Is Collaborative Learning Improve The Academic Performance For Sen Students? Essay

A reflection on the skills acquired from collaborative learning and how they may be applied in practice

This strategy is gained when students learn to reflect and think about their learning. Cooperative learning is a natural way to use the reciprocal teaching strategies, as those strategies are based on having conversations and social interactions. These strategies are beneficial whether working with a whole-class grouping or literature circles.

I approach collaboration as a team player, and I believe students need more than one person to guide them to their full educational potential. Also, active and prepared participation of weekly PLC meetings with the teachers of my special education students to plan collaborative curriculum have increased results in math and reading substantially. Participating in co-teaching furthers my repertoire of knowledge to assist my students. I have learned a vast amount from sharing and consulting with colleagues regarding students, observing mentoring teachers, and planning activities to ensure growth in students.

A reflective essay on the skills acquired from collaborative learning and how they may be applied in practice.

American poet Mattie Stepanek once stated, "Unity is strength...when there are teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved." This idea is exactly what I believe collaborative learning is about. Collaborative learning allows the students to establish unity and great productivity with any project. I love it because it allows me to carry all the stresses but gain an outside perspective on anything. Being a student at Liberty has definitely allowed me to work in this style and become open to ideas as well as standing up for my own thoughts.

It helps students to share their knowledge with each other for a better understanding of a specific concept. One of the important principles that the cooperative learning theory proposes is heterogeneous grouping, which means that the students within the group vary in their gender, skills, class social, religion and age (Jacobs 4). Another important principle is maximum peer interactions that occur when specifying the number of students working together (Jacobs 4). Collaborative skills is an additional principle that is proposed by this theory, which means that students who work with each other are capable of explaining and giving reasons (Jacobs 4). Also, one of the essential principles is individual accountability, which ensures that every one is and working trying to share their knowledge (Jacobs 5). This theory is applied to the physics worksheet because it is a model for enhancing the cooperative learning

According to Carr, Cox, Eden and Hanslo (2004), “students who focused on building knowledge and collaborative interactions had a superior average performance, as challenging online interactions promote understanding”. Interactive learning help instructors with the misconception students have on subjects, conceptual problems, and difficulties on topics. Immediate feedback from peers and instructors and social interaction built into the online discussions contribute to learning. (Collins, brown, & Holum, 1991). “Collaborative learning activities contribute to learning, critical thinking skills, a shared understanding, and long-term retention”. (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2001)

I chose to focus on the classroom demographic of the represented special needs in the classroom. Every student in the classroom has an IEP and many different disabilities are represented. Since every student has individual needs, modifications, accommodations, and goals, a cooperative learning instructional strategy is very beneficial in the classroom. Students with similar goals work together in groups on activities to meet their IEP goals. For example, students whose IEPs contain organizational goals, work together on a weekly bag check checklist to ensure they are staying organized and working to meet their goal. By using a cooperative learning style students are able to help and encourage one another in meeting their goals. Since all students

In the article Co-Teaching: An Illustration of the Complexity of Collaboration in Special Education, Collaborative teaching is “the sharing of instruction by a general education teacher and a special education teacher or another specialist in a general education class that includes students with disabilities (Friend, Cook, Hurley-Chamberlain & Shamberger, 2010).” Students learn from two or more people who may have different ways of thinking or teaching. Co-teachers distribute the responsibilities of planning, evaluation and instruction in their classroom. Co-teaching is effective in classrooms when teachers work together. There are studies that show that collaborative teaching helps student achievement greatly, but co-teaching isn’t always easy. It is often referred to as a professional marriage because partners have to trust each other, have constant communication, and work together to solve problems and challenges. Can co-teaching be effective in students’ learning?

Collaborative learning stems from the theory of Vygotsky’s conception of Zone of proximal development. The thought is that children learn best with “help and guidance” (Ormrod, 2012). In transitioning this zone to a collaborative learning experience, children work with their peers in broadening their learning experience, allowing small groups of students to work together to share knowledge, exchange ideas, problem solve, and more. These classroom environments help to create durable abilities in students and aid in producing a “smoother integration into adult society when the activities resemble real-world tasks” (Ormrod, 2012). As students work with peers and adults, they adopt some of the learning strategies demonstrated and develop more skills in problem solving. This scaffolding creates a trickle-down effect of knowledge construction. In collaborative learning, students are afforded a myriad of enriching opportunities to explore perspectives that may differ from their own. These activities serve to create a self-awareness in the student of their responsibilities to a group, requiring them to self-monitor their activity (Lee, Tsai, Chai, & Koh, 2014).

From my experience, students that have to sit and listen to lectures with no interaction all day do not perform as well as those who are doing hands on activities as well as cooperative learning. I do not want to have a dictatorship of a classroom. I want my students to feel free to ask questions and to talk to their classmates about the lesson. I feel students not only obtain knowledge form their teacher, but they learn a tremendous amount from other students. This is where cooperative learning comes into play. This strategy is very effective in getting students involved. Sometimes students feel more comfortable in small groups of their peers. During my observations, I noticed that students learn a tremendous amount from other students. Some students

I have been searching for many years for the Holy Grail of interactive learning, a distinction between collaborative and cooperative learning definitions. I am getting closer to my elusive goal all the time but I am still not completely satisfied with my perception of the two concepts. I believe my confusion arises when I look at processes associated with each concept and see some overlap or inter-concept usage. I will make a humble attempt to clarify this question by presenting my definitions and reviewing those of other authors who have helped clarify my thinking.

This research identified the application of collaborative learning strategies as well as highlighted the area of the application of collaborative learning. Collaborative learning is a process in which two or more students work together. Collaborative strategies can be used in planning, translating and reviewing the distance education process to have a better product. This source will be useful in my research to help explain how collaborative learning strategies in the classroom will help students in the learning process improve by interaction, how positive interdependence of collaborative learning leads to common responsibility, how collaborative learning builds students’ self-esteem and confidence in students.

Formal cooperative learning triggers students to work together, for one class period to several weeks. The aim is to achieve shared learning goals, and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments (such as decision making or problem solving, completing a curriculum unit, writing a report, conducting a survey or experiment, or reading a chapter or reference book, learning vocabulary, or answering questions at the end of the chapter) (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 2006).

Collaborative learning is founded on the idea that the learning process is a naturally social act which requires the participants to talk among themselves. Collaborative learning involves small groups of students who act on a structured learning activity to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product. In simpler terms, the students work in groups to learn or understand a new concept they are studying. In this learning approach, it is important to understand that the students are accountable for individual work as well as the group work they do as a group in collaborative learning