Communication is Key
11/17/2019
The instructions were simple...or so it seemed. Students were supposed to sort their animal cards into groups. Each partnership set off to work... ...and quickly realized that this activity wasn't as easy as it first appeared. Some animals fit into several categories and some didn't seem to have a category at all. Some of the words were really hard to read and some seemed to have conflicting information. Some partners had a hard time deciding who would get to be in control of the cards and some wanted to take charge and not listen to the ideas of their partners.
One might wonder what students are gaining out of such an activity, especially having to accomplish it in a collaborative partnership when it could have easily been done individually. Cornell University has identified several benefits of collaborative learning as seen in this article. They maintain that this type of learning leads to the "development of higher-level thinking, oral communication, self-management, and leadership skills", among others. Communication was key here in this activity as students needed to communicate with each other in order to even start the activity. They needed to hear and understand the communication given to them by the teacher as the purpose of the activity. They needed to self-manage themselves and their individual roles (who got to hold the cards, split the cards, sort the cards, etc.). While it was evident in a couple of the partnerships who took the leader role, the other two partnerships worked in authentic collaboration discussing each card and hearing the reasonings of their partner before sorting into a group. Critical thinking skills were strengthened as students helped each other to read the information on the cards, find commonalities between animals and create groups accordingly. Higher level thinking came into play when students were given additional challenge cards where they had to utilize their newfound knowledge (and that of their partner) to place the challenge animals into their proper groups. Not only did students learn how real scientists observe, debate and ultimately categorize animals, they also had authentic opportunity to strengthen their communication skills. Comments are closed.
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Marcella HitchcockMs. Hitchcock teaches second grade, is a mom of two, an avid reader, lifelong learner, and a seeker of sunshine! Archives
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