Learning is enhanced when students have the opportunity to interact and collaborate on tasks. Collaborative learning is a primary instructional approach in learner-centered classrooms. It promotes respect for diversity, flexible thinking, and metacognition. In collaborative instructional contexts, students have opportunities for perspective-taking and reflective thinking that can promote cognitive, social, and moral development and enhance self-esteem.
In Module 1, you assessed your knowledge of learner-centered principles. In Module 2, you created a student-centered, curriculum-integrated lesson or unit plan related to district, state, or national standards. In this module, you will create a collaborative lesson plan or instructional unit plan that specifies the standards that will be addressed.
Directions:
Prepare your work as a conventional paper in a Word or text document using APA format.
Create a title page and references page in APA format.
Support your work by using, citing, and referencing APA format at least one expert source, preferably a peer-reviewed article. Use the APA guidelines for citing/referencing.
Complete a lesson plan or multi-lesson unit plan that uses collaborative learning as a primary method or strategy.
Answer in well-developed paragraphs the three reflection questions at the end of these directions.
Components to Include in Your Lesson or Unit Plan:
The following is a list of components that should be included in your collaborative lesson plan or multi-lesson instructional unit plan. They are presented in a logical order beginning with the subjects or disciplines and followed by the standards you plan to address. The components listed thereafter need not appear in your plan in exactly the order listed.
You are encouraged to read the articles included in the readings for Module 3 before you begin planning since they provide examples of collaborative learning K-12.
Note that the basic components of your plan are the same as in Module 2 but that your focus in this module is collaborative learning rather than curriculum integration as in Module 2.
Grade Level:
Discipline(s) or Subject(s):
Standard(s): Content, Skill, Character, Arts (Standards integration across subjects is not required as it was in week two, but it is acceptable and often desirable or helpful.)
Objectives: (Include all objectives that will be assessed in this collaborative learning experience. Write objectives using Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs. (See Resources, Webliography.)
Summary of Collaborative Group Lesson with emphasis on aspects of student control:
Assessment: (How will student learning be assessed? What criteria or rubric will be used to evaluate the collaborative learning experience?)
Learning Environment: (Briefly describe where the learning will take place and how students will interact with others.)
Student Materials:
Time Frame:
Step-by-Step Procedure: (Provide all information necessary for another teacher to replicate your collaborative group learning experience.)
Presentation Method:
Reflection Paragraphs:
Respond to the questions by reflecting upon how effectively you achieved the objective for this assignment. Use course readings and lectures and other articles to support your answers. Answer each question in at least one well developed paragraph.
What learner-centered principles did you address in your lesson or unit plan? What specific parts of the plan support those principles?
Explain how your collaborative plan will benefit English-language learners and/or another diverse-learner group? Cite at least two examples.
Explain how and why the learning you have planned for students will be truly collaborative, and compare and contrast this in some way with conventional cooperative learning. These types of teaching and learning are not mutually exclusive necessarily and may co-occur in your plan. Your answer to this question should reflect deep conceptual understanding of collaborative learning.
