At the core of the IB World schools is a culture of collaboration, sharing ideas, supportive networks and a positive overall environment, that includes teachers and staff, to create working together, a community borne of experience and learning, and with resources, support and guidance teachers feel more comfortable and confident in their roles, that has a flow on positive effect on students.
Developing this culture and environment of collaboration means a communal, cohesive and strategic planning process that spreads a sense of community and collaboration that is key to the success of any school and the impact it has on students and their lifelong learning, and acts as a wider microcosm of the World. This affords the opportunity for students to see how a community works, their role in it and how they are a part of it, and that learning doesn’t stop when the bell rings.
Collaborative teaching can involve unit planning, feedback or other means of support, making sure teachers have guidance in their role and feel appreciated, building ideas in collaboration, working together and presenting a unified and connected product to deliver to their students, as stated in this post ‘it takes a village to raise a child’.
Collaborative teaching transforms the classroom
The IB Community Blog. (2015). Collaborative teaching transforms the classroom [Blog Post]. Retrieved from: http://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2015/07/30/collaborative-teaching-transforms-the-classroom/
Why this evidence was chosen and what I learnt from it.
MYP learners: are collaborative and open minded
Students, their families and teachers express their experiences of collaboration and open mindedness in the IB MYP programme. This video highlights how intercultural openness is important and helpful for young people to get involved and change the world by providing them with the tools, perspectives and understandings to change the world for the better. I discovered that working collaboratively with all members of a school, faculty, students, teachers, families and the community, can mean that people feel an opportunity for growth, both academically and personally and the development of independence and the capacity for students to self-manage their studies. It was interesting to hear from a teachers perspective of students learning and how exposing students to different parts of the world can allow for students to develop the ability to empathise and understand other human beings from all over the world, and are globally aware learners.
The IB Continuum. (2005-2017). The IB Community. The IB community on what it means to be part of education for a better world. Retrieved from: https://vimeopro.com/iboorg/the-ib-continuum/video/150155101
Why this evidence was chosen and what I learnt from it.
This literature review was chosen to explore approaches to learning that describe effective collaborative learning as a learning environment in which students make contributions together to problem-solving, and using social constructivism concepts allow learners to construct their knowledge and inquiry-based learning through this interaction with each other.
This review has demonstrated for me the benefits to cognitive and metacognitive achievements and effectiveness of collaboration, provided that students prior knowledge and experiences is able to contribute to a high standard to be able to construct a deeper understanding of all perspectives. Using a collaborative learning approach among different age ranges or cultural groups may perhaps require various levels of scaffolding from teachers, and with assessing group collaboration, teachers must observe the group interactions and the quality of the joint group efforts and relationships.
Teachers need to be fully trained and have understanding in constructivist and student-centred approaches to be able to be constructive, at a classroom level teachers may think about and experiment with new strategies and then observe the learning outcomes using a classroom-based formative assessment method, such as; use of questions.
Approaches to learning: A Literature Review
Na, L. (2012). Approaches to learning: A Literature Review. IB Research Paper. Retrieved from: http://www.ibo.org/globalassets/publications/ib-research/approachestolearningeng.pdf
Yasmin in Education :) 