Session+7

7.1 Collaboration
What is collaboration? Collaboration is when individuals work together to achieve a common goal.

What are 3 ways in which students collaborate in your classroom and are they successful? One way in which students currently collaborate in my classroom is during the note-taking process. I frequently have students share and compare their notes to ensure that they have gotten the important information and improve their notes. Likewise, I often have them collaborate on creating summaries at the end of their notes or in coming up with relevant connections and examples to add to their notes. Most students are successful when completing the latter task- they are able to create successful summaries or examples together. However, I have noticed that when asked to compare their notes they either tell me, "they're the same," or they simply copy off of their partners' notes. I would like to learn how to have students share their individual work with each other more effectively.

Problem solving is a huge part of my chemistry class. Unless completing a quiz or exit ticket, I always encourage students to work with each other during the problem solving process, whether it be during classwork or labwork. Again, my average, motivated student is usually fairly competent at working with others to solve problems. However, I do find that students who struggle and/or are less motivated sometimes wait for others to complete the work and then copy. I would like to avoid this, but I find that with frequent quizzes I am able to assess whether the students truly understand the material or not.

A third way that the chemistry department has experimented with collaboration this past year is online collaboration. Students were asked to watch a series of documentary videos individually at home, and then use Moodle to summarize and discuss the videos via the chat feature. Students also created a faux "Question and Answer" session with a scientist of their choice, all through the Moodle forums. These activities were much more successful than I believe any of the teachers initially anticipated. What made them so effective was the ability to see which student was doing what part of the work. It ensured that all students participated in each assignment. I found that the chat was particularly useful-- students were not able to "opt out" and let the other students do all of the talking or their grade would be affected. Also, compared to an in-class chat, students were able to take more time to collect their thoughts before responding, and I as a teacher was able to revisit the chat as many times as I wanted in order to really analyze student understanding and participation.

7.2 Video on Collaboration
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How can expanded use of technology help develop depth and breadth for our students? Students develop depth by becoming true masters at their subject or skill. By incorporating different types of technology, teachers allow students to select technology that enhances their own interests and abilities in order to build greater depth in their area of expertise. While students will often be given the option of choosing their preferred technology, at times (as in this course) students will also be asked to try new methods that are unfamiliar to them. By learning to use various types of technology, students will develop breadth by learning a variety of techniques which will help them to become better communicators.

What is the difference between cooperation and collaboration? Collaboration is an "amplified form of cooperation. That is, in cooperation students are working to achieve a common goal but are not necessarily dependent on each other; they are working more or less autonomously on different aspects of the goal. Collaboration is a synergistic relationship between students. In collaboration, students rely on each other to create a greater product that no individual could have accomplished on their own.

What are the challenges in getting students to collaborate rather than just cooperating? Students are good at "assembly line" cooperative work where each student takes an aspect of the project and then throw everything together when each individual has finished their part. Each student can focus on their sub-project individually in this process. However, in a collaborative endeavor students must build off of each others' ideas. Students are no longer able to work alone, but instead must synthesize information, make decisions, and ultimately compromise together in order to meet the goal. Students have much more difficulty navigating these complex social interactions. I have found that often when students are asked to collaborate, one student tends to dominate the project and make all of the intellectual decisions, rather than the students acting as true partners.

**7.3 Voicethread Definition**
Voicethread is a tool that allows users to comment on a type of media (image, video, document, etc.) through various methods including voice message, text, drawing, etc. My initial impression of Voicethread was that it was a kind of visual/audio forum, as opposed to a traditional text-based forum. Voicethread could be used in my classroom as an alternative to "chatting" assignments like the one we developed last year. The benefit to Voicethread is that students do not need to be online at the same time to "chat." The downside is that I think that the asynchronous nature of Voicethread would make it better as a cooperative rather than collaborative tool. Without a real-time conversation, students have difficulty building on each others' ideas.

7.4 Immigration Voicethread
I liked that the Voicethread gave students an alternative way to share their ideas. Unlike a class discussion, students are able to prepare their comments ahead of time and thus produce more thoughtful and eloquent responses. It also is a great tool for students with good oral communication, but who may struggle with reading and writing. The area I thought the Voicethread could improve addresses my initial concern about Voicethread. Students simply added their own thoughts rather than building on the ideas of others. Students need to develop academic communication skills such as questioning, responding appropriately, etc. that they already use during casual conversations. Also, I know a few of the students who participated in the Voicethread, so I found it odd that the names on the comments did not always correspond to the students' actual voices.

7.5 Voicethread in the Classroom
I surprisingly enjoyed doing the Voicethread exercise. Especially because I hate the sound of my recorded voice, it really made me stop and determine exactly what I wanted to say before pressing the record button. Also, it was extremely easy to use. I have never used the microphone or webcam on this computer before, but the program automatically opened them up for me when I pressed record. There is something much more authentic about listening or watching someone speak, rather than just reading their thoughts. At first, I thought there would be several obstacles to using it in the classroom, but since students can phone in a comment or type it if necessary, there really is no reason that students could not participate. I would probably use it as a homework check-in to assess whether students understood the material from class and to make sure that the quieter students get the chance to voice their ideas. It is a great way to ensure that students are not copying their homework since everyone's response must be unique. I would still like to explore ways to ensure that students build on others' comments rather than just stating their own thoughts. This is the only way that true innovation can occur, right?

Here is a Voicethread on 21st Century Skills that Martin Berryman and I have been working on. It is still a work in progress. media type="custom" key="10064731"