Learn Like a Pirate Part 3 - Peer Collaboration Part 2

Peer Collaboration - Part 2

Assigning Partners vs. Letting Students Choose Their Partner

To thrive in a student-led classroom, students will need to work with all sorts of people and personality types. Collaboration skills have to be taught to the students. For this reason, Solarz rarely allows students to choose their own partners. They need to be able to work with everyone, even if personalities conflict. He also wants them to know everyone in the classroom.

Options:

a. Random Partnerships - choose sticks or some other method to randomly assign partners.
b. Teacher chosen Partnerships - certain projects or activities will require student groups to have different strengths. There will also be times when teachers want certain students to work together if they have not yet been paired together before.

c. Responsibility Partners - this is for work that has to be done and handed in individually, but you allow each student to check in with their partner for questions or to bounce around ideas.

Teaching Strategies for Dealing with Conflict

What happens if your student pairs have conflict or do not get along?

Do a “Give Me Five” to get the class’s attention. Smile at the pair and tell them you are glad they had some trouble because that gives you the opportunity to teach the whole class how simple it is to get through conflict. Ask them what the problem was and teach them these strategies for dealing with conflict:

a. Rock Paper Scissors - this is a popular alternative to flipping a coin. Read HERE for details.

b. Compromise - Find a way to make both parties happy

c. Choose Kind - Do what the other person wants to do because it is a good idea. Our class is about winning as a team, not as individuals. 

Classroom Meetings

Solarz uses classroom meetings to improve the morale of the class, to teach life and social skills and give feedback to the entire class  in order to make immediate changes. Some meetings might be just a few minutes to give some directions, while others could last an hour when discussing issues like: Bullying, avoiding cliques, optimism vs. pessimism, leading vs. following, learning styles, dealing with anger and frustration, being a good friend, etc.

Mystery Skype 

This is a great opportunity for a collaborative experience that extends beyond your classroom walls. A Mystery Skype is a 45-60 minute critical-thinking challenge that your class takes part in while Skyping with another class somewhere else in the world. Your students’ goal is to guess the other school’s location (country, state, city, school name) before they guess yours. They do this while only asking yes and no questions. Each students is assigned a specialized role in the process. CLICK HERE to learn more about Mystery Skype.

CLICK HERE to see resources from the Learn Like a Pirate website about Peer Collaboration. 


Links to Interesting Articles:
1. Great Blog on Professional Learning
2. Tech Tips: Resources for Just-In-Time Professional Learning

3. Twitter for Teachers 201: Chatting and Best Practices

Links to Interesting Web Tools:

1. A Must Have Tool for Teaching Kids Digital Citizenship
2. Google Virtual Reality Program
3. 8 Must-Have Google Chrome Apps for Students

Quote of the Day:
1. I Have Not Failed....
2. If Students Are Sharing Their Work...