Collaboration is not a simple skill that students can learn by trial and error. The skill sets needed for a student to collaborate are many. Analyzing the 7/8 Collaboration Rubric for Napa Valley Unified School District, I found 9 specific skills required for success. They are:
- Conflict Resolution
- Active Listening
- Critical Feedback - both giving and receiving
- Time Management
- Organization
- Interpersonal Skills
- Cooperation
- Constructive Criticism
- Leadership
How do I teach these skills to my students? Do I teach them as specific skills apart from each other? Do I embed them into a project they are working on? Two school that are held in high regard for using collaboration are New Tech High in Napa Ca., and High Tech High in San Diego. The book, 21st Century Learning, goes into detail about these two schools . In training's this summer, I had the opportunity to meet and talk to fellow teachers that work at these schools how collaboration is taught at their site. Both sites embed collaboration into projects. They do not teach collaboration as a specific skill. One reason is they are both project based schools and all students are constantly working on projects. My students do not work on projects in all their classes, I am the only class that students work on project based learning and collaboration. The best solution for me would be to break collaboration into the specific skills listed above and use mini projects or "post-holes" for the students to practice the skill. Next task - How to teach these specific skills to my students.