Teamwork, collaboration, group projects. In my academic life these have been both some of the most interesting, thought-provoking assignments and some of the most uneven, unenjoyable assignments I can remember. It seems to me that several factors go into making a collaborative project or assignment a success and so I want to spend a little time talking about what I think those factors are.
In my experience, I have been both the winner and the loser when it comes to structure on a collaborative assignment. Many times, because my instructor did not give us a clear framework for the way in which we were to complete our group assignment, one or two of the people in the group ended up carrying the lion's share of the duties. It's an old cliche that you want a "smart" lab partner because then they can do all the hard stuff. I used to listen to a band called The Bruce Lee Band, and the only song this band plays that ever got any airtime was called "Don't Sit Next To Me Just Because I'm Asian."
It plays on the stereotype of all Asians being academically gifted and the idea is there - many people, including my current students, often see collaboration as an opportunity to make the smart kids do all or most of the work while still taking a nice grade home on their report card. I think the best way to combat this characterization of group projects is to provide a much more clear structure of the project or at least communicate expectations of the responsibilities that each individual will carry in the group.
I think another area that I know is an area for growth in my classes is to set high expectations for students with their group projects. All too often I end up giving my kids projects like creating a collage because I want a more fun, creative exercise than working on vocab lists or reading from whichever novel we're working on. However, I find students give me back exactly the effort I put into each lesson and this kind of "go be creative for a bit" class exercise generally (but not always) ends up being fairly low on my "wow, that was a great class" scale. I know that my kids are capable of amazing things and I'm sure any other teacher feels the same way. I often have to remind myself that I should always set the bar extremely high for my students and then, of course, try to find a way to communicate those expectations without making my students lose hope or feel like they've got a ton more work for Mr. Mustard's class.
Finally, I think that projects designed for collaboration should really appeal to the natural sense of wonder and curiosity that we all possess. This is, I believe, where the new technologies can come in and offer a lot to our students. I cannot yet find in my mind ways to incorporate things like social bookmarking, but I think that wikis are a natural place to go with collaborative learning and other web-based technologies like YouTube, blogs, discussion forums and Skype could also be extremely effective in language arts. I think the major drawbacks to these technologies is the essential need for hardware to make them a viable part of any classroom and also the time it may take to teach students how to use the different websites effectively could be prohibitive, depending on the class. However, I think that these technologies and others like them could really open the door for students to become truly interested in different group learning activities.
For me, I feel as though I've held back from collaborative assignments because I've felt that my students might not be truly getting the most out of their class period without my direct instruction. Stepping back from the approach I can see that besides making a not-so-great commentary on my ego, it also is just wrong. Many of the best classroom experiences I had in academy grew from the collaborative projects in my English classes, which usually exemplified the best qualities in group learning (unlike some of my other classes which would fit into the introduction of this blog). I want the same feeling of excitement, creativity and accomplishment for my students today. I already have some really great opportunities for my students to work together, but I'm realizing that I don't have enough. As I write this the seeds of new lesson plans are taking root in my mind. So I look forward to finding ways to implement these technologies and collaboration as a whole in good old room 6 at Monterey Bay Academy. Now if I can only find a smart lab partner to help me...
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