The power of collaborative learning

Last week, I was teaching a group of Year 6 children in my office. Nothing unusual there, but what I did notice was the incredible learning behaviours. I have been in this profession, for over 16 years now and I don't think I have ever experienced such positive learning behaviours as those that I witnessed last week. I simply asked the children to look back at a previous test they had done for Level 6 Maths and given that they had a further 3 months of learning under their belts, asked them to tackle the problems they had previously got incorrect. I did not want them to do this alone, however; I wanted them to use each other's understanding to collaboratively solve the problems. I asked this specifically because I wanted to see how the children worked together, to listen to who could ask the most efffective kinds of questions to their peers, and to see who could share their knowledge and strategies with others. But more than anything, I wanted to see whether the children solved the problems more or less effectively than if they had been asked to do this independently. I sat back and took stock of the situation, listening and watching intently, taking notes of what the children were saying out loud.

For at least 15 minutes, there was an audible buzz of interaction, a sharp focus from each child which faltered for nothing and an excitement in their achievements which was touching to see. Verbal interactions amongst the children included:

"What did you get for that?"
"This is how I worked this out"
"I can't believe I got that one wrong!!"
"I haven't a clue how to tackle that one- show me how you did it".
"I got that one right, let me show you what I did"
" I can definitely solve this one now- look!"
"We all got that one wrong, let's tackle it together"
"Ooooooooh yes, I can see that now- thanks"
"Would I use the grid method for that?"
"YES! I did it!"
The level of accuracy improved dramatically.

This is a great example of how collaborative learning is powerful and effective and impacts on the depth of the children's understanding. This approach to learning is something that Year 5 and 6 teachers are implementing more and more, especially with the higher achieving children.