Creativity in Collaboration

When it comes to collaboration, be more John Spencer.
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Every time I watch his “7 Keys to Creative Collaboration“, all I have to say whilst watching it is YES. YES. And did I say, “YASSSSS!”?

Candour. Spending time together. Being vulnerable. Admitting mistakes. Letting go. Structures.

All crucial to the recipe leading to empowerment and creativity in successful collaboration.

Structure… funny that

Many people these days love a protocol. I think there’s a time and a place for them, sure. But I do think some people/organizations tend to overdo them.

Think my point here is to have some structure, but be sure there’s enough room for voice and choice within that in order to empower, rather than disengage.

I do find some protocols very draconian and disempowering. Unauthentic, if you will.

When anything is overdone (see unbalanced), that’s when things start to get cringe-worthy.
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So be more like John Spencer; those seven ingredients posited in his video are quite a winning recipe in my honest opinion.

The Collaborative Task

As part of my #COETAIL learning this week in course three, we did an inquiry into collaboration.

In addition, we were asked to reflect on a recent collaborative activity that we recently led, or have had a part in.

So here it goes…

Setting the Context

I teach in a grade 4 context; “Studio 4”, to be exact.

I also lead a team of five other homeroom teachers, three teacher’s assistants, and liaise with three other specialist teachers (EAL, enrichment, and learning support).  That’s a lot of collaboration across a very culturally diverse team.

Our context for learning is online at the moment.  Our beautiful city, Ho Chi Minh, has been pretty hard hit by the Delta variant.

My team and I love structures, too.
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In addition, guided inquiry also needs structures (although it may not always be this linear).

Currently, our students are writing personal narratives, which has a nice fit with our current inquiry into “Who we are”.

Students are inquiring into “Who they are” as writers, readers, inquirers and more.

Goal setting

As teachers, we empower our students to set goals. 

This aligns nicely with ISTE Empowered Learner standard indicator 1a.
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Here are some ways we plan to do this for writing:

• Students compose and submit a writing sample, with shared criteria across the grade.
• Teachers assess two “Stars” and “Next steps” for each child.
• Children self asses one star and each as well.
• Teachers and students conference together about initial goals for writing.

Writing sample assessment aligned with curriculum.

Teacher and student assessed goal selection.

​Co-constructing Success Criteria

Now that the stage was set, we’ve been working on our personal narrative drafts, co-constructing our success criteria for each stage, collaboratively.
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This leads to further motivation and empowerment. A shared vision of success from the voices of the community.

Co-creating a Shared Roadmap – The Journey & The Destination

It’s important, in any big project or inquiry, that backwards design is a part of the plan. This is a productive “structure” essential for collaboration.
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The “race” is personalized. But it’s crucial that each learner knows where their personalized writing journey begins and ends. Even better when there’s a visual.

Writer’s Workshop Wednesday

Part of what my team and I collaboratively have designed, as part of our writing “structure”, is at least two rounds of “Writer’s Workshop” in every major piece of writing.

We follow it up with a “Transfer Thursday” where learners inject their newly acquired skills directly into their respective projects the next day.

How does it all work?

Since this was our first round of “Writer’s Workshops”, this is how my team and I collaborated, and some of the structures we used:
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• After analyzing writing samples, as a team, we collaboratively determined six of the most pressing “needs” in terms of what workshops to offer for the students.
• All workshops were aligned to the 6+1 Writer’s Traits, which is a part of our literacy curriculum.
• Each homeroom teacher chose a workshop to create and lead using Google Slides and Seesaw Activities.
• Students selected a workshop from these six areas using a Google Form. They were encouraged to align their choice with their writing goals.
• Teachers assigned the respective Seesaw activities to align with each workshop to their homeroom students.
• On workshop day, students attended the respective workshops by clicking on the correct Google Meet link shared with them.
• Each workshop teacher had a grade-level collaborative mix of students.
• In each workshop, teachers and learners engaged in provocations, modelled examples, breakout room discussions and small skill-building tasks related to the focus of that workshop.
• Learners finished the workshop with a short reflection.

Overall, the day was truly empowering for both teachers and students alike.

The next day, students engaged in “Transfer Thursdays” and revised and edited their work with their new skills, while they were fresh. Essentially, adding that layer of authenticity to the skill.

This was just writing.

Final thoughts on Collaboration

We’re called “Studio 4” in what would traditionally be called “Grade 4”.

Workshops and cross-collaboration are key ingredients to what makes our community a Studio.

As a collaborative team, we look for golden opportunities like these as often as possible.

As a school, this is our guiding precept:

“It takes a village to raise a child.” – African proverb

Collaboration Curiosity
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• How do you and your team collaborate? Would you say “yes” to most of Spencer’s seven ideas he posits?
• What opportunities do you create alongside your team where students can learn like a village, rather than a silo?
• What other key ingredients would you add?
• What are your feelings on protocols?