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    Gilberto Maldonado
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    20 views3 pages

    Shin M, 2015 Collaborative Learning

    Uploaded by

    Gilberto Maldonado

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    Collaborative learning Michelle Shin enables her students to take ownership by equipping them with team-based skills. he Association of American Colleges and Universities has identified collaborative learning as a High Impact Education Practice (HIEP) and, while this is a method that many already utilise, moving it to the forefront as an integral part of a course with clearly- defined goals and a premeditated process can benefit students through ‘engagement, ownership and problem- solving skills T taught English for ten years at & public high school in Hawai, @ highly ‘multicultural state with a constant influx of ESL and EFL students. Now I teach at Kapiolani, which has the highest population of international students of all the community colleges in Hawaii Island residents are very proud of their diversity and everyone's ability to be part of the larger ohana (family), but there are, of course, challenges. ‘Students sometimes group together according to ethnicity — Koreans over here, Filipinos over there —and our schools, rightly, encourage cultural identity with ethnicity-based clubs ‘Gapanese Club, Pacific Islander Club, tc), Hawaii also has a very large nilitary population, which means we have thousands of students who are originally rom various other places in the US and the world, and who can have avery different cultural mindset. strive to promote an atmosphere of inclusivity ‘where we all recognise and appreciate ‘our differences while working to form and build upon common bonds Collaborative learning i a great way to create these bridges nnd teach students how to respect and work with others. Writing is often viewed as a solitary process — that iconic image of a writer, alone, yping away at their computer, distanced from the world. Afterall, in English, papers are usually produced by single authors and the ideas ‘belong’ to fone person. But writing is also 2 collaborative process - our ideas and the challenges that force us to strive higher come from our peers and community, the revising and drafting process is invalid without outside input, and a final product is ultimately just a shect of paper without an audience Toren ag ars use collaborative learning in big «and small forms in my lessons: activities to help explain literary terms or vocabulary, a group essay assignment, a large “Teach-a-short-story" unit where the students become the teachers, a *Create-a-visual-argument’ piece to punctuate rhetorical analysis, tc Groups provide a support network, the ‘opportunity to make friends and share frustrations and triumphs, and — perhaps most importantly ~to figure out the often complex, but unavoidable, skill of working with others. Like any hr + wwunetprefessional.com + ENGLISH TEACHNG professional «Issue a7 March 2015 + 41 >>> Collaborative learning educational practice, however, ibis not @ miracle cute, and forethought is needed in order to avoid some of the more likely complications Identifying and overcoming obstacles i Group dynamics Group members can have widely differing opinions, strengths, ideas of what ‘constitutes participation and work ethics, land there can be personality conflicts. ‘Sometimes someone fels that they te trying to speak or contribute, but that they aren't being heard. Ensuring that all, group members fel respected is erucial, so investing in team-building activities at the beginning of the year, or before a long-term group project, isa good way to emphasise the fact that we need to learn to work with others. This might seem lke ‘a waste of time because itis seemingly not progressing the assigned project or paper, but investing time in community buikling pays future dividends and teachers can devise team-building exercises that also

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