Wednesday 10 October 2018

Collaboration

Now that we've got a good grasp on self-regulation we are moving on to an equally important learning skill, collaboration. Collaboration is one of the global competencies or 21st-century skills that every learner needs. Our Ontario Catholic Graduate Expectations state that each student should be A Collaborative Contributor who:

(a) Works effectively as an interdependent team member.
(b) Thinks critically about the meaning and purpose of work.
(c) Develops one’s God-given potential and makes a meaningful contribution to society.
(d) Finds meaning, dignity, fulfillment and vocation in work which contributes to the common good. (e) Respects the rights, responsibilities and contributions of self and others.
(f) Exercises Christian leadership in the achievement of individual and group goals.
(g) Achieves excellence, originality, and integrity in one’s own work and supports these qualities in the work of others.
(h) Applies skills for employability, self-employment and entrepreneurship relative to Christian vocation.

For our part, we have just started discussing what it means to be an effective collaborator. We used this progression (similar to a rubric) from the deep learning framework to come up with our own ideas of how to collaborate, where we think we are (the blue highlight) and where we need to go. Some of our big ideas where:
  • having a clear common goal 
  • making a plan
  • making decisions as a group
  • having each member contribute equally
  • using each members strengths
  • conflict resolution when problems/disagreement arise
  • understanding (and eventually appreciating) points of view other than our own 

We will be writing our own student-friendly language rubric (en français!) at the bottom of the page.