We have worked together to create and structure a research project for her grade 6 classes. Collaboration is important and so is structuring the research for students. It's not good enough to say to students, "Here's your topic! Here's your due date! On your marks get set go." In almost every case releasing the hounds, so to speak will not result in effective research.
Lets begin with collaboration.... The old saying two heads are better than one is absolutely correct.
Research projects can be complicated, time consuming and overwhelming for both a teacher and the students, having a second set of hands to assist with the whole event is very important.
Today at school Mrs. Camarda and I engaged in collaborative teaching with her grade 6 classes. The students are beginning a research project on Canada's aboriginal people's. Students are being asked to learn about their history, culture and the lives of modern First Nations people, here in Canada. Students will present their learning at a potlatch type event later on this month in class. The kids are looking forward to the event.
Over the past few weeks Mrs. Camarada and I have discussed the project thoroughly, planned out a schedule for research in the library and created a structure and set of guidelines for the students. We then discussed what I would cover with the students and how I would guide them at the beginning of the research. Mrs. Camarda created the task checklists and daily work summaries for each group to fill out, along with a list of resources to use. Mrs. Camarda searched and found some resources. I also assisted by finding some of the resources and websites we would supply the students in order to help give them direction. I also pulled a large number of print resources from our shelves that have been reserved solely for here classes use in the library.
On the day when we introduced the project to the students Mrs. Camarda and I took turns explaining different elements of the project and we also worked together to meet with each group and help them to consolidate each person's role within their groups. Kids seemed to be focused and confident.
Students decided on their roles and negotiated with group members to resolve conflicts over who was going to complete which tasks. Rock, paper, scissors was used occasionally to rectify disagreements. :)))
At that point we began our preview of available resources. Students perused the print resources and made quick notes of page numbers and book titles and myself and Mrs. Camarda circulated throughout the room assisting students in using the index and table of contents to help them find information on their topics.
Then students were introduced to the online resources in the same way and we discussed using Boolean terms to help narrow down their searches. They were given about 20 minutes at the end of the period to begin their research. Here's a link to the digital library we introduced to students today. It's one designed solely for Peel students. Library eResources
During all this activity Mrs. Camarda and I worked to help students we would make comments about each other's suggestions and the discussion with the kids was very much a give and take between the two of us neither of us led the lesson while the other was silent. We had a conversation with the kids. When one of us forgot to mention something the other would jump in. It worked very well.
I hope that we have provided the students with an example of good collaboration that they will use with their groups and that we have enriched their learning by having two of us available to assist them with their learning.
So I will end here by saying I will definitely post samples of student work when they finish up their projects and I look forward to working with Mrs. Camarda again this year. It was a blast and we're not even finished the project yet.
I've included the assignment pages here.
As a side note here's a link to another project I'm currently collaborating on with 4 other teachers.
The motivation tap
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