As a student in high school I remember sitting in the back of the classroom, especially math, and not interacting with anyone. I could do the work (sort of) without listening to the lecture and my reading book was by far more interesting than my math teacher’s lecture about quadratic equations. As a senior, going into my last semester, when I dropped PreCalc, my teacher, who was also the town mayor, said if you would just pay attention you would easily pass this class. Oops! I guess he saw me reading my book. As I think back about those experiences I can’t help but think about how constructivism and collaboration could have affected my learning. Would it have been possible for me to sit isolated in the classroom and read my book, if other people were expecting me to do something? I don’t think so. For the most part humans tend to cluster together. When clustered together they need to figure out ways to live and work together – collaboration.
If my teacher would have used collaboration in my high school math class it would have been very different than collaboration is today. Then we would have still been an isolated island in the building; today students are using technology to reach outside their classroom and outside their building to find out what others are saying. Howard Rheingold talks about the new power of collaboration. Before technology people would have to be physically together to collaborate easily, now with the technologies that exist on the Internet we can collaborate anytime, anywhere. Allsop (2011) found that students working collaboratively online, who were physically in the same room, worked collaboratively both online and face-to-face. This type of working together on a wiki allows the students to see what others are doing and to work together to build their collective knowledge.
Constructivism is about students being actively involved in their learning and using their experiences to build new knowledge. Students using technology to work collaboratively, being actively involved in their education and building on experiences are students learning regardless of the tag attached to it.
Allsop, Y. (2011). Does collaboration occur when children are learning with the support of a wiki? The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 10(4), 130-137.
Hi Carol,
ReplyDeleteEven though collaboration is a good strategy but every body has his/her own learning style. You at least read a book in math class. I used to go to the last row, sat behind tall students and took nap. After the class was over, I went to Library, made my own notes referring more than one book. Thats how I learnt.
To the best of my understanding a teacher uses different strategies so that every student gets according to his/her learning style.
Anwar
I think that you raise some interesting points about the human need to interaction and collaboration. I, too, have noticed how dramatically education has changed from the time I was a student to now as a teacher. What I find fascinating is the fact that many times, when students are assigned to work in groups, they really hate it, unless they are given a choice on who to work with. Then they actually do the work. In this way, if given specific tasks to collaborate with the use of some technological tool to show their understanding of specific topics, they tend to have more expansion of understanding of content and are actively engaged with their projects/assignments.
ReplyDeleteI have my students complete a semester long service learning project, they pick their own partners and their own project. It never ceases to amaze me how they have difficulties working together, for a variety of reasons. Our students know how to collaborate, they do it all the time in their personal lives, but when we ask them to do it at school they have problems. I don't think our educational system is set up to encourage academic collaboration and as a result "educate" collaboration out of our students. Somewhere we have to put it back in.
DeleteCarol,
ReplyDeleteCollaboration could have definitely affected your learning. Collaboration can afford students so many opportunities.
Collaboration creates a more dynamic classroom interaction and the significance of collaboration goes far beyond just that; collaboration fosters student learning. Collaborative learning occurs when students actively work together to create knowledge; it is a pedagogy that has at its center the assumption that people make meaning together and that the process enriches and enlarges them (Matthews, 1996).
Collaboration suggests that knowledge is socially produced by consensus among knowledgeable peers. It puts into practice constructivism, specifically that students must be actively engaged in building their own knowledge.
Carol;
ReplyDeleteMuch value and experience to be gained via collaboration; as we have progressed from F2F to the on-line setting, I find that there is way more opportunity to catch up, ask more questions, spend less time in libraries and reach out to peers with the advantage of convenience; I think that the Collaborative Assignment of this week is evidence of same. More dynamics, less static situations.
David