Collaborative Learning

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Collaboration




Every child can come into a problem-solving mode through collaboration (Skooler, 2020). One of the ways to encourage kids to collaborate is teacher collaboration and exchange of ideas to build STEM classrooms. The structure for the same exists in most schools (Tran, 2015), but the reality on the ground is different. Actual collaboration between teachers is not as much as one would expect. It seems that curriculum and teacher attitudes are in place but the infrastructure for collaboration is yet to be evolved.

This infrastructure involves three areas of work (Tran, 2015):


1. Statement of purpose: While it is great to see a vision and mission in every school, one would need a clarity of purpose for STEM as an independent part of the curriculum. But hiding behind an individually created jargon would not work. This is a team work.

2. Exploration of individual ideas: The moment one would try to define the purpose of STEM as a team, the first thing that would emerge is ‘individual ideas’ that may be same or differ. There is a need to let all of them come forward and find a space to express themselves.

3. Alignment and non-alignment: It is when the individual ideas find the space to express, that one can draw a ‘Venn diagram’ (Tran, 2015), showcasing the areas of alignment and non-alignment. Perhaps from this space, a common aligned purpose may emerge which is the central well for all teachers to draw from.

The entire process may be considered iterative for one may have to come back again and again on the drawing board of developing the Venn diagram till there is an alignment between people and processes.

An IB school tried this by having an ‘open door’ policy for their classrooms. It got the teachers to work together and through that they found common threads of passion that helped them (Edutopia, 2015). When one is aligned in central goals – learning for the child – the rest would fall into place. There is no doubt that the challenge would be there, but with a good leadership and collaborative team and some adventurous streak, this is doable!


References




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