By Neeti Prasad, 7th Grade
Collaboration is
one of the five qualities that our teachers pound into us during class, but
why?
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| Collaboration is one of the Five Important Qualities at DRSS. |
We do a lot of
group work here at DRSS--teachers usually pick our groups--but sometimes we get
to pick our own partners. These are our favorite times, but is it really better
than having teachers choose our partners? I sat down and talked to Ms.
Whitman-Allen, a 7th grade STEM Foundations teacher, about her
criteria for planning a perfect match!
When planning a
group, Ms. Whitman-Allen said that she not only looks for people who are
productive but also be able to go through ups and downs together. I found this
interesting. So, whenever you feel that you are paired with a person that is a
complete slacker, well there is a purpose to that. Teachers aren’t trying to
torture you but they are rather trying to help you. If you don’t believe me listen
to what Ms. Whitman-Allen had to say when I asked her about these ups and
downs. She said that when she groups people together, she wants to see them get
the work done and also grow together socially. She explained that she wants
them to use their conflict resolution strategies to fix any problems that they
might have among themselves. Going down her criteria list she also said that
she puts people together who can benefit from collaboration. She likes pairing
people who can challenge each other. After all this, teachers do consider the
question that students usually answer with a "no" when assigned partners: would
they like and attempt to get to know
each other?
Ms. Whitman-Allen
said that her main goal when partnering up people is to get them to mature when
working in groups. She wants to bring in the concepts of knowing different
strategies that can help students join forces to solve problems. She gave me
one simile that made me smile. She said that students in groups often "act like
siblings" and "treat each other like siblings." She felt this because students
often fight and speak with no regrets to each other. This is something that Ms.
Whitman-Allen wants to fix. She said that she wants students to learn from the experience
for the future.
Ms. Whitman-Allen said that she tries to pair people
with different strengths to add diversity to the group. This made me think
about my own experience with a partner. The storybook project that we did was a
two-month long project. In this
project, we wrote and illustrated a fictional story that explained to an
elementary student how to effectively communicate, how to use refusal skills,
and how to use conflict resolution strategies. We knew that it was going to be
a long process and I was very happy to be with such a talented and hard-working
partner. We complemented each other very well. My partner’s strength was mostly
in the artistic field while I was better at writing stories. We noticed our
talents early on in the project so we took advantage of them and we were able
to produce the final product with creative pictures as well as a great story.
By working together, we were able to accomplish this. In our case, Ms. Whitman-Allen’s goal for our
partnership was to have it grow by combining our different talents.
When we go out
into the real world, we will not have collaboration logs that affect our grades
and we will not have little conferences with our teacher. If we have a problem
with someone, we have to step up and fix it in a mature manner. Sounds tough?
Well, that’s why you work in groups with people who you don’t exactly see eye to
eye with. So before you start going on a long rant of how teachers hate you and
how they just want to see you suffer with that partner, stop to think about why
they are doing it. In the end, it is all for our own good!
