.

Read, "8 Things to Look For in a Student-Centered Learning Environment" and "Simple Ways to Promote Student Voice in the Classroom". In your upcoming week, how might you take one small step to design for choice in student process or product?

You might try out

A menu of resources from which to choose readings and videos

A tic-tac-toe or choice board of options for applying a concept in action

A rubric that speaks to desired outcomes from which students develop their own product

A calendar where students plan the steps of a project

A suite of tools from which students may create

+ TRY THIS: Develop Reflections

The "Engaging in Reflection" section of the article, "Putting Students in Charge of the Their Own Learning" shares Jay McTighe's questions for self-reflection. When students are asked to share specific learning challenges, gains, and considerations, they can then make choices for what they need to try next while providing you with formative assessment data.

What is an upcoming learning experience where students are working towards developing a skill and meeting a standard that warrants deep reflection? Design a short reflection experience that includes an opportunity for students to also set goals for how they will approach future work. If appropriate, you could take your reflection one step further to invite collaboration by asking students to share their goals in a community space like Flipgrid.

5. Dive Deeper

 

6. Share

 
Click to Access Slack

Click to Access Slack

 
 

How can you extend your own learning and the learning of others with a post in Slack? Before moving on from this module, turn to the Module 6 channel in Slack. Consider sharing in that space:

  • What is an effective way your students are collaborating right now?

  • What is an effective way your students are building community?

  • How are you infusing fun and joy into distance learning?

  • How are students driving their own learning?

  • What is a question, challenge, or dilemma on which you want support?

  • What is a resource that will extend our module learning?

And then, consider,

  • What is an idea already posted that you want to adapt and borrow?

Keep returning to Slack for support, resources, and extensions of learning. Make the most of that participant curated space and reflect on how a similar approach might support your students.

7. Review

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Self checks for understanding help your students take agency for their progress and next steps. They provide affirmation that they are on the right track or insights to the questions they need to ask.

 

Take a moment to consider your own affirmations and questions:

  • Did you consider the ways students are connecting with one another?

  • Did you consider the ways students are making choices and collaborating?

  • Did you try out a new strategy or do you have strategy you hope to try?

  • Did you share in Slack or absorb new ideas from the Module 6 Slack channel?

Thank you for all you’re sharing, trying, and doing for your students.

NEXT: Feel free to move ahead to Module 7 with the goal of previewing Modules 5-8 before your corresponding cohort Zoom meetings.