Session 4 - Collaboration through dialogue

One of the four 21st century competencies is collaboration, which creates communication between different stakeholders. A sense of learning community is created as the stakeholders, such as educators and learners, continuously learn from each other.

In this reflection, I ask whether, irrespective of my role in a learning process, how can I communicate effectively to achieve the fullest in a collaboration environment?

In the article “Exploring Collaborative Dialogue”, the author makes a clear distinction between competitive dialogue and collaborative dialogue. Competitive dialogue is based on debates and arguments whilst collaborative dialogue is the learning between peers as a team, where they can build the same understanding together even when they disagree.

For a learning community to have the best dialogue, it is necessary to have effective persuasion. In the interview with Don Rothman, he argues that

‘persuasion is an ugly word that reveals a desire to abuse others rather than an act of social responsibility that can be performed with respect, even love.’

Rothman states that effective persuasion is constructed through three behaviours, namely:

1. Respecting the views of others - persuasion works to understand what other people are thinking.
2. Respectfully describing sources of disagreement - first understand the position of others so one can articulate them respectfully and clearly. Then, one can stand a better chance of pointing out the fault.
3. Sustaining conversation - being persuasive depends on careful listening.

In 21st century education, effective persuasive dialogue is the way forward towards a comprehensive communication strategy within the collaborative learning community.

References

Exploring Collaborative Dialogue. Retrieved on 25th May 2015 from http://plugusin.pbworks.com/w/page/40688602/Exploring%20Collaborative%20Dialogue 

The writing classroom as a laboratory for Democracy: An interview with Don Rothman. Retrieved on 25th May 2015 from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/download/nwp_file/9032/Writing_Classroom_as_Lab.pdf?x-r=pcfile_d

Session 3 - The Jigsaw Method

During this lesson, the lecturer used the jigsaw method. Tuparova & Tuparov (2009) state that this method “manages collaborative activity in which every participant is extremely important for the realization of the ultimate goal”.

The Jigsaw method is an active learning strategy and collaborative method that encourages students to engage in individual or small group activities. It is an active learning exercise where a generic topic is divided into smaller inter-related pieces, each team member is assigned to read and become an expert on a different piece of the puzzle, who then shares the acquired knowledge with his/her team mates. Finally, the puzzle is re-assembled and each team member then knows something valuable about each piece of the jigsaw.

A detailed explanation of the concepts of  the Jigsaw method are given in the following animated YouTube video:

Mengduo & Xiaoling (2010), quoting John & Holubec (1993), state the five main principles for the jigsaw strategy. These principles are  positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive interaction, individual and group accountability, interpersonal skills and group processing.  

In fact, through the jigsaw method, I noticed that all of my peers were engaged with the activity  as everybody took responsibility and accountability to teach the others what they have been become experts in.  A great advantage of this method was that we worked with different peers and not work same peers that would otherwise allow us to stay in our comfort zone. It was a positive learning process to work collaboratively for the first time with different peers as every person in the group felt important to share the newly acquired expertise on the particular teaching method.

References

Tuparova, D & Tuparov G (2009). The “Jigsaw” Collaborative Method in Blended Learning Course “Computer Games and Education” - Realization in Moodle Retrieved on 19th May 2015 from http://www.icl-conference.org/dl/proceedings/2009/program/pdf/Contribution_071.pdf

Mengdu, Q & Xiaoling, J. (2010). Jigsaw Strategy as a Cooperative Learning Techniques: Focusing on the Languages Learners. Retrieved on 19th May 2015 from http://www.celea.org.cn/teic/92/10120608.pdf