Collaborating

Quality Learning Interaction

*Click here to access the QLI/QTP Teacher Toolkit for more resources to support implementation.

Outcomes:

This deck will provide you with culturally sustaining strategies and resources to help engage learners in collaborating. The practices you learn today will support learners’ content knowledge, agency, and social emotional competency.

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What is Collaborating?

Use this Quality Learning Interaction to help engage learners in collaborating in order to support their content knowledge and social interactions with peers.

The goal is for students to build understanding together.

Why is Collaborating Important?

• Collectivist societies emphasize relationships, interdependence within a community, and cooperative learning.
• Collaboration allows students to talk in a variety of ways beyond the “traditional” ways of talking, such as orderly turn taking.

Neuroscience tells us that our brain is a social organ that works best when it has

the opportunity to connect and interact with others.

- Zaretta Hammond

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—Zaretta Hammond

One of the primary ways students develop a sense of agency and independence is through language and talk. Talking helps us process our learning. Talking helps us connect with others. Talking helps us expand our thinking when we hear the ideas of others.”

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meaningful

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interactive

Collaborating is:

purposeful

engaging

Why is Collaborating important?

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John Hattie’s Research

Collaborating strategies used during teaching will develop cooperative learning which, in addition to being culturally responsive, has a high affect on student achievement. Specific strategies such and discussion and jigsaw have great impact on achievement and help build student agency.

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Many cultures are collectivist. They focus on relationships and cooperative learning. Collaborating provides opportunities to connect with others in a learning community. Cultural Proficiency is a mindset that encompasses explicit values, language, and standards for effective personal interactions and professional practices at all times.

Culturally proficient educators recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making. They use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts.

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Culturally proficient educators ensure lessons are designed to value and respect the cultural identity of the learner and her or his family and friends.

Culturally proficient educators are constantly aware of the critical role that cultural identity and cultural perceptions play in the dynamics of the classroom environment.

Cultural Proficiency

Anti-Bias, Anti-Racism

Pedro Noguera and Yvette Jackson have both stated that the reality is that students struggle not because of their race, language, or poverty. They struggle because we don’t offer them sufficient opportunities in the classroom to develop the cognitive skills and habits of mind that would prepare them to take on more advanced academic tasks. Collaborating can offer engagement in meaningful, worthwhile learning activities that lead to confidence as learners, resulting in self-efficacy and agency, and ultimately interrupting systems of oppression in our classrooms.

Additionally, collaboration allows students to talk in a variety of ways beyond the “traditional” ways of talking, such as orderly turn taking. It provides space for students to use their funds of knowledge and cultural frames of reference, alleviating marginalization.

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Neuroscience tells us that our brain is a social organ that works best when it has the opportunity to connect and interact with others.

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-Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Zaretta Hammond

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Strategies and Teacher Moves to Support Collaborating

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*Click here for templates to adapt for use in your classroom.

To be Culturally Responsive when implementing “Collaborating” strategies, consider the following as part of your lesson design cycle...

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• Prepare 2. Plan

3. Teach 4. Reflect

Select texts and strategies that match what you understand about your students identity (culture, race, gender, language).

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Connect to students’ prior knowledge and experiences so the learning is relevant to their lives.

Plan for multiple perspectives and entry points.

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Ensure all voices are being heard.

Use what you understand about students’ identity, mindset, and skills to correctly interpret and respond to student needs.

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Revise what you understand about your students based on new information about their identity and mindset.

Reflect on evidence of equitable/inequitable outcomes and plan for more equitable outcomes.

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Considerations when Planning for Collaborating

• Students understand the value of both the process and product of the collaboration.
• Students have guidance concerning how to work in a team and have clear guidelines of the expected outcome.
• Group size is small enough to allow for full participation of all members.
• Assignment is scheduled to allow adequate time for preparation and communication.

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Collaborating: Lesson Planning Questions

Allow Productive Struggle

• What might I provide that will allow students to feel intellectually challenged and grow competence? (Examples: wait time, partnerships, scaffolds, choice, opportunities)
• How will I model, acknowledge, or encourage moments of productive struggle for all students to foster a growth mindset?

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Validate and Adjust to Academic, Social, and Cultural Needs

• How are all student voices being honored and heard throughout the lesson?
• How will I use what I understand about my students’ identity, mindset, and skills to correctly interpret needs and offer support?
• How will I be responsive to the academic, social, and cultural needs being currently demonstrated in order to promote success?

Chalk Talk

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Chalk talk is a silent way to do reflection, generate ideas, check on learning, develop projects or solve problems. It can be used productively with any group: students, faculty, workshop participants, committees. Because it is done in complete silence, it gives groups a change of pace and encourages thoughtful contemplation.

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Process:

• Have participants write their responses to the prompt on the chart
• Invite participants to write their own ideas and comment on others’ ideas. They can star, circle, underline, etc.
• Participants will remain silent, communicating only with their writing tool

Debate

• Start a debate by posing a question, making a statement, or introducing an engaging topic with multiple perspectives.
• Allow students time to respond to comments and explain their perspective.
• You might extend the collaboration aspect by having groups of like-minded students prepare an argument together that then gets brought to the discussion.

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Possible topics:

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• Smartphones should be banned in school
• Children should be able to watch more than two hours of TV a day
• All museums should be free to the public
• The voting age should be lowered
• Students should attend teachers’ planning meetings
• Youth should have a say in selection of curriculum and books
• Smartphones should be used in the classroom for learning

Jigsaw

The jigsaw technique is a cooperative learning approach that makes students dependent on each other to succeed.

• Break your class into groups or teams that will complete an assignment or project together.
• Break the assignment into pieces that will be assigned to individual team members.
• Each group member does their part of the assignment
• The group reassembles to complete the (jigsaw) puzzle.

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Brainstorm

• Set up a special brainstorm session in a video conference or discussion stream when introducing or reviewing concepts or assignments
• Invite students to participate in the brainstorm session by sharing things such as:
• Internet findings (articles, pictures, infographics, memes)
• Prior knowledge
• Novel ideas
• Videos
• Brainstorming could be followed up by activities such as group planning, projects, or writing.

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Peeling the Onion

• Describe a problem/dilemma and ask a question to help focus the group’s responses.
• Group members ask clarifying questions of the presenters.
• The presenters are silent and take notes for a few rounds:
• What I heard the presenter say is…
• One assumption that seems to be part of the problem/dilemma...
• A question this raises for me is…
• What if …? Have we thought about…? I wonder…?
• Presenters review their notes and say, “Having heard comments and questions, now I think…”

Text/Book Review

• Assign a common text (novel, short story, video, article, picture) for students to read or analyze.
• Hold a learning session dedicated to the common text.
• Invite students to share their reviews and comment on the ideas of others.
• You could increase the structure of this collaborating activity by assigning literature circle roles for students to prepare for discussion.
• You could also increase student interest by using a small group book club structure.

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Group Reflection

• Allow students time to engage in metacognition, reflecting on their learning and the relevance to their lives.
• Ask students about the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess their understanding and performance.
• Invite students to discuss with their groups their thinking and learning as well as what they learned about themselves as a thinker and learner.
• Ask students to discuss how the collaboration and sharing with others impacted their own learning.

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Meaning Making

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Getting Started:

Participants read in silence, making brief notes about aspects of the text

they particularly notice.

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Describing the Text:

Ask, “What do you see?” Students provide text-based answers.

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Asking Questions About the Text:

Ask, “What questions does this text raise for you?” Students state

questions while facilitator takes notes.

�Speculating about the Meaning / Significance of the Text:

Ask, “What is the significance of this text?” Participants construct

meaning about insights or issues on which the text seems focused.

• The group reads the text silently, highlighting it and writing notes in the margin or on post-it notes to answer to the following four questions

(you can also add your own “A”s):

• What Assumptions does the author of the text hold?
• What do you Agree with in the text?
• What do you want to Argue with in the text?
• What parts of the text do you want to Aspire to?

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• In a round, have each person share one of the “A’s” they identified, citing the passage (with page or paragraph numbers, if appropriate) as evidence.

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Four A's

The goal is for students to build understanding together.

• What are the different talk structures I might use in my classroom?
• In what ways are my students collaborating within my classroom?
• How might I provide more opportunities for student to student collaboration?
• How can I collaborate with students to create Collaborating Strategies to ensure that they are connected to what students need? How can I leverage my students’ strengths, voice, and leadership?

Teacher Self-Reflections

Thanks!

To plan with your team and/or for further assistance with coaching and training, please contact:

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The Academics Through Agency Department

Leadership and Learning Division

academicsthroughagency@sandi.net

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Credits: This presentation template was created by Slidesgo

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