Download our new PDF collaboration guide!
We started this series on collaborative learning a couple weeks ago. The more we wrote — and thought — and shared in the DTT online community — and discussed in a webinar … the more these ideas came together in something that seemed big!
We pulled all of these ideas together — and more — in our DTT Ultimate Guide to Classroom Collaboration!
It’s 32 pages of observations, research-backed suggestions, collaboration roles, structures to support collaboration, and plug-and-play collaborative activities.
Two of my favorites?
Bad Ideas Only (where students come up with bad ideas together … then identify why they’re bad)
Ship-It Sprint (where they create a solution to a problem together in a short period of time)
In today’s 💡 Big Idea, we’ll look inside the guide AND a few of the new activities in it!
♻️ COLLABORATION SERIES RECAP ♻️
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Webinar / Online Discussion / PDF Guide
📺 WEBINAR REPLAY: On Tuesday, we hosted a great discussion on collaboration including the Director of Instructional Tech for NYC Public Schools AND Samsung’s Director of Education. Watch the replay here!
Inside:
💡 Did you know that in Kira, you can...
👀 DTT Digest: 4 resources worth checking out
👥 Community: Collaborative work ideas from our community
💻 Webinar Replay: How collaborative learning works in class
💡 The Big Idea: NEW FREE RESOURCE: Ultimate Guide to Classroom Collaboration (PDF)
😄 Smile of the day: I had no idea …
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Learn more about:
👀 DTT Digest
4 teaching resources worth checking out today
🔵 Celebrate international Dot Day! — Draw along with Peter H. Reynolds, author/illustrator of “The Dot” for International Dot Day! LIVE this Friday, September 11 at 8am PT (11am ET)
🪝 25 engaging lesson hooks for class — This guest post, written by Megan Diede and Kara Rigsby, has 25 hook ideas that can be modified to any grade level or content area.
🎉 Hundreds of ready-to-use Wayground activities! — Check out this curated list of great pre-made Wayground activities you can use for free.
ICYMI 💡 How to use Google Classroom with PBS Learning Media — You’ll review how to share PBS LearningMedia content to your Google Classroom and assign a PBS LearningMedia assignment to a Google Classroom class.
📢 TOP DISCUSSION 📢
🧑🤝🧑Collaborative work ideas from our community
We asked the DTT online community how they navigated collaboration in the classroom. You can see that thread (and join the community!) here.
Here’s what they said …
“I use random and self-selected groups. This allows students some autonomy with group members but by throwing in an occasional random grouping, students work with others in the class.” — Susan McCandless
“I have also used playing cards, by shuffling and handing out randomly. You can make partners (both red eights), groups of 4 (all the eights), or even larger groups (evens or odds, black or red, face or number, etc.) You do need to do a little bit of finessing of the cards beforehand to make sure the numbers work out correctly for the amount of kids you have in front of you.” — Marla Aehlert
“I have student groups complete a group contract, listing the times that work best for them, the remediation plan if someone doesn’t hold up to their end of the group work, the roles each of them will take in the project.” — Dawn Mericle
What do you think?
Not a member yet? Join the free DTT Community to read ideas like this, connect with other educators, discuss, and share ideas of your own.
💻 WEBINAR REPLAY💻
♻️ How collaborative learning works in class
Many of us have tried “group work” in the classroom to varying degrees of success. Sometimes it is great; other times, it flops.
So … what are the conditions for great collaborative work?
Recently, I hosted a webinar on that topic — “Teamwork by Design: Classroom Collaboration in Action.” I was joined by Jose Perez, Director of Instructional Technology for New York City Public Schools, and Micah Shippee Ph.D., Samsung’s Director of Education.
We discussed:
The fantastic “Battle of the Boroughs” in New York City where students collaboratively solve challenges (with the support of Samsung interactive displays)
Two collaborative activities I did in my class where tech made the experience unique and memorable
Conditions when collaborative work thrives (whether you’re using tech or not)
Check it out to learn alongside us and improve your collaborative learning skills for the classroom!
💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡
💼 NEW FREE RESOURCE: Ultimate Guide to Classroom Collaboration
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Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked into collaborative learning to find out when it is most successful.
So far, to this point, we’ve found …
PART 1: Collaborative work thrives with complex questions, when students think first before collaborating, and when we give them guidance on how to collaborate.
PART 2: Give students a STRUCTURE for their work — and help them identify ROLES to play in collaboration. This helps them to know what to do.
PART 3: Collaborative learning can take many forms — like “Bad Ideas Only” — that get students generating, challenging, analyzing, and improving ideas together.
After all of that, you might ask …
“OK, but can you give me more collaborative activities I can actually use with my students?”
Yep. That’s exactly why we made this new guide.
🎁 NEW FREE RESOURCE: The DTT Ultimate Guide to Classroom Collaboration
We pulled everything we’ve covered in this series into one free guide — including 12 collaborative thinking structures and printable role cards you can use to give students meaningful ways to think and work together.
Here are a few more of the structures you'll find inside …
1. Jigsaw / Expertise Puzzle
Jigsaw is a classic collaborative learning strategy. But there’s an important difference between having students “teach their section” and actually creating interdependence.
Use it when: Different pieces of information or expertise need to come together before the group can understand something larger.
How it works: Give students responsibility for different pieces of the learning. Students first become knowledgeable about their piece. Then they join a group where different areas of expertise are represented. But don’t stop at “teach everybody your section.” Give the group a final challenge that requires all of the pieces. Students use their combined knowledge to solve, explain, evaluate, decide, design, or synthesize something they couldn’t do with only one piece of information. Each student has something the others need.
Examples:
History: Give students different primary sources about an event, then have them combine the sources to develop an explanation of what happened and why.
Science: Give students different pieces of information about an ecosystem, then have them combine their expertise to explain how the system works.
ELA: Have students become experts on different elements of a novel, then combine those insights to develop an interpretation of a major theme.
2. Rank-Defend-Revise
Here’s a simple one that can lead to some surprisingly good conversations. Give students several possibilities and ask them to rank them individually first. Then put them together.
Use it when: Students need to prioritize options, establish criteria, make judgments, or recognize that reasonable people may weigh evidence differently.
How it works: First, students rank the options on their own. Then groups compare their rankings. And here’s the important part: Focus on the disagreements. i.e. “Why did you put this first while I put it fourth?” Students explain the criteria behind their choices and defend their rankings with evidence or reasoning. The group develops a shared ranking — or identifies areas where consensus isn’t possible.
Then introduce something new:
New evidence
Another perspective
Another group’s ranking
A new constraint
Students revise their rankings. Now they’re not just choosing an answer. They’re thinking about why they chose it — and whether new information should change their thinking.
Examples
History: Rank the most significant causes of an event.
Science: Rank possible solutions to an environmental problem based on established criteria.
ELA: Rank the moments that most contribute to a character’s transformation.
Elementary: Rank possible materials for building a classroom structure and justify the choices.
3. Ship-It Sprint
This one puts a constraint on the collaboration: You have to actually make something. And you have to finish it.
Use it when: Students need to solve, design, create, and make decisions under real constraints.
How it works: Give students a limited amount of time — perhaps one class period, two days, or a week. The challenge: Find something worth solving and ship something before time runs out.
Students have to decide:
What problem are we solving?
Who are we solving it for?
What could we realistically accomplish in the time available?
What is the smallest useful version we could actually finish?
What do we need to build, test, and change?
What can we deliver by the deadline?
At the end, students don’t simply explain what they would do. They show what they actually created. That time constraint forces some great collaborative thinking: prioritizing, scoping, making decisions, testing ideas, and figuring out what really matters.
Examples
Science: Build and test a simple device that addresses a classroom or community problem.
ELA: Create something that helps next year’s students understand a difficult concept or text.
Social studies: Develop a small resource that addresses a local civic need.
Elementary: Find one problem in the classroom and create something that makes it better.
What are your favorite tips for collaborative work?
We’re still collecting your best ideas for group/collaborative work! Share them in this discuss thread — or just jump over there to see what others are saying!
And if you’re looking for even more ideas, find them in the new FREE Ultimate Guide to Classroom Collaboration.
It brings together everything we’ve explored in this series PLUS 12 collaborative thinking structures to help you turn “group work” into meaningful collaborative learning.
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