Learning to Collaborate

October 4, 2015 | Posted in: Class Updates

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A big focus in Room 209 in learning to collaborate on tasks and explain your thinking.  People often think that collaboration helps during challenging activities, and that’s certainly true.  But we also have students collaborate even when they could easily complete a task independently, because the process of sharing ideas, considering other points of view, and discussing strategies and options helps students to think more deeply about a given topic.  It also helps to develop collaboration skills that are, of course, critical life skills.

Last week, for example, we began working on narrative elements by focusing on the setting of stories.  We read, as a class, The Purple Coat (one of my all-time favorites) and identified clues about the setting.  I then modeled the process of writing a short-answer response (SAR) to identify and explain the setting of the story.  We looked at the SAR Checklist as a way of remembering the elements of a successful short-answer response.  Students then collaborated with one or two partners to write a similar response about The Josefina Story Quilt, which students read for homework on Monday or Tuesday.  We shared some of these responses (from groups that volunteered) and discussed strengths and weaknesses, using the new fourth grade SAR rubric.  (Stay tuned for some resources for parents!)  On Friday, students worked independently to write their own SAR about the setting of A Chair for My Mother (which is arguably my all-time favorite children’s book).  This process of gradual release supports students as we move from teacher-led learning to group work to independent application.    You’ll see a lot of this style of learning this year, especially in the next few weeks as we address the remaining narrative elements.