WICOR: COLLABORATION AVID PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

AVID’S DEFINITION OF COLLABORATION: Collaborative learning involves intentionally designed student groups engaged in “co-laboring” toward meaningful learning outcomes, using active engagement activities planned to maximize learning, and facilitating the sharing of the workload Barkley, Cross and Major (2005). AVID’s high engagement learning strategies involve collaborative activities through which individual students help each other learn, thereby strengthen their own learning. Students are responsible for their own learning; faculty serve as facilitators in a learning community working together for the success of the group. That’s great, but how do we get students to this point?

STEP 1: TEACH THEM HOW TO HAVE RESPECTFUL DISCUSSIONS Effective collaboration requires training and the development of key personal skills. Put a group a random middle schoolers together and say “work together” or “discuss ______ with your partner/group” does not usually have the desired outcome. Often the talk distracts from their learning rather than advancing it. This is because students need to be taught HOW to collaborate first. This is where AVID STRATEGIES and/or ACCOUNTABLE TALK comes in…

STEP 1: TEACHING HOW TO DISCUSS See the packet of handouts for a few ideas. Or go to your nearest grade level expert!

STEP 1: TEACHING HOW TO DISCUSS See the packet of handouts for a few ideas. Or go to your nearest grade level expert!

STEP 1: TEACHING HOW TO DISCUSS WANT TO KNOW MORE? Accountable Talk Toolkit: (contains a lot of resources, stems, checklists, and lesson ideas using Accountable Talk) Once you have taught students how to have discussions… -MODEL, MODEL, MODEL, MODEL!!! Even it if feels strange and forced, we must model what we want the students to do. -REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT!!! Every time you do an activity where students are talking to one another, revisit the expectations

THINK-PAIR-SHARE List some ways that you teach students how to talk OR some ideas you have on how you can use Accountable Talk in your classroom (30 seconds) Turn to someone next to you and share (1 min.) Whole group share (2 min.)

STEP 2: BABY STEPS TO COLLABORATION AVID has a lot of great strategies for collaboration: but if you do very little collaboration now, you have to start small, build trust, and build those expectations for dialogue before launching into one of these activities or they will fail miserably! I speak from experience! Quiz-Quiz-Trade (Kagan strategy- revisit this book! It is awesome!!)  Pass out index cards and have students write a question about either a section of a reading, a portion of the study guide, assign them a vocab word, etc. They will write the question with the answer underneath it on the index card.  Start some music, have the students “mix it up” and when the music stops, they high five the nearest partner. They should ask each other their questions, then trade cards.  Have them thank their partner (“Thank you for helping me study)  Start the music back and repeat. (I usually quit while they are still enjoying it so they will want to do it again minutes is good. This is great for review. Intellectual Ping Pong  Stop instruction in the middle of a presentation, lecture, reading and ask students to turn to their elbow partner. For 30 seconds they need to go back and forth saying something they learned. If they get stuck, they can repeat something they already said.  If you are presenting material lecture style, this is a quick and easy way to get them engaged and discussing. Read-Speak-Write (College Board strategy)  Put students in pairs. Time students have them read a passage or part of a passage silently. They have 1 minute to read as much as they can.  Once your timer goes off, have them flip their paper over and chose a partner (A or B) to talk first. For 1 minute, they must talk about what they read to their partner. They must talk the entire time and even if they need to repeat information! (The other partner may not talk- only listen)  Once the timer goes off, the partner does the same thing. Once they are finished, give them 1-2 minutes to write everything they remember about the passage. When they are finished, you can extend this by having the pairs come up with some questions (level 1, 2, & 3 about the reading).

STEP 2: BABY STEPS TO COLLABORATION Stump your partner Students take a minute to create a challenging question based on the lecture content up to that point. Students pose the question to the person sitting next to them. To take this activity a step further, ask students to write down their questions and hand them in. These questions can be used to create tests or exams. They can also be reviewed to gauge student understanding. Think-pair-share/ Write-pair-share The instructor poses a question that demands analysis, evaluation, or synthesis. Students take a few minutes to think through an appropriate response. Students turn to a partner (or small groups) and share their responses. Take this a step further by asking students to find someone who arrived at an answer different from their own and convince their partner to change their mind. Student responses are shared within larger teams or with the entire class during a follow-up discussion. Catch-up Stop at a transition point in your lecture. Have students turn to a partner or work in small groups to compare notes and ask clarifying questions. After a few minutes, open the floor to a few questions.

STEP 3: COLLABORATION, TEACHER FEEDBACK & STUDENT REFLECTION AVID has many different strategies for collaboration (too many discuss during our short session today) 1.Socratic Seminar 2.Philosophical Chairs 3.Fish Bowl Discussions 4.Inner-Outer Circle Discussions 5.Four Corners Discussions Please see packet handed out today for more information on these activities. If you want content specific activities for collaboration, please ask the AVID trained content area person in your break out session later today! Thank you!