Expanded Collaboration

The personalized learning setting tends to focus heavily on the individual, but collaboration is still an important part of any student's education, because students need to consider perspectives other than their own and learn from those around them. According to the GAPSC Standards for Personalized Learning, expanded collaboration is "valu[ing] learners as equal contributors in the planning process", which includes coaching students, collaborating with them, building relationships, and interacting personally. Neff states that the teacher "plays the important role of facilitator, creating the environment where directed and guided interactions can occur... [with] strategies that foster deeper knowledge construction, facilitate socratic student discussions, and build active learning communities through small group based instruction". It is important that students feel connected to their peers even in a personalized learning environment, and it is imperative that we ad educators act as the facilitators to make effective collaborative learning a norm for our classrooms. Furthermore, according to Burns, "not only does a collaborative effort create more holistic results than individual efforts, but it also creates knowledge for a greater number of people". Coaching our students on the norms for successful collaboration and allowing instances in our classroom will lead to improvements in all of our students, because they are able to see and hear different perspectives and thought processes that can enhance their own. In order to incorporate this element of personalized learning into our classrooms, we can provide classroom activities such as whole-class or small group discussions, peer feedback groups, collaborative projects, and more.

However, the collaboration piece does not stop at just peer-to-peer collaboration. Students and teachers must also be able to collaborate with each other as well. We can increase our collaboration with students by building relationships with them as well as providing clear, consistent, and timely feedback so that they understand their strengths and areas of improvement. In a blog post, Tucker describes a strategy for both relationship building and feedback at the same time: grade interviews. During these interviews, she allows her students to make arguments for themselves and provide evidence for the grade they feel they should receive, and then she gives her own reasoning for the grade she has given. Through this process, the student is receiving feedback and a grade for their work, and they are opening up to the teacher in order for there to be an understanding and a positive relationship between them. In regard to building relationships, Bishop & Farber list a few in their Edutopia article, such as getting to know our students, allowing them choice in the projects they complete, and giving them opportunities to engage in the larger community in a positive manner. In regard to providing feedback, we can do this in many ways, including writing personalized feedback on assignments, conferencing with students, and calling home for positive contact.

The possibilities are endless for ways that we can incorporate expanded collaboration in our classrooms, especially with the instructional technology we have available. What is important is that we incorporate as many opportunities for implementation as possible in order to help our students feel like they are part of a community and they are making a positive impact on those around them. As educators, we should be ensuring that students have the tools necessary for successful collaboration and that we are making our students feel heard and cared as we get to know them and give feedback on their progress within our classrooms.

Effective Coaching of Learners

Establishing Group Norms

In order for a group of students to collaborate effectively, group norms need to be established. Neff states that "teachers can create a learning environment that maximizes the learner's ability to interact with each other through discussion, collaboration, and feedback". The learning environment that we as educators and collaborative coaches create with the students sets the stage for success. We can coach our students on how to collaborate by working with them to establish norms such as not speaking over each other and staying on task. I barely have to police the "on task" norm because my students will call each other out on it and call me over for help if it continues.

Making Learning Visible

Burns references making learning visible in her article about collaborative classrooms. This element of collaboration involves students demonstrating their thinking process and reflecting openly so that other students in the room understand how they got to their answer. For example, when I do live Nearpod sessions in my class, I will share a student's slide with the entire class, and I will have the student explain why they answered the questions the way that they did. I will also call on students when we are reading a Latin story together, and I will have them explain the grammar as they are reading their sentence/passage. This is especially important for students who did not retain the information the first time around, because sometimes all it takes is another person explaining the same concept in a different manner for them to fully grasp it.

Jigsaw Reading

Jigsaw reading is an effective way to coach our students on collaboration, because they are individually responsible for completing a certain task, but then they are also responsible for disseminating that information to a group of peers. It helps to highlight that every group member carries equal weight and needs to be fully participating in order for the group to work successfully. It also helps to highlight the reliance on others, because if anyone is not doing their part, the whole group is missing a piece of their understanding. It is a good introductory collaborative activity because it is more structured and can prepare students before moving to more loosely structured collaboration.

Tools & Strategies for Real-Time Feedback & Data

Quizizz

I have been using Quizizz a lot more in my classes this year, because it allows me to give real-time feedback no matter which question my students are on. When you create a question on Quizizz, there is an option to provide reasoning for the correct and incorrect answers that students will select. The best part is that I can circulate the room while my students are completing their Quizizz, and I can answer any further questions that students may have, but the majority of their questions have already been answered by the feedback that I give in-game. This frees me to help my students who need extra assistance rather than having to run from student to student to explain the exact same reasoning as they reach the questions as different times. Quizizz is also great because it gives me instant data from my students, and I can go back through it within the same class period to conference with my students about their strengths and weaknesses.

Google for Education Comments

I have been heavily using the comments on Google Docs because that is the Google tool we use the most. My students will often complete assignments related to translation or grammatical constructions on Google Docs. I always grade these assignments on the same day so that students know where they stand on a concept before moving forward. I make sure to give detailed feedback within the comments so that the student can a) fully understand what they missed and why, b) ask further questions on the very next school day if something is still unclear, and c) refer back to this feedback later since it is digital. My students have told me that they appreciate the timeliness of this feedback as well as the fact that it stays there for them to see whenever they need a refresher.

Building Relationships

Positive Parent Contact

I made it my mission to incorporate a lot more positive parent contact this school year, especially with the state of the world as it is right now. Parents tend to only receive phone calls or emails if something is wrong, so positive contact has proven to be a welcome change, and it shows the parents that I do care about their child. I have gotten to know my students' parents better than in past years because they are more willing to have a conversation if you contact them about positive behavior and progress. It has also shown an increase in academic learning, because the students will come in the next day beaming that I said something nice to their parents, and the students are more willing to come in, learn, try new things, and be an active participant in my class.

Conferencing

One way to build positive relationships is through conferencing. Having conferences can be scary and make students nervous, so I have found more casual ways to conference with my students. For example, while my students are working on an individual Nearpod assignment, I will come around to as many students as I can in one class period and have a 2-3 minute conversation with them discussing their progress. I might sit down next to a student and tell them that they are doing a fantastic job and I appreciate the effort they are putting into their work, or I might sit down next to a student to share concerns about what I am seeing in class and to ask if there is anything extra that they need from me in order to be successful. Students have told me that they feel cared for, and they are more wiling to put forth their best effort in my class because they know that I see them and I am willing to work with them whenever they need it.

Google Classroom

I post on my Google Classroom Stream at least twice a week. Usually it is a reminder for quiz and test days, but I make sure I always post right before and after a break so that I can wish my students well and remind them that I am ready to see them when they come back, and I try to respond to comments on these posts as quickly as I am able. I also try to provide positive comments about students and their progress on at least two assignments a month so that they have a digital reminder of my appreciation for them. I have received positive feedback from my students. One of them recently told me that she appreciates that I am willing to spend time typing feedback to her, and she appreciates that I am always responsive when she posts a comment on a Stream post; she stated that she gives me her best effort and is more likely to ask me questions in class because she knows that I am always willing to help.

Timely Personal Interaction

Zoom Tutoring

My school is a little different because the students have a "home school" that they leave for part of the day to attend our school for special programs. Because of this, they are often not able to stay after school due to having to go back to their "home school" after my class. I offer Zoom tutoring as an alternative. Recently, I was emailing back-and-forth with a student's guardian on a Friday, and she and the student expressed concern about the current grammar topic before the upcoming quiz. The following Monday, we had a Zoom tutoring session after school in which we collaborated on a practice assignment and I gave feedback as she was working. She earned a 100 on the quiz two days later.

Same Day Feedback

On days when my students have a quiz, I schedule the quiz first so that they can have as much time as they need, and then they work on something individual when they are finished. This gives me time to grade their quizzes within that class period so that I can give them back to them and conference with them all in the same day if needed. On the last grammar quiz day, I was able to pull together a small group after the quiz in one of my classes to provide them with some reteaching before they continued working on their individual assignment. Students have told me that one thing they appreciate most about me as a teacher is that I don't take extended amounts of time to give them their grades and feedback, and I do it because they have told me that it helps them be successful as they can fix their knowledge gaps before the next assessment.

Collaborative Test Corrections

Similar to my quizzes, I provide test grades on the same day the test is taken, because I use Zipgrade. They are then instantly able to collaborate not only with myself but with their peers to complete test corrections with correct reasoning for half credit back on their grade. After my last test, I received an email from a parent stating that she and her son were appreciative of the time I take to help my students after their tests, because her son has learned a lot on those test correction days. On our third test, a student missed an entire grammar section; I retaught her the concept during the test correction time, and a couple days later when we read a Latin story as a class, she was the first to have her hand raised whenever the sentence contained that grammar construction.

References

Bishop, P. & Farber, K. (2019, July 18). Collaboration in personalized learning. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/collaboration-personalized-learning

Burns, M. (2018, October 5). Why you should create a collaborative classroom this year. Getting Smart.
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2018/10/why-you-should-create-a-collaborative-classroom-this-year/

Georgia Professional Standards Commission. (2019, January 15). GAPSC standards for personalized learning.

https://www.gapsc.com/Rules/Current/EducatorPreparation/505-3-.108.pdf?dt=%3C%25

Neff, L. S. (n/d). Lev Vygotsky and social learning theories. Learning Theories Website.
https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/lsn/educator/edtech/learningtheorieswebsite/vygotsky.htm

Tucker, C. (2017, August 12). Grade interviews. Blog.
https://catlintucker.com/2017/08/grade-interviews/

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