Students working together

Five-Year-Olds Pilot Their Own Project-Based Learning | Edutopia

Five-Year-Olds Pilot Their Own Project-Based Learning Edutopia

Preparing for a Collaborative Classroom

Critical to teaching and learning in the collaborative/cooperative environment is being able to define the responsibilities of the teacher and students and to understand what best practices for your classroom are.  Ultimately, the goals of collaborative classrooms and cooperative classrooms are non-competition. For effective collaboration and cooperative teamwork, teachers and students must take on responsibilities to support the process.  The table below reflects the parallel responsibilities of teachers and students.

Teacher Responsibilities	Student Responsibilities
Monitor student behavior	Develop the skills to work cooperatively
Provide assistance when needed	Learn to talk and discuss problems with each other in order to accomplish the group goal
Answer questions only when they are team questions	Ask for help only after each person in the group has considered the questions and the group has a question for the teacher
Interrupt the process to reinforce cooperative skill or to provide direct instructions to all students	Believe they are part of a team and that all members of the team work together toward a common goal Understand that the success or failure of the group is to be shared by all members. Understand the group dynamic and learn mathematics by working groups
Provide closure for the lesson	Reflect back on the work of the group
Evaluate the group process by discussing the actions of the team member	Appreciate that working together is a process that capitalizes on the presence of student peers, encourages the interaction among students, and establishes relationships among team members
Help students to learn to be individually accountable for learning and to reinforce this regularly	Realize that each member must contribute as much as he or she can to the group goal Understand that the success of the group is dependent on, and a direct effect of, the individual work of each member of the group Understand that group members are individually accountable for their own learning

Check out Anne E. Brown's "Ten Guidelines for Students Doing Group Work in Mathematics." She developed the list after viewing the video and audio tapes of more than a dozen group sessions of her students. The list reflects the actions that appeared to be critical to the success or failure of the group.

This week, I'd like for us to work together to develop a list of tips and suggestions both from the teacher's perspective and from the student's perspective on how to make sure that collaborative groups "work" in our classrooms.  Possible questions include:

• What should the teacher do to prepare the students? 
• How should he/she design the group project?  
• How should groups be formed--does it matter? 
• What kind of roles should group members take on? 
• How will you monitor group interactions and check for understanding? 
• What are ways to successfully close or wrap-up a collaborative process? 
• What are ways to assess group projects?
• What are some tips that would help students accept responsibility and work together to accomplish the task?
• What are tips/suggestions for working with others in a group?
• What are tips/suggestions for getting a group started on the task?