Collaborative Learning is Grand!
This week our readings discussed group or collaborative learning, writing purposeful learning objectives, and facilitating instruction. All of the topics are important but it seems that collaborative learning techniques happened to stick with me the most. I believe this is because I have made the connection between utilizing groups as a teaching tool when I'm a teacher and having them used on me! Within our Ag Ed courses here at Penn State Dr. Foster, Dr. Ewing, Dr. Curry, and Dr. Rice demonstrate different ways to teach our students increasing their level of comprehension and moving to a higher level on Bloom's Taxonomy. Having these techniques demonstrated on myself, I hope to use some of them as I cross the line from student to teacher.
Digging deeper into the tactics and structure of collaborative classroom activities, I can clearly see where this benefits students. Instead of simply listening to a lecture students can make more connections between the taught material and their own thoughts. Personally I gain vast amounts of comprehension in group situations. The fact of the matter is that many people see things differently. Just as our weekly investments focus on different points of the reading, group members will all pick a different facet of the content that they are working on and bring a different view to the discussion that they are a part of. Not to mention the fact that the way a teacher tries to teach something might not click for a particular student. Having group work allows for more discussion and even some clarification from other students. When used correctly collaborative learning can really make a positive difference in the classroom!
This week I found a great video from "Teaching Channel" which I have included a link to in my references. In this video, a high school teacher from Texas talks about the 1-3-6 approach to group strategies in his classroom. When a topic is being approached first the students individually comprehend what they learned. They then get into a small group of three and discuss the topic. Finally their group of three pairs with another group of three to gain even more perspectives and provide some personal views of the topic. If desired, each group of six can quickly share what they decided was the most common theme in their discussion. I like this approach to a collaborative activity and will have to test it out in the classroom to see how well it works in meeting comprehensive objectives!
Do you have any thoughts or tips on group teaching? Any stories or examples you would like to share? Please comment!
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References:
Groseta, K.J. & Myers, B.E. (2006). Using cooperative learning in formal and nonformal education
. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC06200.pdfNewcomb, L.H., McCracken, J.D., Warmbrod, J.R., & Whittington, M.S. (1993). Methods of teaching agriculture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
(n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2017, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/1-3-6-protocol
Whittington, M.S. (2005). Writing objectives in secondary agriculture courses that challenge students to think
. Agriculture Education Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.naae.org/profdevelopment/magazine/archive_issues/Volume77/v77i5.pdf
Angie, great insights into this week's topic! What other grouping strategies did you discover? The one in the video you shared will be very useful for you Ag Ed classroom!
ReplyDeleteWell think-pair-share is also very common and is similar to the video strategy that I shared. In my educational psychology class that I completed last year we learned tactics to splitting groups up so that the achievement levels of students were mixed and I think that this is very important.
DeleteAngie, another great collaborative activity would be a fish-bowl debate. All students have to participate, this creates deeper understanding of defending arguments, as well as open-mindedness! Check out this resource! https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/fishbowl
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