LT KAT 06 · Facilitate
Learning Together
What this KAT is for
Reach for this when the learning is genuinely better when done with others — building on each other's ideas, hearing different perspectives, co-constructing an artefact. The test: would the lesson lose meaning if every student did it alone? If yes, this is your KAT.
Familiar examples: a CCE discussion on an ethical dilemma where the point is to hear classmates who disagree; a 看图说话 task where each student's sentence builds the next part of a class story; a Science investigation where four groups research different angles and pool their findings. Technology lets every student contribute and respond — not just the three who always speak up.
MOE defintion:
Allow students to collectively build on, improve, and synthesise ideas across time and space in dynamic groups, while providing support for group interactions throughout the learning process.
How to choose a tool
Not every group activity is true Learning Together. Four students taking turns on one device is parallel work. To do real LT work, the tool needs to do at least one of these three things:
1 Signal 01 · Build on each other
Contributions stack, they don't parallel
Student B's post is a reply to Student A's, not a separate post on the same topic. The tool should make response easier than restart.
2 Signal 02 · Every voice in
No-one rides on someone else's work
Asynchronous posts, parallel contributions, visible identity — everyone leaves a trace, so the quiet students aren't invisible and the loud students don't dominate.
3 Signal 03 · Make thinking shareable
Co-construct something real
A shared class wall, a co-written document, a group artefact. The output is something the group made together, not something one student made and others co-signed.
Tools by kind of Collaboration Activity
Grouped by what kind of LT the tool does, not by subject.
Discussion Building on each other's ideas
Tools where the reply is the unit of work — Student B's contribution responds to Student A's. Best when the learning goal is to exchange perspectives, deepen reasoning through dialogue, or reach a collective position.
SLS Discussion Board with sentence starters MOE — asynchronous threaded discussion; every student posts, every student replies. Sentence starters frame productive responses. Works across all subjects and levels.
SLS Live Chat MOE — synchronous group discussion inside an SLS lesson; captures the room's thinking in real time.
Parlay Norms Free — structured academic discussion where students post arguments and must respond to peers; teacher sees participation patterns and discussion quality at a glance. Strong for CCE, Social Studies, and English literature discussions.
Padlet (discussion mode)Free — each student posts a card on a shared wall; classmates reply with comments or further ideas. Also works as a "take a side" board where positions are visible to all.
Co-creation Building a shared artefact together
Tools where the output is something the group made together — a document, a slide deck, a vocabulary wall, a music track. Every member's contribution is visible in the final artefact. Best when the learning goal is synthesis, collective knowledge-building, or creative collaboration.
SLS class word wall / shared brainstorm with ITT/Discussion boards MOE — collective response components inside SLS; the class builds one artefact together, contribution by contribution.
SLS group submission MOE — one submission per group with each member's contribution tracked and visible to the teacher.
Google Docs (co-authoring) Free — real-time co-writing; students see each other's edits live. Teacher sees version history and can identify individual contributions. Works for group compositions, rotating-writer tasks, and joint reports.
Google Slides (group presentations)Free — one slide per student inside a shared deck; collective artefact with individually-owned sections. Good for jigsaw research and class presentations.
Curipod Norms Free — AI-generated interactive lesson slides with word clouds and collaborative response activities; the class's contributions appear live on the shared screen.
Soundtrap Free — browser-based collaborative music composition; students build a track together across sessions, each adding or editing layers.
BandLab Free — cloud-based music creation; students add layers to a shared project — the final track is genuinely co-produced.
Peer review Giving and acting on each other's feedback
Tools where students read, respond to, and improve each other's work. Best when the learning goal is to develop evaluative judgement alongside writing or creative quality — students learn as much from critiquing as from being critiqued.
Google Classroom peer-review assignments Free — structured peer feedback using teacher-set rubrics; students see two or more peers' work and respond with criteria-aligned comments.
SLS Discussion Board — two-stars-and-a-wish protocol MOE — students post their draft or response and receive structured peer feedback using a sentence-starter frame.
Padlet (gallery walk mode) Free — students post completed work (compositions, artwork, project summaries); classmates leave sticky-note feedback. Good for Art and project showcase weeks.
Lesson exemplars · Maris Stella teachers
Add your lesson — submit via Good Practices.
Design tips
Set the norm before the task. Students need to be taught how to give feedback before they can do it well. Don't assume they'll figure it out.
Give a structure for response. "Agree, disagree, build on, or question" beats "comment on a friend's post." Frames raise the quality of every contribution.
Make the collaboration cognitively demanding. If everyone could just paste the same answer, the tool is being used as a megaphone, not for collaboration.
Surface good moves in real time. Read the discussion board mid-task and highlight examples to the class. Modelling beats lecturing.
Plan for the bystander. Some students will let others do the work. Build in individual accountability — a 30-second reflection at the end naming what they contributed.