Thursday, January 22, 2015

Collaboration



Blog posting for Sing et al. (2011)
The first two chapters of Sing et al deal with collaboration between students and the learning process. The first chapter spends some time looking at coop operative learning vs collaborative learning and spelling out the differences between the two.  First I didn’t really think it was necessary to draw a distinction between the two, however later in the paragraph sing etal (2011) goes on to describe how cooperative learning is a stepping stone to collaborative learning. Further more they give tips on how to encourage student to transition from cooperative students to collaborative students. Sing et al observe that cooperative students need to have more structure and goal based learning than collaborative students. This means that as students get used to cooperation  teachers should gradually remove structure and allow students to take greater ownership of projects.
Chapter one also explicitly links social-cultural theory (Vygostski) and collaborative learning and briefly describes Vygotsky’s conclusions that effective learning is a social endeavor. They also talk about the Zone of Proximal Development  (ZPD) and how group work means that students with different strengths working together can benefit each other.
Chapter 2 is pretty much summed up by its title “Affordances of ICT and the Support for Collaborative Learning” this refers to the fact that there are many aspects of ICT that help the collaborative approach to learning.

My thoughts,
For my KLA (ICT) collaboration is a large part of the curriculum and also resonates positivity with me in how I feel an effective learning environment should look. I also thought it was interesting to note that it is important for a teacher to realise that students my need to progress gradually from cooperative learning to collaborative learning  - this has given something for me to think about that hasn’t been presented in other subjects that I have done.

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