People seem to work together when they stand to gain from the cooperation and collaboration efforts. They continue to work in these efforts until the personal benefits gained from the work become of lesser value than the effort and investment they must make.
When we understand these motivational factors driving individuals to collaborate then we can harness this tool and use it to increase our effectiveness as educators. To accomplish this we must learn to demonstrate to students how they can achieve greater benefit through collaboration than they could achieve on their own.
For older students there are a numbers of ways that technology can assist in facilitating a collaborative environment. Google Apps for Education offers free tools for schools that can allow secure areas where students can work on shared documents within a controlled environment. Younger students would benefit from the shared work spaces provided by products similar to the Promethean ActivTable. This type of product is designed to both encourage and require collaboration among students.
In addition to the student benefits that can be achieved through collaboration there are many ways in which Teachers can personally benefit from professional collaboration efforts (Morgan, 2011). When the educational leadership desires teachers to engage in collaborative efforts then they must demonstrate how those teachers will personally benefit from the collaboration.
Reference
Morgan, A., Parr, B., & Fuhrman, N. (2011). Enhancing Collaboration among Math and Career and Technical Education Teachers: Is Technology the Answer?. Journal Of Career And Technical Education, 26(2), 77-89.
Joshua,
ReplyDeleteYou created a great post and it was very interesting to read. I totally agree with the fact that their are so many available apps out their that make collaboration easy for all.
Joshua,
ReplyDeleteYou make a good argument in terms of collaborating for personal benefit. Sometimes there are cases in which people collaborate to look out for their own interests but the ultimate goal is still the same - to advance and benefit from the collective whole.
You talk about motivational factors driving learners to collaborate. I believe that one approach would be to have students work together who have different multiple intelligences or “colours”. I have done the True Colours Personality Assessment with my students, where one determines whether they are gold, blue, orange, or green. Each of the colours relates to personality and learning styles. If students are aware of the learning styles and strengths of their classmates, it will allow them to seek each other out for collaborative activities. One of the main objectives of collaboration is to bring together people and learners from diverse backgrounds with a variety of experiences and knowledge sets. This could be one approach to motivating students to not only work together but to seek out learners who they otherwise might not have thought of to collaborate with to meet learning objectives.
As you mentioned, Google apps are one way for students to collaborate. I have my students collaborate through online discussion thread, chat sessions, and Twitter. It is important that these activities and discussions are relevant, authentic, and promote critical thinking, reasoning, problem solving, perspective, and research tools.
Collaboration on the part of teachers also needs to be clearly outlined. What are we trying to gain by collaborating? What is the purpose? Does it meet our instructional goals? What is the best method to collaborate? These are all good questions and must be answered keeping the experiences and knowledge of teachers in mind.
I believe that grouping students based on personality type would provide very interesting results in the collaborative work. In doing this type of grouping would you anticipate any increased conflict?
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