Nonetheless, as a learner, collaborative work has been valuable because it has brought me into contact with other individuals who have different backgrounds, different strengths, and different ideas. This has enriched my school experience. However, I actually think that the most important things I’ve learned from doing collaborative group work in school are not related to the subject matter of the assignments or courses, but rather the general skills required to successfully work with others—virtually or in person. And I think this is the most important part of school group work because it is highly transferable to the actual work place.
There are many opportunities to collaborate as a librarian, either with other librarians, staff, faculty members, administrators, IT departments, or other interested parties. I’d argue it’s likely impossible to be a librarian and not be engaged in some level of collaborative work. No librarian is an island. To do our job, we need to work together with many other people. In terms of instruction design, an ideal scenario is that librarians can work together with faculty members to incorporate information literacy lessons and assignments within the course curriculum. It’s also very valuable to collaborate with other librarians regarding lesson design. My experiences with the Lesson Review and Online Module assignments have confirmed this. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development also supports the idea that a more capable peer and/or a group can encourage student—and teacher/librarian—development.
Stigler and Hiebert state the following:
Another important benefit of the collaborative nature of lesson study is that it provides a benchmarking process that teachers can use to gauge their own skills…. At the same time, the collaborative nature of lesson study balances the self-critiquing…with the idea that improved teaching is a joint process…. Problems that emerge are generally attributed to the lesson as designed by the group…. It thus becomes possible for teachers to be critical. (as cited by Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, pp. 317-318)
It can be difficult to be self critical, and it can also be difficult to be directly critical of someone else. The beauty of truly collaborative lesson design is, as stated in the quote, that the problems in the lesson are not directly attributed to any one individual; therefore, the goal is that teachers, or in our case librarians, are freer to be critical, with the purpose of making improvements.
So, we wouldn’t necessarily be lesson planning together, but if any of you are finished with your final project and want to take this collaboration/socializing from the virtual world to the physical world, I’m planning on going to the California Conference on Library Instruction in Santa Cruz, California, May 13th. Appropriately, the workshop is titled, “No Librarian Is an Island: Exploring in-person and virtual instruction, as we work towards innovative, collaborative, and engaging teaching techniques”—I swear I decided on the title for this post before I actually looked this up!
[LIBR250 Prompt: What is the role of collaboration in understanding?]
References
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
4 comments:
I think you're right about grading altering the experience of working together--but I think that has its corollaries in the workplace as well. Sometimes you have to make a product or presentation of some kind, everyone will be judged by the result, and you don't necessarily get to pick whom you will work with. A lot of times it can become a thing people want to just get through, and no one is really interested in looking at it as a collaborative learning opportunity. But people can learn a lot of important things from these situations (sometimes against their will!). And I think a lot of this comes from the fact that, as you pointed out, the responsibility is shared, so people can feel freer to take risks without entirely sacrificing their egos if things go poorly.
I really love the quote you cited from UBD. Collaboration works best when there is genuine respect and esteem from all sides, so that the joint process doesn't involve anyone feeling put down. But in reality, there often is a "weak link" in the collaboration. I really liked that you talked about ZPD, because mentoring is kindof like a collaboration with someone who helps you develop your own skills and voice so you'll eventually become a major contributor and/or a mentor in your own right.
I also like the Wiggins & McTighe quote that you referenced. It is so often harder to "see" ourselves than it is for us to see others, but collaboration can generate opportunities for self-reflection. By working with others, we see a mirror held up to ourselves--just the contrast of styles & ideas can provide that experience. (That may be an overly broad generalization, but I think it is oftentimes true.) Working with others helps to take us outside of ourselves, consider problem solving/ outcomes/ approaches from different perspectives. And there will oftentimes be dissent or at least differences of ideas over the course of the collaboration--learning to navigate those differences can be challenging. But there is a great benefit there if those conversations help us to become critical in a constructive way and tunes our interpersonal skills.
I think "shared responsibility" can be a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing if it allows people to be freer to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and work for the common good of the group. It's a curse if by sharing the responsibility, some members think they actually get to shirk the responsibility (like what Casandria says about the "weak link").
Yeah, I hadn't really thought about the self-reflection that goes on when collaborating with others, but I do agree that is seems to be a natural component of group work. I'm going to have to think about this some more...
Post a Comment