Collaborative learning. The words conjure up painful group projects.
I hate group projects!
And according to other group members I worked with, so do many other students, especially in college, and especially if everyone gets the same grade for the project. Who has not been involved with a project, and two of the members of the group are not pitching in, and resentment starts to build?It can be extremely frustrating and I do not think it produces the individual student's best work, since concessions usually have to be made to include everyone's ideas.
However, that said, I do believe that knowing how to work in a group is a necessity. And I think that the purpose of group work at school is more to learn how to communicate effectively than the beauty of the end project. I think for that reason, collaborative learning can support literacy, if taught correctly.
For collaborative learning to be successful, the teacher needs to thoroughly teach the students how literary circles are to be done. The teacher does not want this to become a "free-for-all". Mini lessons on how to talk in a group setting, for example, would be great. Students need to listen to each other, and build on each other's ideas. Once ideas start flowing, the conversations become 'seriously fun'!
I think another important element in running successful collaborative learning groups is to pick books according to the interests of the students. This way the students will want to read the book and talk about it. The fact that the groups then consist of students with similar interests will only make the conversations flow smoothly. And who knows, the conversation might even spill over to 'free time'!
Does collaborative learning work in every classroom? Not necessarily. Sometimes the energy between the children in a classroom just does not lend itself to unstructured learning. I can imagine children taking advantage of this time away from the teacher to get into trouble, or sabotage the group. In this case, I do not think the collaborative learning would invite higher thinking, but a teacher led conversation would. One could argue that especially students like this would benefit the most from collaborative learning, since they do need to know how to effectively communicate with other students, using polite conversations. They would be right. Once they are taught how to have these conversations, I believe such a class would eventually also be able to work in collaborative learning groups.
I would like to see such a literary circle in action! I wonder how much 'on task' and invested the children are in the books they are discussing. I would like the teacher to have a few ideas for questions in a basket on the table, in case the students get stuck. Sometimes the questions a teacher asks invite deeper thought and I would love to be a fly on the wall to hear these conversations. What am I saying? I will not be a fly on the wall....I will be the teacher in the classroom!
Great post. The journey you took us on from the difficulties of collaborative work to necessity was done nicely.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of literacy I feel collaboration supports learning because reading and writing is a social process. In fact in well -run literature circles we are not so much doing strategy instruction but instead exchanging strategies among co-learners.
I think the key words in your comment are 'well-run'. If everyone in the group is equally invested in participating in literary discussions, then I think collaboration does support learning. However, what happens when a student finds himself in a group that is not participating equally? How does that support learning? I also feel that the literary groups should be homogeneous, in order for every student to have a voice.
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