True Collaboration
The term is thrown around casually and I find myself biting my tongue. Oh yeah, my students collaborate . I love collaborating with you. But, are we really collaborating and does what it mean to be a true collaborator? Here is what I often see called collaboration: Students on a shared slide deck, a shared jamboard, a shared document but they each have their own section they are responsible for. They are in a group doing work that I call Alone Together work. This is perfectly fine and is wonderful to be "sitting at a table" virtually or in person, but Alone Together is not Collaboration. It is being together and that is important and perhaps in being together you can learn if you have misstepped, you can have people of which to ask questions, but again, this is not collaboration, it is clarification. To really collaborate a few things must happen to set a team up for success: 1. VALUE ALL All group members must be a valued part of the team and process. That means