CLASSROOM COLLABORATION

Faculty report that classroom collaboration works best when they stress how collaboration defines research and writing in and beyond the academy. For instance, in the sciences, research evolves out of collaborative laboratory work. Outside the academy, much writing-ranging from scriptwriting for television shows to preparing proposals and grants-occurs in groups. Faculty find it helpful to draw on their own experiences of writing articles, reports, or grants with others.

Collaboration does not mean writing a finished document in groups! Similar to the writing-to-learn techniques discussed on this website, collaboration encourages students to explore their ideas BEFORE assignments are due. Collaboration also provides students with a chance to verbalize the content of the course, and to deepen their thinking on a subject by sharing their knowledge with others.

Here are instances of how some teachers used small groups in the WAC program:

. To foster discussion within a class: students answer 2 or 3 specific questions about a reading.

. To engage in a writing workshop: choosing or narrowing a topic for writing; annotating a model text; or reading each others' texts, with some guidance (see Peer Review of Biology Lab Reports).

. To develop analytic skills: completing a group critique of a series of web sites.

. To practice a complex task such as applying a theory to a text: analyzing a movie scene using feminist criticism, or applying a class critique to the architecture of school buildings.

. To practice a specific writing task, such as using quotations correctly.

. To prepare for classroom presentations.

Example
Peer Review of Biology Lab Reports