3 Ways to Boost Collaboration and Interaction

Have you noticed that some of your students set and listen passively? These students are likely to forget what they learn easily! One reason for this is the lack of engagement. Likewise, such passive learning may result in some behaviors which come from the bored environment. To gain more meaningful learning, teachers concentrate on improving collaboration and interaction. Working groups, think-pair-share, and jigsaw are ways to boost collaboration and interaction.

Working in groups:

When a whole class is divided into small groups, it creates chances for more interaction and collaboration. Each group is assigned a challenging task and related to what they are learning. After thoroughly discussing their assignment among their group, they share their findings with their classroom. Working in a small group gives each student an opportunity to engage working with her/his mates. It deepens their knowledge via working to find and organize their new information. In addition, it helps shy students sharing their opinions freely without the fear of being criticized because they still seeking to understand. Working in a group, also, develops other skills such as communication and presentation.

Think-pair-share:

A teacher shows students a picture, a video clip, or a sentence. Then, she\he asks about their opinions, for example.  First, give them time to think and preferably write down their ideas. Second, ask students to share their ideas with their classmates. This gives them a chance to elaborate and clarify their ideas. Third, after having time to discuss with their classmates, the time comes to share the ideas with the whole class. It is a great technique for oral communication skills. In addition, they become more active in learning. By discussing student’s thoughts with her/his classmate, they develop confidence before speaking to the whole class which is another advantage.

Jigsaw:

In the jigsaw, the teacher divides student into groups. Each group has the same number of students. The content of the lesson is divided among the members of the group.  Each member of the group is accountable for a specific part of the content. The same is done with the other groups. Next, students meet in expert groups. From each group, students who are assigned to part A, for example, create a group. In this new group (expert group), students discuss more deeply this specific part. Finally, they go back to their original group. They start sharing their information, one by one, about the part they discuss in their expert groups. Students take notes and ask their mate because they have to comprehend the entire content. Sometimes, teachers give students a quiz to make sure that all students understand the whole parts of the content.

These are three examples of increasing interaction and collaboration in your classroom. These help in breaking the boring routine. However, they usually take more time than teaching by lecturing, for example. Besides, introvert students like to work alone rather than with a group.

Why Teachers Need Anchor Activities

Do some of your students find themselves do nothing? Many times some students complete their assigned activities or quizzes before their classmates. Also, teachers occasionally need to spend more time with slow learning students and not forgetting the other students.  This creates a valuable extra time. It gives an opportunity to enrich learning outcomes. Anchor activities are very helpful in these circumstances.

These activities are designed to be adequate for any lesson and suitable for all student levels in that class. These activities are prepared before and ready for students at any time. Usually, there is an instructional board which tells students what to do if they finished. It gives them options. It allows them to choose what is interesting to them. For example, in a language art class, reading stories and writing journals are good examples.

Such activities play an important role in class management. They help in eliminating boredom by engaging students in exciting and creative learning techniques. In addition, they maximize learning by providing more practice and drills.  Independent reading is a probable anchor activity that helps students building new vocabulary and increases their comprehension ability.

For lucky classes equipped with computers and tablets, the opportunity for providing more motivating activities is high. A student may watch a short movie clip and write something about it. Another student may prefer to prepare something for the next lesson or search something she or he is interested in.

Do all anchor activities need to be educational? Not always. Although educational activities are the main purpose, a teacher can allow some fun activities. Games like connect four or bowling refresh student minds. So, they become enthusiastic and ready for the next learning activity.

Anchor activities save teacher's time and make the class becomes in more controlled and disciplined. It keeps teachers from facing troubles caused by some out of work students.