Collaboration and Cooperative Learning

A recent conversation with a fellow educator has me wondering what is really different between these two frequently dropped buzz words. When I think of the term ‘cooperative learning’, I think about my experiences as a student. I think about being grouped with students who didn’t care so I could “help” them learn. I remember feeling like the teachers were using me to supplement their teaching. What I don’t remember is feeling like I benefited and while my partners may have seen a positive effect in their grades, I’m not convinced they learned more.

I will confess something here and now. After tinkering with different types of intentional grouping for projects, I have elected to let students group themselves. They tend to group homogenously based mostly on motivation but within every group there are still lower ability and higher ability students. They generally find ways to each contribute and play to one another’s strengths. I truly enjoy watching this process and it was not this way when I chose the groups. The resulting products are sometimes amazing, or for less motivated groups, certainly lackluster. But even those less motivated groups had to work toward finishing the product and I genuinely believe that they learned more from the process of doing it themselves than they would if they had a type A student (or type A teacher…) delegating the work.

I have been known to establish roles but students choose roles that suit them in these cases. I do not like to assign who does what. I must admit that I do group intentionally for when we work together in small groups on smaller tasks. I tend to consider this to be collaboration rather than cooperative learning. Often this is when they are brainstorming or reading and analyzing a small piece of literature or a poem.

I suppose my thought is that collaboration is about bouncing ideas off of others to gain a greater understanding. I suppose that Socratic seminars and peer editing might also fit under this category.

Is this a typical understanding of the two terms or am I mixing them up? I have not done much research on cooperative learning, so I will certainly claim ignorance on the subject! I would love to hear what others believe is the most effective way to address social learning and how to combat the pitfalls of “cooperative learning” as I understand it.

What do YOU think?

Waiting and Teaching

As I walked around my students in the computer lab recently, I realized that some things I no longer include on my resume actually have helped set me up to be a better teacher. When I was in high school, like most young people, my parents felt I should get a job to learn about money and work. At that time, I had more energy than any person should have and tended to exude a bubbly personality. So I got a job as a waitress at a pizza buffet.

Previously, I always thought I had gained only two things from this job: the knowledge that smiling a lot helps calm [most] people down and an addiction to over-tipping. Turns out, I learned a lot about managing chaos and picking up on nuances of individuals.

Since I don’t smoke and my parents would not get me a cell phone (“I’ve never had one and somehow I survived…”), while I was at work, I worked. I spent very little time in the back room where the cooks were and relatively little time at the waitress stand.  In order to feel efficient and to ward off boredom, I made myself available. I did odd jobs in the seating area and made the rounds quite often-almost to the point of being annoying.

I did not always stop to ask “Can I get you anything?” because sometimes all I needed to do was walk past and gauge and anticipate any potential needs or wants. There are, of course, obvious signs like a bunch of dirty plates or a nearly empty glass. But you also learn to see when someone is thinking of asking for something. Sometimes I just needed to walk by so they could let me know of an issue I could not predict on my own, but that they would not seek me out to address.

When I roam through the room during independent or small group work, I feel almost exactly the same way. Sometimes you can almost see the question forming on a students lips or the puzzled expression revealing itself in their eyes. Perhaps it’s more obvious, like a blank page after 5-10 minutes of work time. Maybe it’s less obvious than that. Either way, after making the effort to learn your students, you can often tell when you just need to walk by or when you need to stop and directly as an individual student how things are going and if they need anything. Some kids might not bother to check for clarification if it involves walking all the way up to the teacher’s desk (for many students, I’m afraid this seems to be intimidating and/or embarrassing), but if you are right by their desk, they might just whisper that question and thereby enhance their understanding somehow.

Just like as a waitress, I couldn’t stay in the back room or the waitress stand (yup, the pizza place I worked at was sexist and chauvenistic and only hired young girls…) and expect to offer high quality service, I cannot sit at my desk all the time and expect to improve student learning. Even when I may seem annoying in my wandering through the room, I need to be accessible and not wait for students to come to me. This is helpful for student learning, engagement, and classroom management. Sure, it’s basic stuff, but I think it’s always a good reminder.

And hey, give a good tip.

Idealism & Reality

In reflecting on my observations and interactions in my PLN over the last (almost) year, one common vein seems most apparent. There are two divergent belief systems.

1: “If you build it, they will come” – In this mentality, educators believe that we don’t need to have an authority or control model or grades any longer because the future will be more egalitarian and about individuals working at their own pace in their own fields of interest.

To some extent, I really like the idea of letting go of some of these traits of the old model in favor of encouraging students to pursue passions at their own rates. Fundamentally, however, I fear that subscribing wholly to such an idealogy will leave students unprepared for their real futures.

2: Human nature is a relatively fixed reality, hierarchies and competition are inevitable. – This more conservative and traditional belief may not be set in some kind of conspiracy to damage the proletariat, but instead to keep our world functioning and facilitate progress.

In fact, even in a *more* egalitarian and individual led future world, I can hardly think that anyone would believe that competition and hierarchies of authority and control will dissipate.

I have been plagued with the debate between “learning and compliance” as @irasocol so perfectly sums it up. I have felt ripped apart between these but I suppose at the end of the day, I have to prepare my students for BOTH. And yeah, that’s tough. I can only assume that in the future, as throughout all of history, most of my students will have bosses, colleagues to compete with, and deadlines to endure.

I must seek ways to let students find their own path in their learning while setting deadlines. I must create an environment where students can both feel comfortable talking to me and not be afraid, but yet must understand that what I say ultimately has to happen or we have consequences.

This has been the most difficult balance for me to negotiate and I’m still not feeling very solid about it. Do you ever worry that you are really preparing students for an idealistic and, likely, utopian future?

Serious Reflection on Education

In this reflection on my year of online interaction and PLN building, I’m going to dig a little deeper and uglier than normal. I would like to preface this by acknowledging how our pedagogical practices and values are deeply embedded in our political ideologies and hope that my readers will engage me even if they do not agree. [Note: I actually wonder if there exists any universal pedagogical truth or if all "it's just common sense" is so effected by our other convictions that we struggle to understand the beliefs of others.]

For a year now, I have been reading and questioning and engaging and observing conversations about change. “We need change in education” is nothing compared to the “we need to flip education as it stands today upside down for the sake of our kids” revolutionary talk that is prevalent in my PLN.

Me? Always the balance girl, I cannot decide. I feel very much as though I am sitting comfortably in the beliefs that my background has afforded me and yet I feel I am being pulled unwillingly some days and drawn curiously other days to this idea of revolution. I would like to share my tentative thoughts as of today in this fresh new year.

#1 – Capitalist ideas are not the enemy of all. Countries who have educational systems that are producing critical engineers and who are focusing on progress and innovation do not have easy educational systems. It’s hard to get through their programs.

Competition is not inherently problematic and I cannot accept that the bell curve is meaningless. I, too, have limitations of ability and that’s ok. In fact, I believe it’s preferable to understand one’s own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses objectively. I am terrible at spatial relationships. I could never be an engineer or physicist as a result. That’s good for me to know before I apply for college, right?

Well, what if I were a high school student trying to decide where to apply? I need to know if I need to be at a school offering remedial courses in math or language to get caught up before I transfer to a 4 year school or if I should aim higher or if I should be looking at vocational school instead. This is not condescending or cruel if you have the right filter. ALL of these paths have merit and will benefit the individual and the world around him or her.

Not everyone should be aiming for a four year college. It will be a waste of time and money for some and it will set some students up for failure. It’s OUR problem that we have decided this is what everyone should do and that anything short of this path is not “successful”. WE need to change this perception that educators have created in our culture. A country full of lawyers, philosophers, and English majors would not be able to sustain itself. Show some respect.

#2 - A good education is a privilege. We cannot force anyone to value this against their will. Just as attempting to go in and force a nation to adopt democracy is artificial, so is telling a student that they have to care about what we teach them (and then not letting them reap the consequences of poor choices). If we had more special programs as some magnet schools do where students want to be placed in them, students might work harder to reach that immediate goal. College at the end of 13 years of school is not necessarily a motivating goal for many students. We need to find rewards that are actually educational (rather than ipods and bonus points). And I think that a lightly structured, highly flexible form of tracking might be more beneficial to respecting the vast array of career and future choices of our students than insisting that future doctors take science classes with future welders. For both, science is critical but each requires a different angle.

#1 + #2 = #3

#3 – Change must be organic. It cannot be top down, whether top refers to the federal or state governments or school boards or principals. That does not work, we’ve been watching that all along. There may be top down strategies that could be beneficial, but the change we are seeking must start smaller and simpler.

I’m not sure where. I absolutely believe that our networks online are a starting place to an extent, but how do we get parents on board? My entire life I feel that I have watched the school system usurp parental responsibility with good intentions. “They weren’t doing it/learning it/exposed to it at home, and they need to understand this therefore we must do it for them.”

Fair enough. Punishing the kids for problematic parenting issues seems wrong.

But rather than just say, “give me that [child], you’re doing it wrong!” maybe we should have exhausted ourselves trying to “empower” [I know there are those who dislike this term, but you get the gist] parents. As teachers, we would never do this to our students and try not to do this to our own children, right? I mean sure, it takes five times longer to watch and model and try to help our kids tie their own shoes and it would be much easier to just do it for them – after all, we’re shoe tying experts- but the kids would be dependent on us forever if this was our reaction.

This is what I feel schools have done, and I can only imagine that it distances the school from the parent even more by belittling struggling parents who have often felt mistreated by schools in their own youth.

#4 - One size will never fit all. We are terribly complex as humans. Educational, psychological, and sociological sciences will never be able to be right because they can only create theories and generalizations. They will always be wrong for *someone*. That doesn’t mean we stop trying to learn, research, and understand. It just means we have to accept that we can only try to offer the most options feasible to most adequately help the greatest number of students. I believe this might be related to the charter school format being adopted on a larger scale where parents can choose schools based on what they offer (heavier in the arts, or maybe technology, maybe math and science, maybe different schedules, etc). This seems more ideal than tracking because it would be student/parent driven choices rather than schools deciding that students should study at the same time and in the same course as other kids who happen to have the same birthyear and zipcode. [Note: because our physical walls are shrinking, I believe students would still have plenty of exposure to students from notably different backgrounds through online and cooperative activities. And really, diversity by interest versus diversity by geography- either way, you are not necessarily being offered diversity.]

Please share your thoughts (good or bad) or if you’d rather, this might be a good conversation for Google Wave… Thanks for reading!

First New Year’s Resolution

I have been reflecting on 2009 and will post later. To sum it up, I have learned more in the last year about education and the world around me than in any other single year of my life and I feel I owe so much of that to my online networks. I am exposed to such varying ideas and theories and strategies and have the privilege of considering each of them against my own ideas.

My biggest concern is that in my path to discovering, I have required a great deal of help and support from other teachers, which they happily and generously offer. But sometimes it becomes narcissistic (as many web applications tempt us to do if not self monitored).

For 2010, I propose to comment on other education related blogs. ONE PER DAY. I will then post a link on twitter (@iMrsF) and a hastag of #365comments.

If anyone wants to join me in this endeavor, I’m confident that bloggers will appreciate the effort. Few things are as comforting as receiving comments that let you know that you are not alone in your ponderings or field. Since education is so often an isolated field, I hope this will be a way to encourage others while learning along the way. Win-win!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My Favorite Things

First: don’t laugh – too hard. I’m no poet and I could never perform like Julie Andrews! [Thank your lucky stars this isn't a podcast!]

Second: I couldn’t help it, just feeling inspired and I always associate that song with Christmas time. I’d love to see your adaptation for your favorite things about teaching. We had a really great day and students are (oh sure, not all) generally excited about our Crucible projects-making board games and glogsters and more. Heard today, “that’s the best ‘poster’ I’ve ever made! I’m so excited right now!” Good day. What teaching strategies have yielded such positive results for you? Wouldn’t it be nice to have those days more and more often?

My Favorite Things

Glogsters on novels with animated art

Google documents for collaborating

Ning discussions for inquiry learning

These are a few of my favorite things

Choices and freedom for differentiating

Connections abound in this digital world

And there’s Twitter for PLN building

These are a few of my favorite things
          

When the test bites

When the stress stings

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don’t feel so bad

Thanks, Dr. Cheng

Dear Dr. Cheng,

I confess that in the first months of being a student in your Alpha class*, I was not fond of you or your class. I had gotten by with BSing on assignments for years and was irritated that you were not offering up A’s or at least high B’s for my writing efforts. Or reading efforts, for that matter.

I still remember the paper over Locke and Hobbes. You said I had to redo it, it did not meet your standards. I took it back to my dorm room begrudgingly and laid all the work out on the floor. I got out my highlighters, orange and green as I vividly recall, and I ACTUALLY READ the reading assignment that led up to the essay-admittedly for the first time.

Turns out, I actually thought it was interesting. I carefully color coded my highlighted notes and added notes and thoughts of my own. Then I proceeded to jot down a rough and scattered looking outline with arrows drawn all over the place. An outsider would have surely suspected it to be the gibberish of a mad woman, but I persisted.

I spent hours agonizing over the organization and (I now know the word!) synthesis of our class resources and how to word each piece. Here’s the kicker, Dr. Cheng: no one had ever asked me to do that before.

I had taken four years of honors English courses in high school and invitation only advanced English in junior high. I had always done well at throwing together papers for classes in about thirty minutes and generally getting A’s. These A’s meant nothing to me, of course. Just a letter. Just a hoop. But when I received an A on THAT paper over Locke and Hobbes, I was truly proud.

Something clicked for me that day, and you saw it. From that point on, I remember you would call on me to hear if I had any insights. “What do you think, Candace?” and while embarrassed by the attention, I was honored.

I don’t know where you are today, but I want to let you know how much I appreciate that you offered me that moment and for never catering to our complaints. I truly believe you altered the course of my future by demanding that I apply myself to my writing (and reading and thinking) and it has been a strong inspiration to me in my teaching journey.

Thank you,

Candace Follis

 *an intro to college and writing 101 class rolled into one year long class at my liberal arts university – freshman year of college

Layered Units

I have been intrigued by the idea of layered curriculum but it is taking some time to get the hang of its principles. The examples I found are inspiring but seem messy and confusing for students. My first attempt at it was no better, and furthermore was less like the original structure and more like that of a multigenre project.

The thing is, I kind of like that. So I’ve been thinking about how to compromise between the Bloom’s style “layered curriculum” as it was created and the more multigenre, standard/objective meeting unit I envision. I would really love to have some feedback on how best to make this a reasonable task and not something that stresses kids out.

Connections – Write a paragraph showing how this text relates to a song, video, current event, other text, movie/tv show/play, or personal events, other (consult teacher).

Literary – Write a 1 page character analysis, essay on author’s purpose, essay analyzing appropriate literary technique from text, relevant editorial, other (consult teacher).

Create – Movie trailor, board game, modern script, parody, graphic novel chapter, other (consult teacher).

Ideally, this would be introduced at the beginning of a 5-6 week unit and students would have opportunities to work on it throughout. Minilessons relating to the tasks would be offered along the way, reading and vocabulary instruction would also function traditionally (whatever is typical for one’s classroom). Tech would be integrated as possible with accessibility considered; I made it optional for extra credit for my botched attempt at this though I would like to make it mandatory.

Students could develop contracts with the teacher to include the projects (one from each category) and tentative checkpoints. The teacher would have to be available for conferences on many occasions.

Am I on the right track or am I missing something critical? Please help!

Reflecting on NCTE

As  far as workshops and instruction, I think Kelly Gallagher’s presentation was the most meaningful and new for me. Since his session, I’ve found myself frequently referencing the “sweet spot of teaching” as he explained it and find it is my greatest challenge in teaching right now.

I do NOT want to spoon feed my students. I want them to think for themselves – that’s what I love so much about the whole student led movement.

Yet I am fully aware that I sometimes leave students confused. Sometimes this is because they are simply waiting for me to do the work for them, a strategy that has apparently been all too successful in the past (I would like to note that I believe this to be a universal problem). Other times, they are legitimately confused but do not understand either how to frame a useful question (“Uhh, I don’t get it” “What about it?” “Uhh, all of it, I guess?”) or spot their own confusion or that they do not want to or feel comfortable asking for clarification.

I think the first step that I must take to reach this elusive and ever changing sweet spot will be to have these conversations and teach/model how to understand when we are confused and what the most efficient strategies are for finding helpful answers. Lucky me, this also goes along with our regular reading strategies, though it even applies to simple tasks such as following directions!

I have to admit, since I realize that consistently teaching is at this perfect center is not sustainable or even achievable (especially for all of our various learners), I wonder if it is better to lean slightly to the too hard side rather than removing the challenge? Is this shortsighted? I fear it might be but would like to hear from other teachers on this subject!

An Invitation

This invitation comes from Jennifer Ansbach encouraging English teachers to join the English Companion Ning from Jim Burke. If you read my blog, you already know that I’m a huge fan of his work and his Ning (inspired me to create my own Ning for students).

Hi, English department friends and associates:

I know some of us are already on the English Companion Ning, but I wanted to let you all know about the resources available. I’m not getting paid to plug this, but it is an amazing resource for English teachers.

What’s a Ning?
A ning is a closed social network, like a Myspace or Facebook with a restricted membership. You have a profile, a blog, and participate in forums and send/receive messages.

What is the English Companion Ning?
Started one year ago this week by English teaching guru Jim Burke, the English Companion Ning is a place to share resources, ask questions, and participate in online, self-directed professional development.

Why should I join?
Jim Burke has leveraged his author and professional connections to bring some of the leaders in English education to the ning. Members include not only Jim Burke but current NCTE president and author Carol Jago, outgoing NCTE president and author Kylene Beers, and others who publish about best practices. Each month there is a professional book club, with an online discussion led by the author. Past books included Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide and Tom Newkirk’s Holding on to Good Ideas in Times of Bad Ones. This month’s book club on improving student writing features Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them.

There are forums devoted to specific topics, with people posting their handouts, lesson plans, and strategies. In addition, there is a place to seek help for questions or for support. Yesterday someone asked what to do when your urban students admit they think you are a pushover. Within a few hours, several people had offered solid advice and resources. Earlier this year, a teacher posted about celebrating with his student teacher, putting her in her car, and having a truck kill her instantly around the corner. That teacher found a place to share his grief and also received help and ideas for putting together a fitting tribute to the young woman (his students had written letters to her that he hadn’t given to her–he crafted a eulogy of the students’ own words about what she meant to them).

It’s free to join. Just sign up on englishcompanion.ning.com. Jim Burke pays the $25 a month to keep it running and does not accept any advertising on the site. I am not a paid promoter. This week, as the ECNing celebrates its first birthday, it has 9,700 members and Jim is hoping to reach 10,000 this week. He asked us to make sure our colleagues are aware of the ning and what it has to offer.

The ENGLISH COMPANION NING