Skip to main content

Collaboration in the PYP



In a PYP classroom, you will most likely find the old system of seating arrangement (rows) gone. Little pods of desks and chairs are grouped in ways that promote conversation. Students are expected to work in groups to solve problems, ask for help, give help, etc. And yet have you ever wondered about students who don't like to talk that much or mix with others. There could be that one child who sulks in the corner, refusing to collaborate with his peers, much to the chagrin of the teacher. "Your child must learn to contribute during group activities..." could be one of our thoughtless comments on a report card. I am sure it's hard for many adults to think in the midst of noise! Maybe looking at the social skills (collaboration) in isolation is wrong. How about keeping in mind thinking skills in tandem with collaboration. First think things through...then collaborate.

I am an introvert. I enjoy retreating into my little corner and contemplating about things...my life, my job, my students. They all come to life in my mind. At times, I talk things through with...myself! That's when things begin to take shape, crytallize, evolve. That's usually when I find solutions to niggling problems. It is now, after this period of silence, that I feel more empowered to share my thoughts with my colleagues. Mind you, I can be impulsive and blurt our things, but it is usually with people I trust not to ridicule me. Imagine a child being ridiculed for saying the wrong thing? This fear can be crippling when the teacher insists that a child share her thoughts with her peers.

Creativity needs space, time and silence. How can that happen when we thrust children into a maelstrom of  problems, posters, pens and general pandemonium!







I came across this Tedtalk video, where Susan Cain talks about the power of introverts and how they can be a valuable part of a team, if given enough space and time to think things through.

So teachers, maybe we need to re-think some of the seating arrangements and strategies in the classroom? How about a couple of seats in isolation? Observe which child(ren) gravitate towards them.

I leave you with a cartoon that summarizes the post :)




Collaborate!
Labels:

Comments

  1. jamesaSeptember 27, 2012 at 9:46 AM

    A thoughtful and perceptive piece - as I would expect!
    You might like this article called 'Why Introverts Can Make The Best Leaders':

    http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/30/introverts-good-leaders-leadership-managing-personality.html

    James

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NainiOctober 13, 2012 at 7:28 AM

      Thank you James. haven't heard from you for a while! :) I will check out this link!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

Popular posts from this blog

Generalization-Designing Your Lessons for Conceptual Understanding (Part 3)

This post is the third of our blog post series on how to design lessons for conceptual understanding. Part 1 here Part 2 here Strategy 3 : Generalizations You may have come across Lynn Erickson's diagram on the structure of knowledge. In my IB workshop's I always like to present the avocado model alongside this diagram when I am talking about facts. The intention of inquiry-based teaching and conceptually-driven understanding (or Concept-based inquiry- whatever terminology suits your fancy)  is to enable students to make generalizations. In other words, can they transfer their learning to a new context because they have understood what they learnt.  In order to make generalizations, we need to first plan lessons that help students acquire facts/topics that are interesting  and worth knowing. Bringing in local and global issues that are relevant to the topic help students as they begin to compare the topics and see emerging patterns. Remember, facts and concepts have a syn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Classification -Designing Your Lessons for Conceptual Understanding (Part 1)

In this series, we will discuss how we can design lessons for conceptual understanding. Having recently completed an upskilling course with IB, I felt we may all benefit from looking at some of these strategies and how they might look like in our PYP classrooms. Strategy 1: Classification    Source: Ibo.org In this post, I will be focusing on the research-backed strategy, "classification".  Chadwick (2009) highlights that classification helps develop conceptual understanding by allowing students to organize information, recognize patterns, and understand relationships among concepts.  Here are some examples across several disciplines on how I have used tools to classify. Math Class 1) In my math class (Grade 3) instead of having students simply rote learn the names of the shapes and their properties, have them sort the shapes  based on the number of sides, angles and symmetry. Even better, use the Concept Attainment Strategy (I keep returning to this strategy be...
Post a Comment
Read more

Concepts-In-Use: Designing your lessons for Conceptual Understanding (Part 6)

  Concepts-In Use www.ibo.org In this post, one more strategy takes center stage when it comes to designing lessons that aid conceptual understanding in our students: Concept-In-Use. This strategy should be used once several concepts have been covered in class.  A great way to know whether your students are internalizing the concepts is to ask them to explain the connections between two concepts. For example:  In Math Ask them to convert a fraction to a percentage.  Or a percentage to a decimal.  Can they clearly explain the connection?  Can they use drawings to support their explanation? Can they articulate the difference between a prism and a pyramid.  How are they same?  How are they different? How can you represent data visually?  Bar graphs, pictographs, line charts are all concepts. As a designer of conceptual lessons, a teacher needs to be keenly aware of the connections between concepts.  For instance, is the Grade 3 teacher awar...
Post a Comment
Read more