1st Edition
Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn Engaging Students in the Classroom and Online
Students who know how to collaborate successfully in the classroom will be better prepared for professional success in a world where we are expected to work well with others. Students learn collaboratively, and acquire the skills needed to organize and complete collaborative work, when they participate in thoughtfully-designed learning activities.Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn uses the author’s Taxonomy of Online Collaboration to illustrate levels of progressively more complex and integrated collaborative activities.- Part I introduces the Taxonomy of Online Collaboration and offers theoretical and research foundations.- Part II focuses on ways to use Taxonomy of Online Collaboration, including, clarifying roles and developing trust, communicating effectively, organizing project tasks and systems.- Part III offers ways to design collaborative learning activities, assignments or projects, and ways to fairly assess participants’ performance.Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn is a professional guide intended for faculty, curriculum planners, or instructional designers who want to design, teach, facilitate, and assess collaborative learning. The book covers the use of information and communication technology tools by collaborative partners who may or may not be co-located. As such, the book will be appropriate for all-online, blended learning, or conventional classrooms that infuse technology with “flipped” instructional techniques.
Tables and Figures Foreword by Lynn A. Wilson Preface Part One. Thinking About Collaboration 1. Collaboration in a Connected World 2. Theoretical Foundations for Collaborative Learning Part Two. Understanding the Taxonomy of Collaboration 3. Trust and Communication in the Collaborative Process 4. Collaborative Work Designs Part Three. Planning and Assessing Collaborative Learning 5. Designing Collaborative Learning with the Taxonomy of Collaboration 6. Assessing Collaborative Learning 7. Using the Taxonomy to Map Assignments and Assessments References About the Author Index
Biography
Janet Salmons is an independent researcher and writer through Vision2Lead. She is the author of five books about online research; the most recent are Doing Qualitative Research Online (2016) and Qualitative Online Interviews (2015). Dr. Salmons served on the Ph.D. faculty in Educational Technology at Walden University and on the graduate faculty of the Capella University School of Business, where she was honored with the Harold Abel Distinguished Faculty Award for 2011-2012 and the Steven Shank Recognition for Teaching in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Dr. Salmons lives and works in Boulder, Colorado. Lynn A. Wilson
“Collaboration is a part of our life. In this book Janet illuminates how collaboration can be a positive experience and how we can intentionally learn to be an effective collaborator no matter the circumstances, our role, our preference way of working, and end point. At a time when working effectively with others is seen as a vital skill, this book unpacks how it possible to thrive and flourish as we learn to understand the collaborative process, how working with others can be put into practice, and most importantly how we can grow as individuals personally and professionally.”
Narelle Lemon, Associate Professor, Education
Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
"Employers keep saying that they want employees who can be good team players and work collaboratively, and Janet Salmons has finally provided faculty and course-writing teams with a useful, well-grounded and practical guidebook for creating learning experiences that help our students build those critical skill-sets. Dr. Salmons has provided us with a remarkably well-grounded and useful guidebook for helping create truly collaborative learning experiences for our students—and helping students move from 'ugh, group work', to 'yes, collaborative teamwork'!"
William C. Schulz III, Director of Academic Initiatives, Office of Academic Affairs, School of Management, and Founding Director, Walden Center for Social Change
Walden University
"Western understanding of collaborative learning and work in Asia is in stark contrast to the way it is actually practiced among Chinese students. Surprisingly, they do not relish many of our best attempts to design collaborative learning processes. This is due in large part to social loafing, over-reliance on linguistic skills of others, cross-cultural disconnects, and misalignments in student/teacher expectations.
Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn gives instructors a tangible framework to understand, organize, assess, implement, and redesign methodologies toward effective student-centered existential collaborative processes inside or outside of the classroom. In our Fieldwork in Leadership Studies course, we strive to give theory practical application. The taxonomical approaches, the assessments, and the activities offered here are invaluable and can give us tangible guidelines to help us improve our deliverables."
Brendon C. Fox, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies
Fort Hays State University US/Sino partnership with Sias International University, Xinzheng, Henan, PR China
"Collaborative learning has an amazing potential for supporting students to learn within a discipline and to grow their agency and capacity for collaborative action. Unfortunately, the literature of learning in groups is also replete with stories of how it all went wrong. This new book by Janet Salmons provides the latest version of her highly accessible research-based, conceptual and visual taxonomy of collaboration and shows us how to apply this rich vocabulary to the design of face-to-face and online collaborative learning that can yield the desired learning benefits while minimizing the pitfalls. And as a bonus the same principles can also be applied to planning successful collaborative research and work processes."
Tony Carr, Convener of e/merge Africa and educational technologist in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT)
University of Cape Town, South Africa
"Collaboration is fast becoming one of the most important skills for leadership in the 21st-century. This fact is widely acknowledged and yet educators have few resources to teach students how to systematically pursue collaborative problem-solving. Janet Salmon’s book fills this gap with this practical guide book that can be applied across any discipline. Dr. Salmons writes in a clear, logical, and engaging style that is research-based and creates a sense of excitement and motivation for the collaborative experience."
Louise Kelly, Professor of Management and Leadership
University of La Verne, and author of The Psychologist Manager.
“The future of work requires team adaptability, shared participation, and integrated contributions among professionals. Educators need to create thoughtful learning experiences that expose students to relevant collaboration opportunities they will encounter in a connected world. Dr. Janet Salmons’ book offers the fundamentals for collaborative learning paired with the pedagogical planning and assessment practices to reach this goal. With reflective questions, team-based design graphs, and visual mapping of the collaborative learning taxonomy, instructors and learning designers will find this book to be a valuable resource for developing guided facilitation for learners.”
Laura Pasquini, Senior Lecturer
University of North Texas & Researcher with The Digital Learning and Social Media Research Group
"Janet Salmons's practical experience with collaboration in the classroom shines through in this book. Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn is packed with actionable advice and diverse examples. I know this book will be a go-to guide for instructors across disciplines looking to help their students learn the skills of collaboration and teamwork."
Katie Linder, Research Director, Oregon State University Ecampus
“Collaboration is a key component of working and learning in the 21st century. As the world becomes more of a global environment, it is important to learn how to purposely collaborate with individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds. In some cases, the diversity may be within a face-to-face classroom, or it could be a myriad of people online from all over the world. Either way, learning to work with others on a project or an idea is an important skill for the 21st century. Salmons states, ‘When people collaborate, they think together as well as work together’.
This book is unique in that Salmons offers a taxonomy for collaborative learning that provides a framework for creating, implementing, and assessing group assignments and activities in the classroom. Throughout the book, numerous tables and figures are used to help explain the concepts of collaboration.
Early in the book, Salmons gives a strong theoretical background on taxonomies as frameworks that help students develop critical thinking skills and, in turn, use those skills in other contexts. She also demonstrates that these skills extend beyond the classroom and are valuable in the workplace.
This book is a very useful text for a teacher or workplace leader who wants to incorporate the theories and practice of collaborative learning into their class or presentation. The book is very hands-on and gives multiple practical examples of how to lead students in a collaborative learning experience. Of particular note, Salmons also includes some reflections on her own experiences and research on how students worked through some collaborative assignments. This type of ‘learning from experience’ is very helpful as a guide for the reader and adds a personal feel to the writing.
Salmons’ work is very timely in the current learning environment when more and more instructors are looking to collaborative activities both for face-to face classes as well as the online platform. Given that the 21st century has changed the way people learn and work, her book is a relevant and valuable contribution to the field.”
Teachers College Record
