How Can Learning Connect Students With An Authentic Audience For Their Work?
A year ago we were all scrambling to figure out how we would continue our professional practices in a context that changed almost every aspect of our daily lives. Today we can look back and analyze our successes and failures to learn, improve, and move forward. Shared learning has become critical to our work lives and school collaboration. We know, there is a huge difference between online courses and their in-person counterparts (Andres & Shipps; 2010), and with the right teacher facilitation, this knowledge transfer practice and collaboration can be used in various social settings.
Shared Learning can be applied to the classroom.
Shared learning is the act of having groups of students of varying sizes engage in the learning process as a team, there several ways to engage in this practice. They all share in common the fact that the interaction here involves the student, the material, one or more of their peers, and finally the educator. This method has also been used to create student leaders. It is a strategy that facilitates different points of view and approaches. (Barkley, Cross, & Major; 2014)
How can we empower our students?
Students are empowered within the classroom to lead which directly impacts the teaching and learning of others. Teachers work as support systems by:
Coaching and mentoring students and supporting them with resources
Chunking developmental tasks allowing students to explore and eventually “show what they know”
Providing unique perspectives and empowering student experts to share their expertise
Examples of this practice include posting sample lessons, which allows students to see ideas of what projects could be and teacher expectations. Writing and communicating about newly acquired learning while displaying knowledge by, creating a blog, videotaping, or providing mini-workshops for others. Below are some ways that students have participated in shared learning.
A Shared Exhibit: A student group displayed their work on a Padlet or Prezi to share with families online
Parent-Teacher- Conferences: This year we’re done with students leading highlighting their own projects through video.
Show-What-You-Know: Students gather resources, artifacts, and share their knowledge with a panel of peers, community members, or content experts.
Several attempts have been made and documented to implement shared learning practices with varying degrees of success. The most successful ones are those teachers that make group learning a focal point right from the start and throughout the whole process. Each chunk of learning has to be designed very specifically to generate the conditions needed for shared learning to be effective. This will not happen as a simple consequence of grouping students together, it requires a bit more effort and planning because (among other factors) due to the fact that students will not be sharing their physical space. (Zygouris-Coe, 2019). If the right conditions are set students can learn a great deal from their peers.
A Few Thoughts When Planning:
Mandatory meetings are a must, both synchronous and asynchronous. This is to ensure that everyone stays on track, group representatives should be avoided for the most part. It is also a good idea to ensure that every student feels the freedom and safety required to speak their minds openly (Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijus, & Bears; 2004). The more student-centric the experience the more engaged our students will be, which will make them more prone to collaborate and express their own unique and genuine opinions. It is important not to let up on the effort and sustain it during the entire project. Otherwise, it is easy to fall into traditional group habits. Good luck!
References
Andres, H. P., & Shipps, B. P. (2010). Team learning in technology-mediated distributed teams. Journal of Information Systems Education, 21, 213–221.
Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques. A handbook for college faculty (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kirschner, P. A., Strijbos, J.-W., Kreijns, K., & Beers, P. J. (2004). Designing electronic collaborative learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(3), 47–66.doi:10.1007/BF02504675
The Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle. (Reproduced, with permission, from Langley GJ, et al. The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organization Performance, 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 2009.)
Zygouris-Coe, V. (2019). Handbook of Research on Emerging Practices and Methods for K-12 Online and Blended Learning - Chapter 2.