Collaborative Learning and EAL learners

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Collaborative Learning and EAL learners

• Newport 17th March 2008

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The Game of MUD

• Blank
• Fog
• Mud
• Cactus
• Forest

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EAL learners needs

• Blank This means total ignorance. Never heard of
  it.
• Fog I have difficulty with this. My mind
  switches off...was badly taught... it just bores
  me...
• Mud A more comfortable natural state. Yes,
  something stirring there. I might remember with a
  little help. But FACTS... I couldnt
  actually...dont ask me.
• Cactus Well yes, for what its worth, I know
  this...and this...and this...one, two,
  three...and thats my lot.
• Forest At home with this. Plenty of facts. Could
  write an essay, give a lecture. Move over and
  Ill show you.

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What is Collaborative Learning?

• Interactive activities
• Carefully structured
• Accessible to all
• Promotes speaking, listening and thinking

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How does collaborative learning help thinking?

• Visual/kinesthetic support for concept
  development
• Opportunities to value prior knowledge
• Supportive environments to formulate new ideas
• Opportunities to rework/reword ideas and provide
  time for reflection

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How does collaborative learning help thinking?

• Opportunities to revisit learning in attractive
  ways
• Templates for pupils to develop their own
  activities
• Scaffolds talk at all levels simultaneously
• Provides tasks that model thinking processes
• Transformation of information

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How are activities planned?

• What do we want the children to know?
• What kinds of thinking do we hope they will
  practice?
• What kinds of language do they need? Necessary
  language and potential language?
• What key visuals best produce the thinking and
  the language?

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Here is an example!!

• We want children to consider the different
  habitats of animals.
• Where do they live?
• What is it like there?
• Why do they live there?
• How do they survive and/or thrive?

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What key visual will help their
thinking?Initially a sorting grid or chart.
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This can be made into a game.

• You need 4 people, one baseboard and two sets of
  cards (different colours.)
• Work with a partner to make a team of two.
• Shuffle your cards and place them in a pile
  facing down.
• Take it in turn to turn over your top card and
  decide where to put it on the board.
• The winning team gets four in row vertically,
  horizontally or diagonally.
• Decide whether to have challenges or a checking
  system.

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Your instructions!

• Take a sample Quicklook
• Study it carefully in pairs. What learning needs,
  language needs, social needs does it address?
• What language and thinking does it practice?
• Would it work for your EAL learners?
• What changes might be necessary?
• Now leave your partner, and each of you find
  another colleague with a different Quicklook.
  Explain your activity to your new partner and let
  your new partner explain theirs to you.
• If there is time, exchange your Quicklooks, and
  find another partner to repeat the process.

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Who benefits from collaborative learning?

• Everyone
  and in particular
• More able bilingual pupils
• Challenging pupils
• Independent learners
• Children with mismatched skills

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Where can I find collaborative learning
activities?

• Collaborative Learning Project
• www.collaborativelearning.org
• Please browse through the Quicklooks on the
  website and download one full activity to try out
  on your EAL learners and/or your colleagues back
  at school.

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Collaborative Learning Project

• A teacher network since 1983
• Developed in challenging and multilingual
  classrooms
• Cross phase and cross curricular
• Online library of sample strategies templates to
  support your own planning. Good enough to use and
  to tweak.
• Promotes collaborative planning through workshops
  and training throughout UK.