Collaborative Learning

Today we were working in groups to create Wikis (on http://www.wikispaces.com/) relating to the curricular topic we have based both our animation & movie on: 'People Who Help Us'. We were all working on different computers and had agreed on which pages we would each do. This worked really well as Keira, Nicole and I had a clear path to follow when writing up information about each occupation. The only problem came when we were trying to link the 'Home' page to the page for each specific professional: if two of us were editting the page at the same time we were unable to save the changes that we had both made, as the last person to save would overwrite the person who had saved first. It was a minor technical difficulty and because we were sitting in the same room we were able to organise when we were changing that page. This would be different with  class of children, especially if the Wiki was being used as a home resource for children to add to. It could result in a loss of someones hard work and dent the motivation of that individual. This could be tackled simply by having a page per child and they are only allowed to make changes to their own page. A simple but effective approach to bridging the problem.
I know see some benefits of using Wikis with children. It is an effective tool for perhaps presenting a topic of work which the children have researched but can also be used as a resource for children to use during their learning. Incorporating games and activities alongside the information that children need to know (like we decided to do) can enagage the children and give them a slight break from reading/intaking information. Our Wiki on 'People Who Help Us' is aimed at nursery/early years children. To be used as a learning tool which the teacher can use in lessons but then the children can interact with to deepen their understanding.

Working on this Wiki got me thinking about the use of collaborative learning in the classroom; so I decided to do a bit more research on it. I found it to be linked with Assessment for Learning, which I think is a really good idea. AfL promotes peer and self assessment, which lends itself seamlessly to collaborative learning as all children will know what is expected of them as a group. During the task(s) they can evaluate how they feel members are contributing to the work (or evaluate how they feel they are working). They can also evaluate the end product(s) together and decide if there is anything they could have done better to improve their end results.

I also found this video on teachers.tv which discusses how a primary school in London uses AfL- http://www.teachers.tv/videos/primary-assessment-for-learning-collaborative-learning It relates more to the assessment side of things but there was a few things identified during the video which I thought were very good strategies for collaborative learning. The teacher used a method called Jigsaw Learning to allow children to learn about different types of poems. The teacher was very pleased with how her class engaged with this approach and felt that in doing so the children took a real sense of ownership of their learning. The children worked in groups to investigate a type of poem and then each person in the group had to teach another group about their findings. I think this is a really good way to engage all learners in the classroom because every child knows that they need to be equipped with the knowledge when they become the 'expert' to allow them to teach the other children. This would reduce the number of passive learners in the group and would mean that by the end of the lesson children would have a deep understanding of at least the area they researched (hopefully the areas that others researched too). I would use this in a classroom setting, perhaps during the start of a new topic to give children some basic knowledge of the different aspects to be covered across the topic, or in the same way that it was used on this video. I also think that it helps children who may struggle with researching things to work in a group so the pressure is not solely on them; it could boost their confidence with finding things out for themselves or working with a friend to solve a problem.
The childre also discuss their thoughts on using 'Learning Partners' in the classroom. They enjoy working with their learning partner and see the benefit of doing so. I too think this is a good approach to use in the classroom, especially matching up children of a lower ability with someone who can support them if the teacher is otherwise occupied. Again I would definitely use this approach in a classroom to encourage the children to share their ideas and understanding of the work, between the two children they should be able to establish a good understanding of the process/concept.

Although the ideas I have found on this video seem very effective I know that they might not work as effectively with all classes. Consideration would be required as to who should be partnered with who to result in the best learning for both children. The same considerations would be needed for grouping children to work together, some children just do not get along when trying to work in a group. Although it could be time consuming and a matter of trial and error to get the groupings right, once the children are in partnerships and groups that work learning should be limitless!