My belief in the role of collaboration in understanding and knowledge has been transformed as result of my experience in the SLIS program and online learning environments such as LIBR 250. Even though at times group work seems more burdensome, I now understand the importance of collaboration in understanding and knowledge. Two examples from LIBR 250 demonstrate the efficacy of collaboration and interaction in the learning process. To prepare this blog, I went back and reviewed the 250knowledgecenter that we collaborated on this semester. What started as a few entries grew, and became emblematic of an organic and interactive dialog that fostered understanding. My understanding of learning paradigms, learning theories and instruction is all the more richer because this learning process was driven by collaboration and engagement with the material and my peers. My experience with blogging this semester in LIBR 250 also reinforces to me the importance of collaboration in understanding. For me the understanding in this experience comes from the interaction that I have with my peers, whether it's me responding to your blogs or the responses that you all provide to me.
As a result of the experiences that I have had, I firmly believe that virtual environments have the potential to increase the efficacy of collaboration. Virtual environments afford not only recognition of different learning styles but also modes of collaboration. Collaborative modes that may be leveraged in virtual environments include Wikis, blogs, discussion boards, online productivity and collaboration tools (Zoho and Google Apps), and even multimedia sharing (something that Mary Ann does frequently). LIBR 250 has embraced many of these collaborative modes, and has favorably impacted understanding as a result.
In terms of collaboration in teaching, I will instead transfer this to collaboration in the workplace. The company that I work for just launched a new product that identifies leakage and fraud in the auto insurance industry. This product took over 5 years to launch, and was result of collaboration by 200 staff members each contributing something unique. My contribution to the product was to negotiate and acquire datasets from various entities that would be used for the algorithms. Traditional predictive modeling in the insurance industry assigned too much risk to urban drivers with lower income. The new model that my company released more accurately and fairly assigns risk to suburban drivers with higher income, and will be used by the California Department of Insurance. The success of this product was predicated by the collaboration and contributions of many staff members.
I have also been fascinated watching the evolution of our class wiki. I have found myself referring to it repeatedly throughout the semester, and I realize that the assignments were carefully designed to become the resources for future assignments. The ways that we continuously engaged with the material allowed me to understand it much better than I had after the initial assignment where we created the wiki. That is a reminder to me, as an instructor, that oftentimes students can complete an assignment without really understanding what they are discussing. It is only through a wide variety of experiences with the material that I eventually began to feel confident in my grasp of the content. Am I providing the same to my students?
ReplyDeleteYour discussion about collaboration in the workplace brings up an important point. In education most of what we teach we hope will be transferable to skills in other aspects of the student’s life, most often the future workplace. Often teachers assign group work without any training on how to be an effective team member, but teaching these skills can lead to more beneficial learning outcomes and experiences overall and can lead to future success as an effective team member in the workplace. Perhaps at the collegiate level we don’t need as much guidance on the roles of each group member since we have often already determined our strengths and weaknesses and hopefully know how to advocate or negotiate our roles, but in elementary and middle school student’s may need to be overtly taught how to be leaders, time keepers, organizers, note takers or whatever other jobs/roles are instrumental to successful collaboration.
ReplyDeleteI was working with a class of fifth graders who said that they have never worked in a collaborative group before. I was shocked-- I had expected to just group the kids and have them move on to the meat of the assignment, but instead we needed to spend the entire period learning how to be a group participant. The experience really highlighted the importance of providing students with collaborative opportunities so that they will already understand how to best participate in collaborative experiences that arise in their futures.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your nod to the collaborative learning, inquiry, and understanding that has emerged from our blog group. I feel the same way!
ReplyDeleteI also like your "real world" example of collaboration in the workplace, and I was glad to see that your company has devised new methods of equitably distributing blame and calculating risk in the auto insurance industry. It's nice to hear that this type of thinking and social action is (in)corporated where you work and in what you do.
I agree with Amie's delineation of the various roles that instructors should assign different students working in groups so as to develop their skills and enhance their collaborative toolkit. It provides students with concrete ways to enlarge their sense of what they are capable of and combats the urge on the part of both students and instructors to "typecast" students in specific roles and responsibilities in the classroom.