Monday 14 January 2019

Week 10: Encouraging Collaboration

No longer are students sitting in rows, learning from the teacher standing out the front.



Today's classrooms are a hub of noise and activity, with flexible seating arrangements to suit a range of learners.




Not only does flexible seating suit a range of learning styles, but it is also perfect to promote collaboration amongst the students. In my own classroom, the desks are a curved triangular shape and sit in groups of three. So seating the students in rows is not an option. I have low tables students can push together to work, as well as bed trays and pillows for those students who like sitting on the floor to work. These physical classroom resources promote collaboration, but what about using technology to promote it as well?

One of the technologies I use in my classroom to promote collaboration is Microsoft OneNote Class Notebook. Using this program, students can collaborate on a project in real time, from their own devices. They can continue to collaborate after school hours as well ("OneNote Class Notebook", 2019).

I have also used Minecraft Education Edition as a technological vehicle for collaboration. There are a range of lesson plans on the Minecraft Education website, which include downloadable Minecraft worlds designed to teach students concepts within a specific content area ("Lessons | Minecraft: Education Edition", 2019).

One aspect of collaboration I have not focussed on in my Year 4 classroom is that of social networks. According to Scalise (2016) "opportunities for learning in social networks supports student experience and enhances growing capabilities for effective collaboration" (p. 62). While Year 4 might seem young for social networking, I know my students communicate with each other outside of school hours using group chats, so it would be a logical step to include these as part of their learning in school.

References

Lessons | Minecraft: Education Edition. (2019). Retrieved from https://education.minecraft.net/class-resources/lessons/

OneNote Class Notebook. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.onenote.com/classnotebook

Scalise, K. (2016). Student collaboration and school educational technology: Technology integration practices in the classroom. I-Manager's Journal on School Educational Technology, 11(4), 53-63. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1809061066?accountid=10344



5 comments:

  1. Hi Laurie, I love hearing about schools that are moving away from traditional classroom layout. Students these days seem to benefit from the ability to move around, in my school the idea of the fidget spinner craze helped most of my students because they are so used to moving and completing multiple tasks. I have tried to implement social media in my classroom, in particular, Pinterest, and the students love it, but I do find my self needing to be more aware of cyber safety. Mostly between classmates as students seem to have this idea that their screen protect them when they say inappropriate things.

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  2. Laurie, I really agree with you that flexible seating arrangements are a great way to set up your classroom. In my early teaching career, I has the tables set up in rows the traditional way that I had experienced when I went to school. I have found my classroom functions much better when the desks are set up in groups and allows greater collaboration between students. Do you ever have problems with furniture of different shapes and sizes? Have you ever wished that it was all the same and you could go back to rows?

    ICT skills and collaboration are key comptentices in the twenty first century (Davidsen & Vanderlinde, 2016), which are skills we need to ensure we teach our students. The use of ICT in education to help teach collaboration has been researched for three decades but still needs refining to get the best results (Davidsen & Vanderlinde, 2016). Your examples are show excellent knowledge of using ICT tools in the classroom to promote collaboration and I think I will use these in my classroom!

    Reference

    Davidsen, J., & Vanderlinde, R. (2016). ‘You should collaborate, children’: a study of teachers’ design and facilitation of children’s collaboration around touchscreens. Technology, Pedagogy And Education, 25(5), 573-593. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/1475939X.2015.1127855

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  3. I love to hear about others embracing the flexibility of contemporary classrooms. I have had for numerous years a flexible learning environment and I love the way it allows for active collaboration. As we are a BYOD iPad school I have also seen the benefits of the flexibility of the mobile device in the learning environment. We have had a number of teachers using Minecraft for learning and I loved using it with year 6 students. Our language teacher has used it and it has helped to revitalise her program and engage our disengaged boys. The collaboration they have is fantastic.

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  4. I think we will be looking at more than flexible spaces soon and it will be about flexible learning. Technology is allowing for easier differentiation and individualisation of learning. Self paced content, the creation of clusters in different subjects and accelerated learning could all be facilitated by technology. Do students even need to be in the classroom to learn? I find these ideas so interesting.

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  5. It is awesome to see classrooms that are embracing flexible learning spaces which encourage collaboration. I am excited by the wide range of collaborative resources available online which help to promote connectivism and collaboration in the classroom. Unfortunately, my classroom does not allow me to be flexible like you have shown here, however, I have been engaging with collaborative applications and using them to support collaborative projects that are happening in my classroom.

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