Collaboration

=Collaboration=

When creating a problem-based learning unit it is essential to facilitate authentic collaborative learning experiences that foster a deep understanding of new content skills and concepts. In the unit that I am creating I plan to do this by having the students solve real life scenarios through interaction with the members of the group to devise a solution to the problem. Providing authentic experiences for problem solving using collaborative online tools will equip students for success in the future.

I plan to support students’ efforts in identifying solutions to the proposed problem by having conferences with each group and group member at designated points during the problem solving process. I will also use a group blog that students my pose questions or concerns to be answered by group members or by me.

When creating collaborative groups I will look at various characteristics of the students like mathematical ability, leadership skills, organizational skills, and the ability to mediate when students have disagreements. Each characteristic is vital to the success of the group. I plan to use these characteristics to form each group, choosing on student for each to comprise groups of four. I believe that groups of four are particularly successful because even within the group they may pair up to delegate particular aspects of the assignment to the pair that possesses the skill needed to complete it.

I will use kidblog.org so that the groups will be able communicate in a virtual environment. This will provide practical practice of how many professionals collaborate to solve a common problem. I will also use wikispaces.com for the students use to have a place to work together on their collaborative project. Lastly I will have students complete games, assignments and test on [|www.studyisland.com].

I plan to assess participation by viewing how many comments or posts by each student makes on both the blog and the wiki. Each change will need to be tagged by the student who made the changes. This is an area that I will need to continue to develop since this is the likely the first time these students have completed work requiring online collaboration.