Collaborative learning

For as long as I can remember, for the most part, I have always enjoyed working in groups over individual work. I knew if I worked in a group I would receive help from my group members, making the work easier. Even though it is a fairly new concept, teachers have been favoring collaborative work in their classrooms. In the Trimbur reading it says, "collaborative learning organizes students not just to work together on common projects but more important to engage in a process of intellectual negotiation and collective decision-making." According to the reading some critics believe this kind of group work eliminates individual voice and creativity. Referring to the readings and your personal beliefs, does this in fact seem to be true, is individualism in fact taken away in collaborative learning?

I believe, to a certain extent, individualism could be forgotten. However, how do people learn in the world? Through themselves or through their peers? The obvious answer is both, but I believe most comes from your peers, especially teachers. Conversing with one another allows people to learn through others socially. I don't know how many times someone has told me something I did not know, especially when working in groups. It is easy to relate to others in your class because you are all there learning the same material.

This relates to the term "normal discourse." According to Richard Rorty "this applies to conversation within a community of knowledgeable peers." Those who want to become attorneys have to learn the language of the law, they are in the same community. This is what a teacher is for, to teach and share to the new members of a community his or her knowledge. Students will then learn the subject matter. People in the same community can relate to one another and learn from each other. Perhaps if students were only given group assignments they may never have an individual voice or creativity. But occasionally using group work for specific assignments just might be beneficial. Students can collaborate on their given assignment and help each other to understand the subject better and reach a consensus. Therefore I believe the occasional group work is important and will not take away ones individualism, but one could overdue the group assignments and never give a student a chance to find their own individual voice especially if they have not already found it.

"Writing Workshops"

I really enjoyed this Chapter, for I was able to relate to my past and future. Whenever I come across great ideas or even bad ideas for teaching I feel obligated to write them down. One process I found myself writing down was on the "writing workshops." I can most definitely relate it to my past classrooms. I also believe it is a great way for students to learn writing in a different way. By analyzing the section titled "Student-centered instruction," do feel the writing workshops are significant in the writing process and learning to write?

My past and present day teachers have asked the class to form small groups and revise each others papers (rough drafts). At first I never felt comfortable because I know that writing is not my forte. However after the exercise I found the feedback my fellow classmates gave me to be beneficial when it came time to revise and edit my paper. To be able to see others thoughts and ideas on writing allows you to learn new styles or even grammatical errors you never knew. It also gives you the opportunity to learn new ways of writing whether they are negative or positive. Not all feedback you will agree with.

Statistics even show the benefit of these workshops. I think if you only had an outline you received from the teacher and only your ideas on how to write a paper, you are limited to the creativity you might not be bringing to the table. Having other opinions other than your own may get you out of the rut you were in and give you an idea for an amazing paper, or even improve an already descent paper. "These groups become collaborative teams in which students help one another succeed" (p. 103). In my eyes this is definitely true. However I do also understand that not all students learn the same way, so perhaps this might not be as beneficial to some as it is for others. But I do believe it will have some positive aspects for all, depending on how much positive you get out of it depends on how you learn.

After reading this section I found myself writing down "Group activities, comparing works, collaborating to find the best answer." This section led to my idea of how future workshops or student centered instruction could work in my classroom. This allows for a more active role in learning rather than a non active role. I know how much I prefer hands on learning than auditory. Therefore this activity gives students a chance for hands on rather than auditory. This also may give a teacher the opportunity to experiment with a class to see what learning styles work best in a classroom.