Attending this workshop with BArBara Rockenbach and Ian McDermot from YUL. Started with a “clicker” exercise to identify familiarity with collaborative teaching and learning.Our first exercise was to identify challenges associated with group work
- students who don’t want to work in a group
- balancing expectations – time required
- Assessment of group work
- clarity of learning objextives
- clarity of instructions on deliverables
- technology issues in online
- support from different units
- getting everyone together
Opportunities for collaborative work…
- students gain experience in working in teams
- building interpersonal skills, leadership skills
- higher quality outcomes
- develops community
- promotes active learning
- group strengths overcome individual weaknesses
Solutions to some of these challenges; what pedagogical strategies might be used to address these…
- structure adn design are very critical
- establish clear rubriics and guidelines for assessment; combine peer assessment with other tools
- develop good ools and resourcses for creating flexible collaborative environments (physical and virtual)
- include peer review as part of evaluation
- do skills assesment prior to group formation to balance skills; clear roles within a group; icebreakers
- develop a support network; training in technology, other types of mentors…
- provide extensive trainig for the instructor
See other notes on the WIKI…
Sarah Haavind talked about fostering a “collaborative presence” in an online environment…
-create a community culture; create discussion prompts that are inherently collaborative; explicitly teach participants how to engage collaboratively
How to create a community culture..
- make explicit expectations
- weekly reminders
- rapid feedback on questions and constant presence
- don’t answer content questions
Keys for facilitating learning
- generative questions; g
- rounded questions for dialog;
- interventions to keep on track;
- rubrics to support deepened dialog;
- assessments;
See her examples of “generative / grounded questions”
See the following for Hamiton college’s colloaborative pedagogy approach, via a case study..
http://collaborativepedagogy.pbwiki.com/Comparative+Politics+Case+Study+Session+Outline