Collaborative+Lecture

Warning: A radical departure from the expected to follow...
=טובים השנים מן האחד=

Session Description:
==== In what is known as the “knowledge era”, Judaism can lay claim to the oldest inter-generational knowledge community – a page of Talmud. This session will investigate technological options for collaborative learning, including Googledocs, Wikis and mind-mapping tools. (//Note: Googledocs, Wikis, and mind-mapping tools were introduced previously. This session will focus on use of the Wiki as a platform for collaboration. A Googledoc might also have been used in a similar fashion.) // ====

Introduction
====In consideration of the topic of this week's lecture, I decided that immersion in a collaborative exploration would be the most organically 21st century way to approach the topic. Instead of reading a summary of my research and thoughts on this topic, you - the students - will build the equivalent of a lecture in three parts.====
 * Part one will summarize the importance of collaboration as a 21st century skill in both work and life-long learning.
 * Part two will focus on resources related to collaborative and cooperative learning, with the goal of both defining these terms and giving examples of ways that Technology can be used to support it in educational settings.
 * Part three will target collaboration and cooperative learning in Jewish educational settings. You will be asked to describe collaborative learning experiences in Jewish learning that incorporate the use of Technology.

Part One: Collaboration as a 21st Century Skill
Instructions: View this TED video of Howard Rheingold -" The New Power of Collaboration" Next, post either a quote from the video or a probing question about the video. Then, Required: minimum two entries in this section per student.
 * Post either a comment on another person's quote or
 * Post an answer to the probing question

Post your entries to this Page: Part One - Collaboration as a 21st Century Skill

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**Part Two: Collaborative and Cooperative Learning**
"In the collaborative learning environment, the learners are challenged both socially and emotionally as they listen to different perspectives, and are required to articulate and defend their ideas. In so doing, the learners begin to create their own unique conceptual frameworks and not rely solely on an expert's or a text's framework." Source: National Institute for Science Education, []

Instructions: Define collaborative and cooperative learning using the resources that have been added to the class Diigo Group and others you might find. (Note: use the tag "collaboration" to find all of the relevant bookmarks.) Give examples of ways that Technology can be used to support collaborative learning and note the types of learning theory that are at play. For example, would certain cooperative learning activities be considered Constructivist or Behavioralist?

Part Three: Collaborative Learning in Jewish Educational Settings
==== Create! Describe a collaborative learning experience in a Jewish educational setting (either formal or informal) that incorporates the use of Technology. You can either reference someone else's work or invent a program or lesson on your own. The description should be no more than 3-4 sentences. ====

Conclusion (Final thoughts...)
Your reflections on the topic  I found this exercise to be an interesting way to share the teaching experience. I liked the interaction (part 1, where we responded to others' posts as well) more than just posting. I like the idea of collaborative learning and hope to transition to more collaborative learning in my classroom. What I have found is that it scares students at first because they really want to know what to do when and how to do it. I have many students who need their hand held and this model forces them to walk on their own quite a bit. YW  I found it very cool that as we were learning about collaboration we were literally interacting and collaborating with each other! Even if we weren't directly working with other students in our class, we definitely indirectly shared ideas with each other. JG I enjoyed this week's lecture. I think it is really reflective of what we are learning in this course and are hoping to teach. I think that learning to collaborate in our class will help us educate in a more effective manner for our students. -EL

I enjoyed the learning exercises becoming part of the lecture experience. It was very engaging and thought provoking. I understand YW's comment about scaring the students at first, because I didn't really know how to approach most of it and how to go about posting and editing the comments- it was intimidating. LV

I am impressed with and appreciative of your contributions. DN

Resources


Note: The activity in Part one is based on the collaborative learning strategy titled Save the Last Word which is described in [|http://www.facinghistory.org/resources/strategies/save-last-word-me.] The activity in Part two is a collaborative WebQuest. The activity in Part three is free-style sharing. and... Notice that this lecture follows the 21c format:
 * Frame Knowledge
 * Explore
 * Create/Generate
 * (Share)
 * Reflect