Course 3: Week 2 - Facilitating Collaboration

Woohoo, collaboration!

I was happy to get this push from COETAIL to go ahead and get my class intentionally collaborating more. We are running a unit that we had last year, but for a number of reasons it just isn't flowing the same way it did last year (COVID restrictions being part of that.

Last year we had students throughout the studio mixing to dive into our 5 Cultures of Achievement (from the book by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Ian Pumpian) and create mini presentations about them, as part of an assembly in front the upper primary section of our school.

These 5 pillars are:
- Welcoming
- Choice Words
- Do No Harm
- Never too Late to Learn
- Best School in the Universe

We dove in fairly quick and the students had exposure to these pillars right away. This year we are taking it a lot slower and are only really working through them in our own classes. We are discussing the first three pillars and connecting them to a Studio 4 culture.

Seeing this assignment from COETAIL helped me to realize my class can still do this. Just for each other. I divided them into 4 groups because I did not want the groups to be too large (the 3 pillars plus one math group as we were at the end of the unit).

I communicated the expectations to them Monday morning and supplied them with a simple, bare bones structure of a slide show that I expected each group to use. I gave this to them via Google Classroom so they could make a copy and share with everyone in their group. I felt that at the beginning of the year they would need a fair amount of structure to collaborate with.

These are the instructions they were given. The groups I made for them were at the bottom.

Here is a copy of the blank slides they received.

ISTE Standards for Students that this project integrated:
​6C - Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.
6D - Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.

My class actually shocked me. Considering they were not on campus for the last half of their grade 3 year, their collaboration skills were through the roof, in my eyes. Day 1 and 2 were a dream, and most groups were almost finished by then, ready to present! Practicing presenting was a little more tough for them. A few tears were shed out of frustration in one or two groups, but they got there in the end and learned from each other. 

I am super impressed by their first set of workshops and cannot wait to try this again in different groupings. They are keen to continue with this structure. 

Here are some photos of their presentations and things they produced: