{"id":1143,"date":"2017-10-11T10:21:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T16:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teachersfirst.com\/blog\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2019-04-05T17:34:45","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T21:34:45","slug":"infusing-collaboration-with-personalized-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/infusing-collaboration-with-personalized-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Infusing Collaboration with Personalized Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hopefully you had a chance to brush up on the Social Learning Theory, but in case life got in the way, the essential components to understand are the instinctual needs of learners to collaborate and share with the teacher as a facilitator.\u00a0 Doing so in an informal learning space is most desired according to this theory.\u00a0 As we begin our journey down the social learning path, let\u2019s begin talking about collaboration.\u00a0 It\u2019s much more than group work\u2026 it\u2019s the idea that learning can occur with<\/em> not to<\/em>. In other words, the focus shifts from teaching to learning.<\/p>\n

When first approaching collaborative groups within the classroom, I know it can be scary, mostly because the teacher loses that total sense of \u201ccontrol\u201d.\u00a0 When I was a middle school principal, I often heard concerns about student behavior (or lack thereof), student focus, engagement\u2026 do I need to go on?\u00a0 You get it. My best recommendation is to leave your fear at the classroom door and just try it.\u00a0 Let go of the power and think of the teacher role more as a facilitator.<\/p>\n

So the next question should undoubtedly be\u2014how to break students into groups?\u00a0 Does the teacher pick the groups?\u00a0 Do the students?\u00a0 My suggestion would be to use a combination depending on the type of activity.\u00a0 Remember, this is<\/em><\/strong> the social learning<\/em><\/strong> theory put into practice, meaning teachers need to try their best to ensure active learning is indeed taking place.<\/p>\n

This brings me to my next point\u2014when thinking about groupings, you must also think about personalizing the learning, giving students what they need, when they need it.\u00a0 In a nutshell, iNACOL defines personalized learning as \u201cTailoring learning for each student\u2019s strengths, needs and interests\u2014to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible\u201d.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that a great definition?!\u00a0 Great\u2026 yes!\u00a0 Hard to implement\u2026 yes!\u00a0 But that\u2019s why educators are amongst the most talented and creative professionals.<\/p>\n

So, I leave you with this\u2014think about trying to break students into collaborative groups as a part of a larger station rotation activity.\u00a0 Give a quick formative with instant data available at the beginning of class.\u00a0 The key is you must take that data and group students based on their needs.\u00a0 Think about having a high achieving group working independently on extension, while the teacher leads a small group needing extra support.\u00a0 Have the middle group work in collaborative pairs to complete a task.\u00a0 Differentiate up and<\/em><\/strong> down.\u00a0 There are many tech tools that can aid in the implementation of student groupings, many of them reviewed on our TeachersFirst website under the \u201cCollaboration\u201d link.\u00a0 Check them out and take a risk\u2026 you\u2019ll be glad you did, I promise!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hopefully you had a chance to brush up on the Social Learning Theory, but in case life got in the way, the essential components to understand are the instinctual needs of learners to collaborate and share with the teacher as a facilitator.\u00a0 Doing so in an informal learning space is most desired according to this … read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[109,180,50,92],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-learning","tag-collaboration","tag-differentiation","tag-instructional-strategies","tag-personalized-learning"],"modified_by":"Karen Streeter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2524,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/2524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}