Collaborative learning and sharing of knowledge can have many beneficial effects for teachers and students. One of these is everyone in the school environment, including teachers, students, and parents, feels more connectedness and motivation to teach and learn. This increased connectivity could lead to more school pride, a quality that has been lacking in many schools in these last several years.
Another benefit of sharing knowledge is an increase of learning opportunities for students. They will be able to use and interact with the learning materials on an increased rate and depth. As they begin to increase their own knowledge, they will begin working with each other and seeing other perspectives, thus helping them increase their social and emotional learning as an unplanned for side effect of the process.
A final benefit for teachers is the ability to use the interconnection of the classroom to create differentiation for everyone, not just IEP students. The teacher can post remedial materials for those students who are a bit behind, advanced materials for students who need more stimulation, and a general curriculum for the average student to follow.
Nageswaran, K. (2022). 6 Benefits of a Connected School Community. Schoolbox. https://schoolbox.com.au/blog/6-benefits-of-a-connected-school-community/
Jerry –
The benefits that you have described are good choices. Differentiated instruction is a huge benefit for students who need extra support. Being able to give that quickly and easily to students who need it, is definitely a win/win!
Chris
Jerry,
I did not even think of collaboration beyond my classroom in my post. I really like how you discuss collaboration as building a larger school community as well as building school pride. I do believe that when students work together outside of the classroom in clubs, on teams, or as a part of student government, the sense of student community and pride do increase. I also agree that collaboration students who need differentiation on a daily basis. I often group students who have IEPs or 504s with students who are higher achieving to have those students help guide them through some of the tasks. There is also the ability to group special needs students together, so that we as teachers have the ability to help those students all together at once as well. I really appreciate the insights you had about using collaboration in your classroom. Great work!
Eric
Hi Gerald! You made an interesting point about differentiation outside of the special education population. This is a great way to use students working together as a method of differentiation whether it be by specific groupings, or like you mentioned, differences in work difficulty.