I am really enjoying the connections that I am building with both my literacy and numeracy groups and to have them others that what we are doing in that space is "fun" and "interesting" inspires me to look for ways to challenge them as individual learners.
What I am finding is that the majority of the Hub are aware of the word "collaborate", they do not have an appreciation for the skills and/or behaviours that are required to actually work together to solve a problem. We set up a provocation this week with a collaborative challenge to build a structure to support a weight. There were some criteria that they had to meet however there was a lot of freedom in how they designed and built it. Groups were randomly assigned and we let them to it with a time limit to complete the activity.
These photos are great observations of how groups collaborated to create their structures, however, when the timer went off, no groups had managed to complete the task. Was this a failure? Not in the slightest. This result was a great springboard into some discussion about what behaviours they saw in groups that they perceived to be working well together and we were able to use some of these verbs to make connections to our Hub Treaty and the learner qualities.
This has made me think about how do I foster both creativity and collaboration with my literacy and numeracy plans. How can I use the connections with my learners to support and grow these skills? Definitely food for thought as I move through the year.
You have a lot of 'Cs" in this post Heath :) I am enjoying reading about the variety of approaches you are trying with your learners and the challenges you are posing for them. I am always delighted when I see evidence of children creating and these photos exemplify this. The emphasis on collaboration has got me thinking: I wonder how many of the famous creative types over centuries worked alone and how many collaborated? I will be musing on this...
ReplyDeleteDorothy
I do like the use of alliteration in this post don't I? :) Thanks Dorothy, I think I'm keen to try out as many different approaches as I can to best suit my learners needs but also my developing practice.
ReplyDeleteYou've asked a great question in regards to whether creative types would have collaborated - I think I am going to have to ponder on this one too but great for a future blog post and/or inquiry!
Collaboration is a powerful thing and it is great that your lesson provided you with an opportunity to discuss the skills and behaviours needed to be effective collaborators.
ReplyDeleteChelsea