Making sense -- i.e. collaboration

A pressing issue 

I hear it every time: the gasp when I say teamwork. It is dim nowadays but I can recognise it still, usually coming from that rogue student who bravely stood up at the beginning of Term to request that Everyone should pull their own weight be added to the Class Expectations.

I empathise with him. I can imagine his plight has iterated in numerous classes: having to consistently drag others through the finish line to gain little more than frustration; keeping quiet about those who are happy to holiday for a week at his expense. Poor thing. His plea is often silenced by a chorus, "Miss, can we choose our teams, please?"

Sometimes I nod. When I don't, the lonely gasp turns into a collective one. I get it. And sometimes I dread it just as much as they do.

And yet, I love teamwork. I believe that it develops critical thinking skills and makes for rich socialised learning. It forges friendships and deepens relationships. It can lead to playfulness and originality. I believe in it more than ever, but I also believe in fairness. And to be truly fair, the reason why they gasp or roll their eyes is how often we issue a mandate to collaborate and then exit the situation mindlessly. As if collaboration came naturally to them. Only, it doesn't. Mea culpa.

A matter of principles

So, how does teamwork actually become a collaboration that is effective for learning?  

1 From Interdependence 

Tasks that rely on everybody's input are the epitome of teamwork. Jigsaw readings are great and often used to this end, but students can easily feel let down by others and tempted to do the whole reading themselves. 
Perhaps games are a better starting point. Aside from interactive online options like Quizlet Live, low-tech activities are just as much fun and perhaps more effective. One such game is my version of Musical Chairs. After preparing questions on a topic and role-playing with a partner, students dance —or run— from table to table to the beat of Salsa. Every time the music stops, they role-play again with whoever is sitting there. After the song ends, they record a conversation on Flipgrid with their partners. 

This activity highlights the interdependent nature of communication and allows for a massive amount of practice —and fun— in a short period of time. 

2 From Mentoring

One crucial benefit of collaboration is bringing together people who might need one another. In this sense, teamwork can embody the Maori philosophy of Tuakana-teina (the older helping the younger; those with knowledge helping those without) and serves to forge strong relationships that support learning and foster wellbeing.

 

There is a well-known collaborative task called Circle of Experts. In my version, students organise statement from a story then focus on sections I’ve highlighted. They know I will randomly choose one expert from each team to explain the grammar. Once chosen, experts gather in another room to discuss it one more time. Finally, each expert records an explanation with Flipgrid, which is made visible to the whole class and becomes their go-to mentoring hub. 

Such tasks allow for tutoring to take place at different levels. And, even if the discovery of grammar is the hidden curriculum, mentoring others is clearly stated as the main aim.

3 From Trust  

And also self-confidence stemming from expressing themselves and then being encouraged by their peers. This isn't always easy when teams are not spontaneous but can be fostered through very simple means.

After students design their own alebrije, we carry out an Exhibition. Works are displayed for another class anonymously. Using a wordcloud and simple writing frames, students write sticky notes describing all the positives. Later, I proudly hand them back to the artists in the other class as I read the comments. Unsurprisingly, this activity keeps coming up as a big fav Term after Term. 

4 From Autonomy  

Rich collaboration opens room for students to show who they are and encourages negotiation. For instance, a task where students have to decide who will take a specific role could do this.

As we got underway watching a Spanish series, I asked students to use a bracket head-to-head worksheet to negotiate their favourite/least favourite characters based on their personality. With that, they had to make a video prediction of a very important scene. Aside from doing some acting, they also negotiated the roles of Director (editor & uploader), Screenwriter, and Production designer (costumes, props, set). In this way, teamwork synergy can also serve differentiation.

5 From Accountability 

Which implies that, ideally, tasks should be marked for both the individual and the collective outcomes. However, making this known to students puts them at ease but doesn't fully promote accountability. 

The way I see it, what we do for others we do for ourselves. I try to show this proactive view of collaboration by sporadically using tasks where their individual contributions are not immediately seen but are felt as essential nonetheless. 

In a relay dictation race, Year 9 students run back and forth to read and dictate 5 texts to their partner. As they completed each one, runners and writers swap roles. Once done, they work together to answer questions and then claim their place in the race as a team.

6 From Enjoyment

Teamwork should be engaging. When they enjoy themselves, learners are more willing to negotiate, trust, and help one another.
I am a firm believer that games do not simply add fun but make learning happen that might not otherwise, which is why I try hard to add a gamelike vibe to even the simplest task. For instance, rather than introducing numbers 0-20 with flashcards, teams can race to put them in the correct order using cards. This allows them to share prior knowledge with their peers and is a lot more fun. 

Aside from using the digital tools in my curated list, I'm always adding to a list of low-tech games that require little more than scrap paper and a pencil. A favourite with all levels is Paper Toss, where teams answer simple revision questions on scrap paper until they get an okay from me. Then students queue up to aim for the bin with their bits of paper -- now a ball. Points depend on aim, speaking, and extension of their answers but only IF  they get the ball inside. In another version, they make paper planes and are rewarded on distance too. 

This versatile game successfully integrates vocabulary, grammar, and all four communicative skills. Most importantly, it aids students in  collaborating on complex revision they might otherwise struggle with or dread by shifting their focus from the chore to the feat of getting a tiny ball of paper inside a bin.

7 From Modelling and Monitoring

Ultimately, teamwork harbours the development of transferable skills for learners and for us, which makes cooperation a must within the class and the school. However, a considerable challenge to teamwork is the need to oversee the collaboration itself, i.e. "students’ on-task behaviour, managing group-work time, providing relevant materials, assigning individual roles, and establishing teamwork beliefs and behaviours." (Gilles, 2010). 

Rather than attempting to keep an ear in every team, most pitfalls can be avoided through effective planning. Breaking tasks, giving clear but simple instructions, and actively seeking student voice during the task make a big difference too. 

I devised a game this week where students wrote truths and lies about a video we just watched. In the game, they had to listen to and agree with truths or challenge and correct the lies in order to move ahead. I realised from going through it once that I had some gaps in my planning. Students made suggestions to improve the task (keeping a written list, setbacks for wrong answers, mini whiteboards). With the modifications, we played again the next day to very surprising results -- all students speaking! This example shows how much about managing tasks more effectively comes from our own willingness to collaborate with learners on a regular basis too.

A rise to the challenge

Online education is the new, uncharted frontier for cooperative learning. As discussed in my post about relationships, we cannot replicate physical classrooms in that space; which implies that we mustn’t expect collaboration to look the same either. Especially since students sometimes find “teamwork” online a contrived experience. A hindrance, rather than a plus.

In 2005, Siemens theorised that in this environment, collaboration might be reformulated as the interaction between a learner and online sources themselves, rather with peers or a tutor (cited by Brindley, 2009.) The current online landscape seems to have confirmed this prediction.

These changes make digital literacy and developing critical skills even more pressing. For future-focused learning, we might need to revise the tools we use for delivery and focus on tasks that send students on meaningful collaborative journeys across the web. But we also have to rethink how to create online social spaces for those who are not learning in situ.

I find Flipgrid a promising platform that hints at the future of collaboration in blended learning. Given that video interactions can go back and forth between peers and teachers, it can mirror classroom multidirectionality albeit asynchronously, and open our rooms to other learners and teachers who might add valuable contributions on any topic. 

In this way, this tool has the potential to amplify teamwork in ways we have yet to explore by making learning a more connected, democratic experience across the globe. 

Takeaways:

◻ Teamwork develops transferable cognitive and social skills and makes learning more meaningful and engaging.

◻ Cooperation requires opportunities for trust, mentorship, autonomy, accountability and enjoyment; and can add differentiation and variety to our classrooms.

◻ Teamwork needs to be monitored and modelled by the teacher and relies on careful planning and a receptive attitude to student feedback.

◻ Online environments challenge expectations about teamwork and will probably redefine both cooperation and autonomy.

References:

Brindley, J. E., & Walti, C. (2009). Creating Effective Collaborative Learning Groups in an Online Environment. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3), 1–18. Retrieved October 20, 2020, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ847776.pdf

Gillies, R. M., & Boyle, M. (2010). Teachers’ reflections on cooperative learning: Issues of implementation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(4), 933–940. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2009.10.034

Guido, M. (2017, 17 marzo). The Guide to Cooperative Learning: Principles and Strategies for Each Type. Prodigy Education. Retrieved October 20, 2020 from https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/cooperative-learning-principles-strategies/

Lin, L. (2019). An online learning model to facilitate learners' rights to education. Online Learning, 12(1), 1–17. Retrieved November 1, 2020 from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.567.1270&rep=rep1&type=pdf