Teenagers or Teamagers?

[Mark Crotty]

A couple of days ago on Weblogg-ed, Will Richardson posted regarding an interview with researcher Tom Austin that appeared in Fast Company. The topic was the collaborative abilities of teenagers. Richardson highlighted one quotation:

"Look at teenagers today. They're teamagers. They work on projects as a group and think nothing of
doing it that way. I expect to see that kind of thing percolate through the enterprise as an unstoppable
force over the next two decades."

In one of those strokes of fortuitous timing, I just had been reviewing feedback from students who had completed an extensive project on a wiki in their AP Biology class. Their comments revealed that their main difficulty in working on the wiki had to do with collaborating properly and effectively—issues I’ve always seen in group work, no matter what the mechanism. I believe Garner is somewhat idealizing how teens work collaboratively. (And perhaps people in general, but that’s another discussion.)
At the same time, no doubt teaching kids to play together in the sandbox should be a basic lesson learned at all levels. In this world of wikinomics, marked by a spiral of collaborative innovation, the lesson is even more crucial.
So how do you do it really effectively? I’m looking for thoughts and concrete plans.

[Brian]

First, you talk about Will Richardson and then Tom Austin, but then you reference "Garner," which leads me to ask, "Who?"

Second, I think it comes down to what you really want the students to take away from the experience. Is it more important for them to have the right answer or to learn how to complete the task? If it is the latter, and if they truly LEARNED how to do it while working collaboratively, then haven't you done your job? A similar, independent follow-up assessment for a grade may be more appropriate than grading the initial exercise. Or, you could have the students sit down and write out how she or he could replicate the experiment. That would tell you whether or not she or he learned the task.

Just some thoughts.

[Mark Crotty]

Oops! I fixed my errori n one place but not the anotehr. Tom Austin works for Garner. Sorry.

[Laurie Bartels]

Hmm. Make sure there are open channels for the students to talk with someone during the process, when and if they feel the collaboration is not going well. Engage the people involved in conversation/dialogue. Try to draw out the different perspectives, and then try to help the students see beyond those perspectives. Okay, so that's probably common sense, but the opportunities for these discussions have to be part of the collaborative process, because the students are still learning how to do this, and the faculty have to provide guidance.

I agree with Brian's comment, that it comes down to what you really want the students to take away from the project. Am guessing that part of it is you want them to get the content, and the other part of it is you want them to learn to be able to collaborate. Perhaps, prior to jumping in with a major collaborative project, you could have a variety of projects (small exercises) that they work on throughout the year, with the goal of building their collaborative skills. In any case, there has to be, built in as part of the process, ample opportunity for on-going feedback and reflection, both between the collaborators and also between the collaborators and the teacher.

That's my two cents on a Saturday morning that is getting increasingly sunnier outside!
Cheers, Laurie