Collaborative teaching practice

Collaborative practice is the most inclusive and effective of the interactive pedagogies, and the most suitable for large classes:

• Students are invited to study a subject in small groups while learning cross-curricular life skills: listening, dialoguing, collaborating, sharing, helping and encouraging each other to achieve. They get to know and appreciate each other better, reinforcing their feelings of inclusion and belonging. In this way, all students are included, even those at the back of the class. They can take on roles such as scribe, presenter, timekeeper or moderator, thus enhancing the value of each member of their group.
• The teacher circulates among the groups to help and stimulate them, looks at each student and invites them to practice these values and behaviors to succeed in learning together. Every student feels valued. Classroom management becomes easier.
• In very large classes, collaborative practice is the only way for the teacher to reach every student, including those at the back of the class. The teacher can put students in pairs, or rearrange tables so that 3-4 students are facing each other, or ask students in one row to swivel on their bench to face two students in the row behind.

Collaborative pedagogy differs from cooperative pedagogy in that the students all work together, which is a source of more interaction, whereas in cooperative pedagogy, the students divide up the tasks, which is a source of more autonomy and responsibility.

• Collaborative pedagogy is well suited to homogeneous classes, but can also be used in heterogeneous classes, where the strongest students are given responsibility for those who need more help.
• Cooperative pedagogy can work in heterogeneous classes if students are ready to develop their autonomy.
• Both forms also raise awareness of the group’s interdependence and dependence on the desired outcome.

See also:

• differentiated teaching for heterogeneous classes
• Cooperative pedagogical practice
• Celestin Freinet