How Can I Help Students Become Collaboration Coordinators in My Classroom?

Being able to network with others is a vital 21st century skill. The job of collaboration coordinator puts the students in charge of finding and making connections with others using tools like Skype, email and Twitter. For collaboration coordinators to be successful, they must be proficient at connecting and communicating. In this role, they must also use critical thinking skills in a number of important ways.

Depending on the age and skill-level of students, a teacher will have to guide students in this task. However, even in cases where the teacher is doing most of the real work behind the scenes, it is empowering to allow students to participate in the process.

Here’s an example of how it can work in the classroom.

A third grade class created a video about reading. They brainstormed a list of the different people in their local community that they would like to interview (firefighter, police officer, doctor, etc). Each child was responsible for conducting one interview. Because the students were quite young, the teacher found the people and collected their email addresses. However, she stopped short of scheduling the interviews. Each student was given the email address of the person they would interview and was responsible for contacting that person by email. They described the project, requested the person’s participation and suggested possible times for the interview. They also offered the option to conduct the interview either in-person or via Skype.

Think of the many skills these students had the opportunity to practice! Even though the teacher was very involved in the scheduling, the students felt that they did all of the work. (They even interviewed the mayor!) They took complete ownership of the project, and their movie was a tremendous success.

Discuss here: What are some ways in which you can help students practice collaboration skills?

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