Successful Collaboration: Beyond Passive Information Assimilation Towards Shared Knowledge Construction

1. Successful Collaboration: Beyond Passive Information Assimilation Towards Shared Knowledge Construction Online Collaborations, Reflections, Assessments, & Asking Experts Diane L. Judd, Ph.D.Valdosta State Universitydjudd@valdosta.edu

2. Online Collaborations & LiveText • Educational Experts Online • Chatting with the Experts • Ask the Experts • LiveText: COE Commitment • Field Experience Reflections & Teacher Candidates Responding to Peers • LiveText: Share, View, Edit, & Review • Teacher Candidates Assignment Collaboration • Rubrics & Assessing • Assessment Reports

3. Educational Experts Online • Chatting with the Experts • Archive Chat Logs(www.teacherresourcebank.com Ask the Expert Archive Chat Logs) • Ask the Experts • Asked the Experts Logs of previous Questions & Answers(www.teacherresourcebank.com Ask the Expert Archive Chat Logs)

4. Educational Experts Online: Chatting with the Experts • Comments from the Archive Chat logs • Teacher Candidate (1): All we have been doing for the past three weeks is CRCT practice (state knowledge & skills test). • Teacher Candidate (2): Same in my first grade classroom. Our principal REALLY puts a lot of pressure on our teachers and their scores. • Expert (A): I think that teachers are taking this way toooooooooo far! If you are teaching the curriculum, providing your students with hands-on experiences, assessing as you teach, then your students will do fine! We cannot teach the CRCT...we don't even get to unseal them until the day of the test! • Expert (B): I good way to get ready for the CRCT is to practice about once a week for 15-20 minutes all year instead of waiting until April and doing it non-stop!

5. Educational Experts Online: Ask the Experts • Comments from the Ask the Experts logs • Teacher Candidate: I have a question about student behavior. One of my students talks back about everything. This student argues about assignments, behavior, everything. We (my mentor and I) have tried everything from ignoring the student to answering his questions/comments. Nothing works. What else could we try? • Expert (A): Wow, I have several students in my second grade class who make mostly negative comments about almost everything! I spend a lot of time redirecting (or trying to ignore) their comments. This is obviously attention-seeking behavior, and almost any reinforcement you give will ultimately increase the behavior. If you have a student who chronically talks back, give them a notebook and when they start to say something negative, make a gesture which tells them to "write it down." Don't even let them get more than a few words out; motion for them to "write it down" then move on. Granted, they will often say what they want before you get a chance to stop them, but if you do this often enough, it will hopefully extinguish the behavior. I have a "problem box" in my room, in which students can anonymously place "complaints" and during the day when there are a few extra minutes, we pull one out and talk about it as a class. This is good social skill development for the entire class. Also give a lot of positive reinforcement when you catch the student being positive! Good luck! • Expert (B): I have a student like this in my class in first grade and I know this kind of behavior is difficult to ignore. I try to compliment him at least five times a day. It is often not about academics or behavior, but about personal things. Because he knows that I like him, I can tell him to put his attitude away - this works sometimes. My student seeks attention through this behavior, so I try to not to rationalize with him.

6. LiveText Commitment: Practicum Discussion Board • Teacher Candidates discuss designated field experience topics & respond to peers on class LiveText Discussion Board. (Example: Discuss the stages of development of the students in your practicum classroom.) ((LiveText Visitor's Pass Code:  A0136B01)

7. LiveText Commitment: Practicum Discussion Board • Teacher Candidate’s Comments on the Class Discussion Board: • This is my very first practicum. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The children are so eager to read, try new things, and learn in general. As a whole my class is very diverse. I have eight girls and ten boys. The atmosphere in the classroom reflects the boy girl ratio. There are four different reading groups. The levels reflect their personal reading skills. The difference between the lowest and the higher readers are not that big, but the levels are great enough to be a challenge. One student leaves for P.A.C.E.S. This is a special pull out group for more advanced learners. I have one student with an I.E.P. He goes to speech every Thursday. Socially the class is very active, as most first graders are! Though some kids are a little more rambunctious than others, that is to be expected. I have no children with any physical disabilities. This class asks many questions. How to spell things, what the right punctuation is for a sentence, as well as what I learn in school. No two days have been the same. One day I was bombarded by eager readers in a small group activity. The next, I had to coax the other groups to finish a reading assignment. I am very excited to be in this classroom. The teacher is very eager; this creates an excitement in the children that encourages them everyday. • Response for Peer: • I’m really glad to know that someone felt as nervous about being in the practicum as I was! Even though I’ve had a practicum before, it is a lot different than last time. The children in my practicum are really talkative too. It seems like the boys have a harder time being motivated about their work because they are always playing with their pencils or being active in some form. The girls tend to be more competitive towards each other. This acts as their motivation. The students rarely do group work either. They have desks that are pushed together to form tables, but they work on their own. I agree with you about going back to get the full effect. I would like to see what the children do after 11:00. The children have such a great capacity to learn and it makes me feel so great when I teach them any type of new concept. They are great children and my mentor teacher is wonderful as well. I don’t feel like a burden in the classroom because he tries to include me in whatever they do. I also feel as though this experience will be one I will not forget!

8. LiveText: Share, View, Edit, & Review Assignment Collaboration • Teacher Candidates can share group assignments in LiveText with peers in their group. • Members of the group can access the group project and edit project online.

9. LiveText: Share, View, Edit, & Review Rubrics & Assessing

10. LiveText: Share, View, Edit, & Review Assessment Reports • Assessment Reports in LiveText can provide organized evidence for NCATE, University, COE, & Department Reports.