Collaboration: A Way to Reach All Learners

Collaboration is not only fun, but it also helps our students who have moved from other countries learn more effectively. In her book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students (Corwin, 2014), Zaretta Hammond discusses the importance of collaborative lessons for culturally responsive teaching. Because we as Americans are raised with a focus on individual achievements and goals, as teachers, we need to remember that many other countries value the whole community over personal achievements. This understanding helps us plan inclusive units that improve learning in diverse student populations. Participating in group projects allows students who learn best in cooperative settings to take in information in the way that works best for them.

Collaboration Benefits All
I have found that the whole class benefits when you do something to improve the learning of one group of students. Collaboration benefits all students because it builds their problem-solving, social-emotional, and exploratory learning skills. For example, last year, local guest artist Justin Ek collaborated with students to create banners that taught them about his cultural heritage and how it influences his own art. Each class created a banner to represent their entire class using symbols they generated with Ek, thereby developing skills in collaboration and brainstorming.

Process Learning
When I want my students to concentrate on the process rather than the product, I present them with a collaborative project, which helps them focus on exploring the materials rather than creating something specific because they know that no one will be taking the artwork home.

At the beginning of a unit on paper sculptures, I have students work in teams to explore all the ways they can make 2D paper into 3D forms. Students are less worried about their artwork becoming something recognizable and are willing to play and experiment. As a side benefit, when I hang the group explorations in the halls, I educate other teachers, administrators, and parents about the importance of process learning and exploratory play.

Social-Emotional Learning
During collaborative art lessons, students learn to share, negotiate with one another, and build each other up with compliments. Last year, my fifth-grade students worked in teams to create fashion from recycled materials. Each team had to decide if its design would be based on historical fashion, contemporary culture, animals, machines, etc. Team members worked together to sketch ideas and decide which one to go with, then planned the materials they would collect and use. With everything from robots and foxes to a “Covid wedding” complete with masks and a toilet paper veil, the teams worked hard and built up their relationship skills with one another as they created their pieces.

During in-process sharing time, students gave each other feedback using the “glow and grow” method to give each team a compliment and a way to work more on their fashion design.

Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is a huge part of working together as a team. This is an important life skill because adults frequently collaborate in teams to solve problems or generate new ideas in their professions. Brainstorming and working out how to implement an idea is important learning that students can carry throughout their lives.
During the paper sculpture exploration, students are quick to jump in and help a friend who is struggling to balance or connect parts of the sculpture. This is exactly the skill set that many companies are looking for in today’s workforce; people who can think creatively to solve a problem as it arises. Collaborative lessons shift art projects from a me focus on finding individual solutions to a we focus on working together for the betterment of the group.