WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at [1] dougbelshaw.com... [2]

I’m a firm believer that collaboration is the key to success in most educational enterprises - both for students and for teachers. Today, therefore, we’re going to have a look at how to integrate some collaborative learning techniques into the everyday life of your classroom…

What has to be avoided at all costs is what in business is termed as groupthink. This is when, because of the dynamics of human interaction, a compromise is reached which none of the component members of the group think is the best solution individually. This situation often arises due to a lack of clarity in the roles of the group members, which is something that an educator designing the collaborative activity needs to take into consideration.

I’ve mentioned Paul Ginnis’ excellent [3] The Teacher’s Toolkit before and we’ll be looking at three ways in which he recommends collaborative learning can be fostered in the classroom. I really would recommend buying or borrowing this book - the ideas in it are excellent!

Jigsaw

Ginnis calls this activity Broken Pieces, but I prefer to call it Jigsaw because it highlights the importance of each piece in building up the whole!

Here’s how it works. Divide students into groups, or let them choose their own - the sizes of the groups can vary depending on the activity. Use your professional judgement! Sitting round a large table or a (couple pushed together), students are told the task to be completed. This can be to solve a problem, make a decision, draw a conclusion, etc.

Go through the rules of the activity (if you call it a ‘game’ students tend to respond better):

• You’re not allowed to look at anyone else’s information on show anyone else yours.
• Only one person is allowed to write.
• You aren’t allowed to leave your set except for the person who may be writing on a board/flipchart/large piece of paper.
• The teacher (you) will let each group know how long they’ve got left at regular intervals.

Give the students a deadline to work towards, and then let them start!

An example of the above activity could be the answer to the problem What happened in 1066? Giving the students different parts of the Bayeux tapestry, they would have to describe what they see on their own part without being allowed to look at anyone else’s. This would foster discussion and debate, making students interact with the information provided. At the end of the day, even if the group get the ‘wrong’ answer, it’s the process that is more important than the product.

Marketplace

This, it has to be said, is my favourite of Ginnis’ suggestions for collaborative learning. Students have to work in pairs or threes (depending on the size of the class) to produce a visual learning resource from some information they are given. This task involves many different learning styles, as you will see…

Here’s how it works. Have prepared some information in the form of text pitched to the level of the students. Each group should have different information. Explain the learning objectives of the lesson and explain that later they will face an test. Show them the questions of the test for about a minute using an OHP or data projector. Make sure they realise that the test will be taken under exam conditions without any reference to the rest of their group or any materials.

Each group uses a large sheet of sugar paper and felt tips to produce a ‘poster’ or learning resource. The poster may have on it a maximum of 10 words (flexible, but don’t allow them too many) - instead numbers, diagrams, symbols, pictures, graphs, cartoon, etc. can be used. Abbreviations count as whole words. The purpose of the poster is as a learning resource for when other groups come to find out about the what that group have been working on. Give students 15 minutes to do this. After 10 minutes give them the minimum requirements, the bare minimum that groups need to include on their posters.

In order to be successful in the test, each group will need to learn from every other group. One (or two, depending on group size) member from each group goes out into the ‘marketplace’ to find information, whilst the other stays behind and is the ’stallholder’. The latter ‘touts for business’ by calling out what kind of information he/she has got on offer. The stallholder explains the poster to visitors, but can only answer questions. The visitors should take notes so they can explain to their groups stallholder what they have found out. Give students 10 minutes to do this.

Students now return to their groups and share information with each other about what they found out. They are allowed to run back to other groups’ posters to clarify understanding and to check details. The aim is for everybody to be ready for the test. Give students 10 minutes to do this.

Ask students to put all notes, posters and other materials away and conduct a test using the questions shown at the beginning of the lesson under examination conditions - i.e. individually and in silence. Give students 10 minutes to complete the test.

Finally, and previously unknown to the students, they are now asked to put their heads together to see if they can come up with better answers between them than they go individually. The teacher then goes through the test - if you’ve enough time you can get groups to swap their answers and see which group wins!

I’ve used this successfully at every secondary age level. My AS level class were absolutely excellent at it!

Question Race

Ginnis calls this Quick on the Draw, but I think Question Race describes it more accurately! The aim of the activity is for a groups to work collaboratively to complete the questions before the other groups.

Here’s how it works. Prepare a set of questions (about ten) and enough copies for one set per group. These need to be on different coloured paper or in a specific place so that groups don’t get their questions mixed up. Divide the class into groups of three and then tell them which set of questions is theirs. Give out the souce materials which contain the answers to the questions in the question sets. These could be photocopied from a textbook, taken from the Internet, etc. Dont’ make the answers too straightforward - they have to do some ‘digging’!

When you say ‘go!’ one person from each group runs to your desk (or wherever the questions are located), picks up their first question and takes it back to their group. Using the source material, the group finds the answer and writes it down. A second person from the group takes this answer to the teacher, who checks it. If the answer is correct and complete the second question can be taken, and so on. If the answer is incomplete or innacurate, the group has to try again. I would suggest you get more and more strict as the activity goes on, to foster competition between groups…

Encourage the students who are waiting for the questions to be returned or checked to be ’scanning’ the material to be familiar with it so they can answer future questions more quickly. A tip - it’s a good idea to make the first couple of questions easier to get the groups into it and to foster a sense of urgency. Once a group has completed all the questions accurately and completely, they win and the activity ends. You can then go through the answers as a class and make written records (if necessary).

This activity works with pretty much any class, so long as you differentiate the materials correctly. The boys tend to love the competitive element, whilst the girls love trying to find the answers quickly!

[4]

There’s many more of these kinds of activities in [3] The Teacher’s Toolkit by Paul Ginnis, which I can’t recommend highly enough. Buy it, or have it bought for you!

Popularity: 2% [[6] ?]