How do you Teach and Evaluate Collaboration?
Tiffany Greer and I just presented on transformational
collaboration at the 2014 AASSA Conference in Sao Paulo. One of our objectives
was to build a resource that would allow educators and other adults across the
IB world to put together some of the most practical resources for teaching
children of all ages tools and skills for working with others. A collaborative to increase our collective
expertise on collaboration. And we have made a start, pooling many of the best
ideas we had come across: http://transformationalcollaboration.blogspot.com
This was in response to the new Approaches to Learning (ATL)
requirements across the 3 IB programs, but, beyond that, working effectively and
efficiently with others is one of the top 5 skills that is required in a modern
day work environment—no matter what the occupation or economy (http://goo.gl/WuCUi). Whether it is called
“teamwork” or “collaboration” or “social skills”, the skill set is
invariably pretty close to the same no matter the source. And it is becoming increasingly essential as students move into their individual electronic worlds, often not quite knowing how to blend their online tools with the skills of human interaction.
While the world outside of schools has been training
employees for decades, schools have recently realized that there is room for
improvement within their own environments and major consulting companies have
been founded to help in this manner, with resources like Robert Garmston and
the Adaptive Schools model or a company like Transformation Systems. Additionally,
MYP schools have been required to put together ATL
Learning Expectations for authorization. So, we should know more about the
topic and should be able to put together a pretty good array of expectations
and strategies for our students, right? Though there has definitely been
progress, these seldom move further than a penciled scope and sequence of hopes
with little strategy for implementation and tracking or disconnected good ideas
within problem-based learning the do illicit further gains, but not as a .
There is no system.. And if students cannot collaborate and research then they
cannot locate, curate, and utilize the enormous amount of information that is
either an arms length or a keyboard movement away.
This article is going to lay out what a holistic program for
teaching collaboration with integrated visual thinking and decision-making
models might look like in implementation, but only as a skeleton.* There are an
infinity of books and higher education publications available that fill in the
theory and research. But little this is practical and quick. so that teachers
and schools do not need lengthy conferences or a masters degree in
collaboration—just a series of tools and expectations that are used and
reviewed annually and consistently alongside major student projects.
To add further weight to the importance of this skill, “Edward Clapp, doctoral candidate from Harvard’s Project Zero
also advocated for the idea of creativity as a social behavior by stating that
no act of creativity can take place in isolation.” (http://goo.gl/abiJLf) If creativity cannot
happen without effective collaboration then we are also limiting our students’
ability to reach what Richard Florida’s research demonstrates is the
fastest-growing segment of the U.S. (and possibly the world’s) economy—the
creative class (http://goo.gl/mQa7Zl).
So let’s start with an activity that you can do with
students or adults at any level—wilderness survival. Though it often seems
impractical to make a list of your most important supplies at a point when you
may freeze to death, this frequently used idea has been refined by the people
at Human Synergistics and used to train principals at the Principal’s Training
Center. I have adapted this model to an electronic version (found here) so that
all mathematical equations are automatic. However, you can order hardcopies
from the company as well: http://goo.gl/R5tFX2
As a pre-test, have students rate themselves on a Google
form or some other quick survey tool to see who regards themselves as strong in
the art of collaboration and who does not. Build your students groups
homogenously based on these responses, with the strongest collaborators in
groups of 4-5 and the weakest in groups of 4-5.
Tell the class that you will guarantee that one visual
thinking model will help the group who regards themselves as less capable in
collaboration to show greater improvement than those who think they are strong
and to ultimately achieve more. Now the challenge is on!
The scenario for the wilderness survival is laid out here
and should be read to the class prior to beginning—possibly as the opening set
to a unit that has the context of a project, but has the secondary goal of
improving our efficiency through visual thinking and collaboration. After this has been read, the teacher should
suggest that everyone begin with the big idea in mind, utilize any visual
thinking strategies they have in the repertoire to determine what is most
important to survival, and they can research if needed. Give up to 10 minutes
for the individuals to fill out their spreadsheets (given to students
electronically, requiring laptops or a computer lab).
After each individual has tried their best and has completed
their numbering, turn it over to the groups. Let both groups struggle with
their decision-making process for at least 10 minutes so that you can observe
what processes they utilize. There could be a powerful class model that comes
out of this time, though most students will skip the idea of visual thinking
and will immediately start to argue over what item is #1 or #12.
Things to observe in this activity (and for quite some time)
will be:
1.
Do the students determine roles within the group?
For example, one person could be the recorder so that they are not all
recording simultaneously. Or another person could be the timekeeper to make
sure that they complete the challenge in 20 minutes or less.
2.
Monitor how decisions are made. Are they based
upon the argument/logic that has been presented? Or based upon the person
speaking/pre-determined roles within the group?
Is there a system for making a final decision? Does the group reach the
best decision or do they compromise into an answer that is incorrect, but makes
the group happy?
3.
If conflict does arise, how does the group
resolve it?
4.
Advanced: Does the group have agreed upon
protocols or a problem-solving cycle that they utilize?
After 10-minutes, give the group who said they were weaker
this visual thinking model—a simple table that helps organize their minds.
Top Survival Needs
|
Which items will help us survive?
|
With a quick online search, students should be able to fill
out the left column like so:
Top Survival Needs
|
Which items will help us survive?
|
Shelter
|
|
Rescue
|
|
Water
|
|
Food
|
|
Everything else
|
They might also switch rescue and water because the storm is
supposed to last 4-5 days and rescue may be very difficult. But, the main thing
is that they will now focus their energy on filling out the chart—not battling
each other for who is more right. (You might have your professed weaker groups
keep their original answers on the side to see how much they improved with the
visual thinking model.)
When the 15-minutes are up, give the students the answers,
below and taken from experienced forest rangers in the Cascades, and have
students use the spreadsheet (tabs 1 and 2) to determine:
a.
Whether their score became better or worse as a
team.
b.
After all group members scores are recorded, who
was the closest to correct at the beginning and whether their process was able
to determine the best answers or if they were ignored. Finding the reason they
were ignored or how they could have more persuasively demonstrated their
perspective, if this was the case, is a follow-up discussion.
c.
See which team had the best score. Odds are that
it was the teams that had the visual organizer—unless they did not list the
survival needs in the correct order, possibly listening to an unreliable source
(another lesson).
The best student scores I have seen are around 13. The worst
was somewhere in the 60’s. A perfect score, which would be exactly the order of
the experts, would be a 0.
Finally, have the group write an evaluation of their ability
to collaborate using the ideas of roles, compromise, doing your part for the
team, conflict resolution, and visual thinking.
What did they do well? What do they really need to work on? This,
alongside your observations, will be a formative assessment of where the group
needs to improve during this unit.
Additionally, this experiment should demonstrate to your
students that their efficiency can be made significantly more effective with
visual learning and collaborative tools, meaning that they can get homework,
planning, studying, and many other areas of their academic life complete in
less time for more result. In short, “work smart not hard”. This is a tough
argument to ignore for a teenager.
**Answers:
Salvaged Items
|
Step 3 Expert's Rank
|
5
|
|
10
|
|
2
|
|
Rechargeable flashlight
|
7
|
11
|
|
Disposable lighter
|
1
|
6
|
|
Bottle of sedatives
|
12
|
4
|
|
3
|
|
Single blade pocket knife
|
8
|
9
|
No matter what you then set as your goals for the year/unit,
you now collectively have a responsibility for tracking it. This could be done
through an electronic portfolio, through a Google tick-list shared between
teachers, or as a data wall that is owned by students and teachers—there are
many ways to track. The importance is ensuring that there is another challenge
that occurs—or several—and students get to see whether or not they have
improved in the art of collaboration. And each year these skills will build
upon one another in design and implementation. I will put forward a new and
improved version of what this will look like at Colegio FDR as soon as the new
Approaches To Learning guide is distributed and we finalize our plan for
2014-2015.
From this point, we should collaboratively move forward and
I am very willing to share the administrative rights of the “Transformational
Collaboration” site with anyone who is interested. What are some of the other tools and
strategies that we could utilize to help teachers and students to answer the
world’s need for better collaboration? If you need another example to show how
much better collaboration can be, also check out the tuning
protocol on the site that was shared with us from High Tech High and comes
from Protocols for
Professional Learning. This has become the way that we improve and
build units at FDR.
Finally, if you would like to know more about the process FDR is following to ensure that we place these objectives as the "rocks" or grade level priorities in our curriculum prior to moving outwards towards subject-specific curriculum goals there is a video chronicling where we are and where we will be by the end of this year and next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEHKyEf_4E
.* I would be remiss to not mention Cherie Mar, a Community
and Service (C&S) and Personal and Social Education (PSE) teacher at Qatar
Academy Doha. Many aspects of the vision communicated here were part of a 2-year discussion on the role of
PSE and C&S within QA for grades 6-10. Gary Holsten, English teacher and C&S Coordinator and now a teacher in Caracas, Venezuela, was also essential to the larger vision. Finally, a shout-out to Alexis Wiggins who co-presented with me 7-8 years ago on this subject and who has built an excellent resource bank for her Spider-web Discussions (shown on the Transformational Collaboration site).
