Learning Through Collaboration

Tips on forming study groups

A study group is an excellent way to learn. Study groups are like discussion forums. You can clarify your doubts with fellow members. You can check if your version of the topic is right. You can also conduct mock oral examinations.

However, a study group might become a failure. It could from becoming a study group become a gossip group. Concentration levels may recede, and people can get into the mood for talking something not relevant to the objective of the study group.

To solve all such problems, some tips have to be kept in mind when forming study groups. Here are they…

Don’t have too many members in a group. If you have too many people, it could become a mob. Have only select members. Five to six people in a group would do. If the population of students is large, cut down the population into many groups.
Pick people who can achieve the purpose of the study group. Do not invite talkative and distracted people to be a part of study groups. Even if you do, set rules of conduct and behavior. Failing which, the member could be asked to move out of the study group.
Form a study group in a place that is quiet and yet lets you speak. Don’t choose the library. Over here, you may be required to maintain pin-drop silence. If you do happen to choose the library, ensure there is Wii-Fi access in the library, so that you can chat with other members over messenger.

Filed Under: Collaboration Help, Learning Through Collaboration Tagged With: Internet forum, Master of Education, Student

How teachers can connect with students

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A teacher is an unforgettable personality. Most people who have gone to school have had their favorite teachers. That’s because a teacher can have a profound influence on a child. A teacher could be first point of reference for a child to understand the world.
A teacher who can connect with students will be trusted more. This teacher will find it easier to teach to students. Since a connection has been established with students, this teacher will feel more comfortable to students.

When teachers connect with students, they make themselves become more understood. Sometimes students misunderstand teachers.

How does a teacher connect with students? Here are some tips…

Don’t talk differently to different children

This creates perceptions of personality. A particular child may be naughty. This does not mean the teacher talks differently to this child, and differently to a child who is studious. As a teacher you should take great care in exercising parity.

Have one-to-one discussions

Teachers need to have one-to-one discussions with each and every child in the class. By doing this, each child feels special. There is also no room for creating attention deficit disorders.

Highlight a child’s strength in front of everyone

This is the greatest thing you would have done as a teacher. Often, people still remember how a teacher highlighted their strength in front of everyone. This convinced them that they are good at it, and eventually they became associated with their strengths later in their lives. A teacher needs to do this to every child in the classroom, at various times during a course of time.

Filed Under: Collaboration Help, Learning Through Collaboration Tagged With: Educators, Facebook, Student

Important Collaborative Learning Strategies

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Collaborative learning is becoming a more popular teaching method in the classroom and workplace. This type of learning involves two or more individuals working together to learn a new topic of reach a common goal. This allows the group members to capitalize on each other’s knowledge or skill of a certain topic.

One of the most important aspects of effective collaborative learning is to immediately build strong group interdependence. This is a camaraderie that encourages group members to work together to reach a common objective. Collaborative learning could include awarding bonus points to a group if all members score above a specific score.

An often overlooked strategy is to keep the groups small. Since group members will be required to interact on a regular basis, it is important to keep groups to a maximum of six students. More than six could result in finding time to fit all members’ schedules to collaborate.

Another effective concept is to implement peer instruction. This is typically comprised of developing assignments by which students learn a specific expertise on different topics. Then, the student is required to teach their peers in a structured format such as developing an activity, an interactive online lecture, a game or a quiz.

Similarly, by giving students more control over the collaborative work process, they will be able to better manage within groups. Students should be given a choice in learning activities, initiation of activity, decision-making and the end products. Groups who select their own topics and develop their own projects will have much more pride and thus motivation to successfully complete the assignment. The student will take ownership of the project.

Filed Under: Collaboration Help, Learning Through Collaboration Tagged With: Collaborative learning, Education, Learning Through Collaboration

Effective Teaching Methods

Early Day Ideas about Lesson Plan Topics

Image by Susan Sharpless Smith via Flickr

With each new generation of students, teachers are faced with a variety of new distractions. Therefore, they must develop new and effective teaching methods to catch the attention of their students. Each year a variety of new methods are created to assist teachers and professors with keeping the lesson plan fun and interesting.

One of the most important teaching techniques is to keep an open line of communication between the student and faculty. Contact in and outside of class significantly improves student involvement and overall motivation. Also, students who know faculty members will benefit from enhanced intellectual commitment.

Another effective teaching method is to encourage active learning. This typically involves a high level of interaction through discussions and by relating the information to the student’s personal lives and experiences. Also, it is important to request the student to reflect on their newly learnt knowledge.

Furthermore, by respecting diverse talents and learning styles students will be able to showcase their talents in the proper environment. As a result, they will be able to learn in ways that work best for them. This also allows students to be pushed to learn in new ways outside of their comfort zone.

Finally, many teachers emphasize the amount of time spent on specific tasks. The learning equation is time plus energy equals learning. Therefore, there is no substitute for efficiently utilizing time for a specific task. Learning to effective utilize time is important for both personal and professional development. The allocation of realistic time frames equates to effective learning and teaching. Teaching can be a difficult task if the teacher does not hold the attention of their audience.

Filed Under: Learning Through Collaboration Tagged With: Education, Student, Teacher

Having a Connected Classroom

HANNOVER, GERMANY - MARCH 01: Children try ou...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

With the rapid advancement of the Internet and technology in general, there has been a huge leap in technological advancements in the classroom. Currently, just about any form of educational material can be found on the Internet, including research and forums on any topic.

How does this connectivity help transform the classroom? Classrooms can now be set up using tools such as student response systems where students can instantly answer questions and share opinions for a compelling way to learn. Educators are also connecting different classrooms, sometimes with different international classrooms, enabling students to gain a better understanding of different cultures and ideas.

Document management and project management programs are being used to help students collaborate on ideas, experiences and educational topics. Online discussion forums are also being used to allow students to chat in real-time with, not only other students, but also instructors and teachers. This is an informal get-together, much like students getting together after class for coffee or drinks to discuss the educational topic at hand.

Communicating in real time is another aspect of the connected classroom. Students and instructors can use technology such as Skype or other videoconferencing tools for presentations and other such projects.

These connectivity tools can, and should, be customized for the individual classroom and the needs of those students. Students and teachers alike can work together to form a technology-based classroom experience that will use the technology to make sure that all students benefit from these programs.

With these types of classrooms, students and teachers are no longer bound by only the tools found within the physical walls of a single classroom.

Filed Under: Learning Through Collaboration Tagged With: Classroom, Education, Student

Property Management and Equal Schools

We live in a world in which there is a great deal of segregation, which is caused in large part by the urban sprawl which characterizes most major American cities. Often times, students of one race will live in one area of town, while other races (who may be either more or less affluent) will similarly flock together somewhere else. So generations of students will be in schools where there are only a few “token” members of a different race, which can lead to a less effective educational experience. However, charter schools and the companies that manage their properties well are one way to battle back from this de facto segregation. After all, well managed buildings allow the faculty of the schools to do their jobs well, and those jobs are teaching students equally, regardless of their backgrounds.

One of the great things about charter schools are how they tend to have a specific focus. Some charter schools focus on the sciences, while some others focus on the arts. There are plenty of different aspects of an education that a charter school can focus on, in its effort to attract students from a diverse group of different school zones, which can expose the students to people they would likely never meet otherwise. School is not just about reading books, after all- the people you meet and interact with are also important to your education.

In major cities, especially those which have taken sprawl to an epic level, having a well managed school building is a key component of allowing the students to learn well, and the teachers to teach well. After all, how can anyone focus on their actual jobs when the roof is leaking, or when the heating system fails. Bad property management can be the worst thing ever. So if you’re looking for decent San Diego property management, look carefully. Make sure they have contingency plans, so you can focus on your job.

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The Best Fields in Which to Obtain a Degree

If you’re looking to get a college degree, it’s important that you get one that will be valuable to you. Studying something you have a passion for is wonderful, but only if you can use that passion and that degree to make a living. Very few people get to make a living doing something that the absolutely love, but many find careers that they at least enjoy. Some of the best career fields to get a degree in today are medicine, technology, and education. These will always be in demand, and there will always be need in those areas. They are also broad areas, which means you will have a lot of options within them for things that you’d really enjoy doing.

It doesn’t matter if you want a career change later in life or if you’re looking for something right out of high school, because there are so many choices for people today. Even in a down economy, there are a lot of jobs still out there if you have the right education and qualifications. Don’t shy away from something because you think you wouldn’t be good at it. Take the time to take a look and see what’s offered to you. It might be something that you really, deeply like once you get involved with it.

Technology courses and degrees can be obtained through a vocational school, and a lot of people pursue online health degrees because they are the best and quickest option for someone who’s busy and trying to make ends meet while attending school. They are also good for anyone who wants to fast track his or her education and get involved with a career that much faster. If that’s you, you have all kinds of great options open to you. There’s never been a better time to get in school and work toward that career you’ve dreamed of.

Filed Under: Learning Through Collaboration Tagged With: Academic degree, Career, Education, High school

Best Teaching Apps

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Everyone has a smart phone, so it’s inevitable that apps for teachers are going to be out there. Here are some of the best teaching apps as recommended by those who know tech. Some of these apps are strictly for the educator and some are great for interacting with students.

Best Teaching Apps for the Educator

Curriki is a tool that is wiki based. It can be used by teachers to share lesson plans, resources, study guides and other teaching tools.
SchoolTool is really best for the tech savvy educator. It is an open source program that is not connected to a website. It is used to track grades, attendance, and create report cards.
TeacherTube is a YouTube that is a great learning resource, not only for teachers, but educators may find videos that would be great for the classroom.

Best Teaching Apps for the Classroom

SchoolRack is a free application where teachers can create websites. Through these sites, teachers can interact with students, parents, post information and other material.
Edmodo is like Twitter but without the security problems. Since some schools block Twitter, this app can be used in the educational setting with the same results.
Schmoop and Footnote are great learning applications for the Liberal Arts teacher. Schmoop offers study guides for literature, civics and history. Footnote is a database of original documents in history. The students can use technology to actually explore history as it was written.
DOC Cop can help a teacher check for plagiarism in papers. The web is full of “been there, done that” information that is really easy to copy. Use this application to keep your students honest and innovative.

Time for Testing

ClassMarker is a testing application where teachers can create tests for students to take online. Learning can’t be all fun and games, but this might help make it more efficient.

Filed Under: Learning Through Collaboration, Virtual Collaboration Tagged With: ClassMarker, Education, K through 12, Liberal Arts, SchoolTool, Teacher, TeacherTube, YouTube

Collaborative Learning as a Teaching Philosophy

There are many successful ways of teaching groups and individuals, and collaborative learning as a teaching philosophy attempts to address both. Collaborative learning is about choosing to work with a group to improve one’s knowledge of a particular subject or situation. Often instruction places students at various performance levels together to achieve a single goal. The idea is that they will succeed or fail together.

In a deeper approach, the success of collaborative learning as a teaching philosophy can be seen as a way to help poor performing students improve as they work side by side with high performing students. This form of instruction works well in the classroom, around small group projects. Once it moves into larger settings, it might be defined as cooperative learning.

The distinction between the two teaching philosophies is that collaborative learning is focused on the students’ achievements where cooperative learning is usually an educator designed environment that focuses on the interaction between teachers and students. The terms are sometimes interchangeable as teachers are certainly involved in the collaborative learning model, too.

Collaborative learning has four distinct characteristics. They are:
The shared knowledge among teachers and students
The shared authority in designing lesson plans, goals and assessing what it is learned
Teachers as mediators instead of the authority
Diverse groupings of students to mix various backgrounds, cultures and experiences to enhance the learning model.

A critical feature of the collaborative learning philosophy is that it lacks segregation. Children are not separated by ability, interests or achievements. They are grouped together so that they can learn from each others’ experiences and knowledge. This fosters a deeper understanding of different cultures, lifestyles, and insights. Often brighter students actually learn something from the average or poor student, so the learning environment is enriched on a number of levels. Life skills, people skills and public interaction become lessons that are learned and improved upon in a collaborative setting.

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Best Ways to Learn

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Everyone learns differently. Or so we’re told. In fact, there are a few things that consistently seem to be the best ways to learn. We’ve all heard that some people learn best visually, some by doing, some by hearing, some by experiencing, and so forth. These are true, but the best scenarios may be a little broader than just one sense coming into play.

The most important factor in learning is that the student has to want to learn. When people want to learn something, they do. It may be sooner or it may be later, but they’ll eventually learn it if they really want to.

Learning by doing is definitely one of the best ways to learn. It’s about trial and error, practice, and making mistakes. Without even realizing it, small children learn like this every day.

All people learn through feedback. Humans love positive reinforcement, so if the feedback is good, people will make greater efforts to learn, and they’ll remember what they got right. Humans are a feeling species, so we have feelings about everything we do.

Finally, people need to be able to make sense of what they are learning. If it doesn’t have a clear process that can be digested, it won’t be learned. Our minds naturally sort out what is useful and build on that while discarding what isn’t necessary. Therefore, we literally are digesting the information coming in. The task has to be understandable in order for it to be learned.

If teachers can employ these best ways to learn, even abstract concepts become easier for students to grasp. They just need to keep in mind that the student has to want to learn, has to experience or do the learning, get feedback as they go and finally make sense of it all. Keep in mind that these best practices will work best for a teacher who is motivational.

Filed Under: Learning Through Collaboration Tagged With: Education, Feedback, Learning Theories, Learning Through Collaboration, Methods and Theories, Reinforcement, Student, Teacher