While blog surfing today, I found a link to some free online professional development. I may not be a professional as of yet, but hey, free opportunities to learn right? So I read and learned a bit today about Cooperative and Collaborative learning. This was very interesting to me because I view this approach to learning as fairly new at the elementary level, since the collaborative approach was not as prominent 20-25 years ago when I was in elementary school (at least I don't recall spending much time collaborating with peers.) It makes me wonder if that is why I have an aversion to group work as a college student and why I tend to take the frame of mind, in my current career, that I would rather do things myself than accept the help of others. Effectively, anything which will have my name stamped on it, I want to be in control of. Is this an issue of trust or an inability to work effectively with a team?
I don’t consider myself bad at team work, In fact I usually have a strong role. I participate, I accept other’s ideas with an open mind and am actively involved with the production of a final product I can live with, but is it a final product I am proud of? I have to admit that in most cases usually not.
The information I read on cooperative and collaborative learning stated that this approach teaches children very important skills with respects to working with others, which is essential to success in most employment scenarios, but that teachers should be careful not to rely on this approach more than independent work. One of the points that were made is exactly what bothers me about group work: For some students, particularly detail oriented perfectionists, such as myself, the pressure of the group model may be too much to bear. Interestingly, this is a self inflicted problem. Even in a well balanced group, some students will shoulder more of the responsibility, sometimes that responsibility will be physically doing more work than other participants, other times the responsibility will be psychological, as the student feels less control over their own academic outcomes when placing trust in their peer(s) to perform at the level they would perform at on their own.
Despite these realizations, I am still a supporter of using this approach in the classroom. I think it offers a broad scope of benefits for students to learn life skills as well as critical thinking skills. The key is to know when this type of approach can be most useful.
I asked myself, “Where does a collaborative model work? What disciplines require different types of minds, different ideas, and objective viewpoints to lead to successful outcomes?” My feeling is that collaboration is best suited to the sciences.
Science curriculum is where I see myself using this model most effectively in a classroom experience. It offers an opportunity for students to discover aspects of the world around them and explore them with the input of several difference intelligences. Since we all have a unique perspective of the world around us, there is great potential for students to learn from each other and open their mind to different viewpoints.
I view mathematics as a subject which is best absorbed through visual and tactile learning, where each student works somewhat independently because they need to find their own way of understanding the concepts.
I view reading comprehension and writing as another subject where students are best left to their own thought process as they learn to analyze and question their own understanding of material and apply it literally and metaphorically, all though I do think that sharing completed work is extremely beneficial so that students can see the variety of creative thoughts that can be conceived through literary analysis.
Topics in social studies I believe to be best relayed through a variety of techniques experienced as one large group, whether it be pictures, group discussions, lecture, field trips, or creative interpretations through role playing, art, ect.
I think the most important thing is to utilize several different methods of delivery so that all students feel they have an equal opportunity to let their best characteristics come through. I think it is good also for teachers to attempt to focus on each child individually, at some point, in order to figure out where they best fit in to this model. We might be able to take a child who otherwise would recoil when it comes to a collaborative model, and find a place within that model where they can flourish.
Of course, in the perfect world within in my student mind, I am also assuming that teachers have time and energy to give sufficient attention to these projects. I hope that is the case in the real world, when I finally get there!
No comments:
Post a Comment