Collaboration - Darstein

Col-labor-ation!!!  Col - together, Labor - to work, Ation - an action or process...Col-labor-ation - the process of working together.  I'm not the English person but that seems pretty simple.  Right??  NO!

Every class I've every had on the social development of 13-year-olds supports that fact that this is an up-hill battle.   Bengard's article on collaboration and high quality work was well argued but it is rare that the stakes in my classroom are as intense as a bath in cold, murky water.   I love my garden project and am witnessing some great collaboration but it has to come from an intrinsic place because there is no cold, mud bath waiting for failure.

Curtis' article was much more applicable to life in my classroom.  When I say the motivation to collaborate has to come from an intrinsic place, that doesn't mean that I don't believe that we can guide students to that place.   We certainly can and many of Curtis' tips are ways to do that. I have all of the methods that he outlined except for the contract.    It just doesn't seem to match my style and efforts to help each student find their internal motivation.

My top two (third place was a tie)  elements from the Collaboration Rubrics are Respects Others and Helps the Team.  I don't have a third.  In my mind if a teammate can be respectful and help the team, we can work on the rest.   Every team member has their own talents and their own way of sharing them and these two elements allow work within a comfortable parameter.

Helping students learn to collaborate is really teaching them how to share...we started that lesson a long time ago.  For a middle-schooler, at the most precarious stage of social development, we are now asking to take sharing to a new level, from objects to thoughts and efforts.  Any progress they can make will set them on the road to future success.