Collaboration

I find the aspect of collaboration in education interesting. I remember when distance learning was done individually, usually through the mail. I also remember that in my education, the teacher would instruct and then we students would be expected to quietly work at our desks on our individual work. Sometimes, we would work in a group or in partners, but that was the exception to the rule. Now, collaboration is expected and encouraged in “transformative” classrooms and in distance learning. Moving online has created many more opportunities for communicating between learners and instructors. Today’s classrooms take more advantage of the social nature of learners and hopefully accommodate John Dewey’s idea of “productive inquiry”. Learners still need guidance, though, and instructors willing to support them in the new learning structures.

The previous part of this post was in response to an article Chen had summarized. I wanted to put it on my blog because I wanted to possibly share the thoughts with a wider audience. 

In reading this again, I found myself thinking of ways that students these days "collaborate". For instance, my son who is in 10th grade, takes Honors and AP classes. He is in a cohort of students who take similar level classes and they have created their own Facebook page in order to ask and answer questions, remind each other of various assignments and generally support each other. I found this to be very beneficial to the students. 

Also, I just started a new job. It is very different than my previous 20 years of experience because when I was in the classroom or managed a library, I was very autonomous. I built relationships with others, but my performance came down to how well I developed my skills and related to my students. In my new job, I work on a team to deliver services across our district. We work out of central office. In this job, as in many, especially business, collaboration is key to being effective. We are all highly motivated to do the best we can to support each other and do our jobs well. 

Why do I bring this up? This reminds me of the shift in education from "teacher teaches individual in group setting" learning to "teacher teaches groups" to "teacher guides groups and individuals" that I have seen from my own early education to present day. In my own job I realize that the ability to collaborate is essential and we need to give learners the chances to do so.