Developing Collaborative Skills

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Findlay on February 20, 2009 at 7:20am

Hi Nellie,

A very important question!!!! Thank you. If by collaborative skills you mean the way people work/interact/learn together, yes, I believe they can be developed. One way of looking at this issue is the kind of discourse that is taking place - monologue - which is a kind of unilateral speech, discussion - which is like ships passing in the night, dialogue - the current gold standard but which is essentially respectful listening, dialectical - which is purposefully integrative thinking/decision making/learning, ethical dialectical discourse which raises the bar on dialectical....and which I have been researching with a colleague whose specialty is ethics. One of the problems is that people who are practiced in one interaction form e.g. are good presenters and focused on knowledge telling, may not necessarily be capable facilitators who shift responsibility to the learners/participant and are usually good at framing and asking rich, open and discussable questions...and only become really skilled at using these other interaction methods with considerable rehearsal e.g. like an orchestra conductor, jumbo jet pilot or movie director....so it become automatic. People can learn to make use of different interaction etiquettes but need to understand their purpose.Some of the more familiar ones include Think-Pair-Share and Think-Pair-Square-Share from the constructivist classroom, Yes-and from Improv which can be very dialectical if made purposeful, or Talk-Type-Read-Review from our world of electronic meetings. In most of the discussion in this on-line conference that I have observed so far, most of what is happening is monologue or at best discussion, separated in time. To be really getting the most out of our conference we need to go beyond the current gold standard.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tony Karrer on February 20, 2009 at 9:30am

This is a question I've been trying to get my head around for many years. And I agree with John that it's really important. And it is continuously evolving.

A couple of places you might look for help on ideas of what they are:

http://browse.workliteracy.com/collaboration/&sort=relevance

http://cc.fullcirc.com/collaboration/skills/&showMore=true&...

Yes - they can be developed. And are developed constantly through experience.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Karyn Romeis on February 20, 2009 at 9:37am

For a fine example of collaborative skills in action, look no further than your favourite [insert sport name] team. Everybody has a job to do, everybody has a common goal. Each person has a different skill set and job description. And they all work together, compensating for one another when a member fouls up.

For a less immediate situation, consider a ship at sea. The crew works together, each in a different role, to keep the ship afloat and sailing in the right direction, while also keeping the passengers happy and entertained.

For a more extreme example, I gather that Rodgers and Hammerstein, who collaborated to produce so many famous musicals, loathed one another and never actually spent any time together. So completely detached, asynchronous collaboration is also a possibility.

BUT

I would say collaboration requires a personal commitment from each member, preferably to the rest of the team/community, but if not (as in the case of R&H) then at least to the shared objective.

I have worked in situations where one member of a team has set up a Google doc or a wiki to which all of us were supposed to contribute. It was always the same few people who did. There were a few really cynical people on the team, people I call 'eye rollers', who thought we were all nuts. Collaboration was neither a word nor an approach they used often, and they made very little input.

I genuinely believe it is possible for people to learn collaborative skills, but they have to want to, because it is as much about attitude as about anything else - maybe even more so, in fact!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nellie Deutsch on February 20, 2009 at 11:54am

Thank you, Tony. The reason I am asking is that I have been collaborating for many years and am currently facilitating free online workshops on how to use Wikieducator for content sharing and collaborative work. I have had success with teaching how to use wiki markers for content, but unsuccessful in getting participants to develop collaborative skills. The hardest part has been showing people the value in letting go of ownership of content. Maybe there has to be a need for letting go, first. I think if our survival depended on collaboration, people would be ready to collaborate. I would love to develop a program on how to develop collaborative skills.

Tony Karrer said:

This is a question I've been trying to get my head around for many years. And I agree with John that it's really important. And it is continuously evolving.
A couple of places you might look for help on ideas of what they are: http://browse.workliteracy.com/collaboration/&sort=relevance
http://cc.fullcirc.com/collaboration/skills/&showMore=true&...

Yes - they can be developed. And are developed constantly through experience.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Raymond Rose on February 20, 2009 at 12:46pm

This is an interesting issue. One I've seen often, but the problem, and I'd characterize some of the examples you've given above, are that there's someone (leader, participant, etc) that has put some value on a collaboration of something, and says, here's the structure (Google Docs, wiki, etc) and just assumes buy in.

Just because someone attends an online event, doesn't mean they're interested in participating in the community of that they've bought in. The example I use when I talk about this (see my Chapter in ISTE's What Works in K-12 Online Learning is religious communities. Go into a church community and there's an assumption that everyone is there for the same reason, but if you can really get honest answers from each person, there are many different reasons, and I talk about the pain of membership, versus the benefits. I believe that when the pain (defined by the individual) exceeds the benefit they withdraw. And to have successful collaboration the individuals need to see that for them, individually, the benefit exceeds the pain. If they haven't bought into the community (class, project group, etc) or the goal as important they're not likely to play.

Anyway, that's my take on collaboration, and my response is build the community first. And community-building is a process not an event.

ray

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nellie Deutsch on February 20, 2009 at 12:58pm

Ramond,
Yes, we tend to assume what others feel or think without having asked them first. That's why it is so important to find out what people's reasons are for joining a community such as wikieducator.

Thank you for providing examples.

Raymond Rose said:

This is an interesting issue. One I've seen often, but the problem, and I'd characterize some of the examples you've given above, are that there's someone (leader, participant, etc) that has put some value on a collaboration of something, and says, here's the structure (Google Docs, wiki, etc) and just assumes buy in.

Just because someone attends an online event, doesn't mean they're interested in participating in the community of that they've bought in. The example I use when I talk about this (see my Chapter in ISTE's What Works in K-12 Online Learning is religious communities. Go into a church community and there's an assumption that everyone is there for the same reason, but if you can really get honest answers from each person, there are many different reasons, and I talk about the pain of membership, versus the benefits. I believe that when the pain (defined by the individual) exceeds the benefit they withdraw. And to have successful collaboration the individuals need to see that for them, individually, the benefit exceeds the pain. If they haven't bought into the community (class, project group, etc) or the goal as important they're not likely to play.

Anyway, that's my take on collaboration, and my response is build the community first. And community-building is a process not an event.

ray

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tony Karrer on February 20, 2009 at 1:35pm

If you develop that program - my sense is there's interest. BUT ... it's such a broad topic that I think it may be challenging.

Nellie Deutsch said:

Thank you, Tony. The reason I am asking is that I have been collaborating for many years and am currently facilitating free online workshops on how to use Wikieducator for content sharing and collaborative work. I have had success with teaching how to use wiki markers for content, but unsuccessful in getting participants to develop collaborative skills. The hardest part has been showing people the value in letting go of ownership of content. Maybe there has to be a need for letting go, first. I think if our survival depended on collaboration, people would be ready to collaborate. I would love to develop a program on how to develop collaborative skills.

Tony Karrer said:

This is a question I've been trying to get my head around for many years. And I agree with John that it's really important. And it is continuously evolving.
A couple of places you might look for help on ideas of what they are: http://browse.workliteracy.com/collaboration/&sort=relevance
http://cc.fullcirc.com/collaboration/skills/&showMore=true&...

Yes - they can be developed. And are developed constantly through experience.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nellie Deutsch on February 20, 2009 at 2:43pm

Tony,
I did manage to get over 50 people collaborating in teams in a free 6 week online workshop (EVO09) on digital ID and personal learning spaces called digifolios. I provided many challenges and it worked quite well. Participants found the competition challenging.

Tony Karrer said:

If you develop that program - my sense is there's interest. BUT ... it's such a broad topic that I think it may be challenging.

Nellie Deutsch said:

Thank you, Tony. The reason I am asking is that I have been collaborating for many years and am currently facilitating free online workshops on how to use Wikieducator for content sharing and collaborative work. I have had success with teaching how to use wiki markers for content, but unsuccessful in getting participants to develop collaborative skills. The hardest part has been showing people the value in letting go of ownership of content. Maybe there has to be a need for letting go, first. I think if our survival depended on collaboration, people would be ready to collaborate. I would love to develop a program on how to develop collaborative skills.

Tony Karrer said:

This is a question I've been trying to get my head around for many years. And I agree with John that it's really important. And it is continuously evolving.
A couple of places you might look for help on ideas of what they are: http://browse.workliteracy.com/collaboration/&sort=relevance
http://cc.fullcirc.com/collaboration/skills/&showMore=true&...

Yes - they can be developed. And are developed constantly through experience.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bronya Calderón on February 24, 2009 at 4:57pm

Hello Nellie,
I like your question. I associate collaboration with developing an ethos around a particular culture, which will be requiring negotiation, participation and agreement. Collaboration does not happen alone, but together with others in a situated context, which required nurturing.
Bronya

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nellie Deutsch on February 24, 2009 at 7:21pm

Thank you for saying that, Bronya. Can you explain your idea of culture? How would you connect culture to collaboration?
Bronya Calderón said:

Hello Nellie,
I like your question. I associate collaboration with developing an ethos around a particular culture, which will be requiring negotiation, participation and agreement. Collaboration does not happen alone, but together with others in a situated context, which required nurturing.
Bronya

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kim Wikström on April 14, 2009 at 4:47am

Hi,

I just joined this network and found this interesting discussion, that seems to have ebbed off. I'm going to take a few steps, freely using ideas that the others have thrown in here.

Maybe this last path was chosen too soon? The one about culture I mean. The topic got very broad. Yet I believe this is where we eventually will have to go. We are talking about creating new signs for the values that we hold. In swedish (I'm a finnish-swede) we can distinguish between "grupparbete" and "samarbete" and nowadays "kollaborering". We can work as part of a group without really being concerned about the common goal or the others (as long as we get out part done). I remember this kind of activity very well from my days in primary-school. The values that can be compressed into "each man for himself" run deep in our society and are always already there to begin with. So the methods would have to either 1) Make the participants value the common good (through some kind of wake-up call) or 2) make it too painful to ignore the others and not participate. The cultural ethos is, to draw on Karyns earlier point, well expressed in football or ice-hockey or whatever. I dislike the analogy, because I feel there is such a aggressive competitive element there, and there are always loosers, even within the winning team.

However, it seems that if there is a common goal (and often in history that goal has been a common enemy) we start to collaborate, because we cannot afford not to. So: the challenge has to be tough enough and the resources limited?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nellie Deutsch on April 14, 2009 at 11:41am

Patricia Schlict from COL and Wikieducator has taken the initiative and started teacher collaboration. You are invited to join.

▶ Reply to This

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page