One of the most important skills in today’s world is the ability to collaborate with others and work on a team. Listen in as Caitlin and Jessica welcome Trevor Muir, educator, author, and host of The Epic Classroom, who will offer great advice on developing and supporting collaboration in your classroom!
Trevor will share how many educators are holding themselves back by defining collaboration incorrectly. He will also offer some great tips on helping students to work effectively in groups, using their individual efforts to contribute to a cooperative cause.
So if you’re looking for practical ways to help your students give and accept constructive feedback, work together on an authentic project, and grow their collaborative skills, take a listen to this episode and start implementing Trevor’s ideas today!
Tune in now to hear:
- [01:20] Caitlin and Jessica welcome Trevor Muir, who has been a middle school and high school ELA teacher and who loves to write and teach writing
- [04:00] Trevor explains why collaboration skills are so important in the classroom and the world
- [06:00] How many classrooms fall short when it comes to developing and supporting collaboration
- [06:40] Trevor talks about the challenges involved in teaching collaboration
- [9:40] How educators are defining “collaboration” wrong. Collaboration can include independent learning (working independently for a cooperative cause)
- [13:10] Giving students the language and protocols to handle difficult collaborative language (“like and wonder,” group contracts, etc.)
- [16:00] How to help students accept critical feedback and constructive criticism
- [19:00] Trevor explains how accepting critical feedback can have huge benefits
- [22:00] Trevor offers some advice for how to effectively incorporate collaboration in the classroom, including offering meaningful tasks like project-based learning projects
- [26:30] A great baby step for supporting more collaboration in your classroom: take a look at an upcoming unit, and ask yourself, “How can I make this learning more authentic for my students?”
- [31:00] A reminder from Trevor: Don’t beat yourself up if your school environment makes collaboration difficult. Simply find opportunities where you can
- [31:50] Join Trevor at his podcast, The Epic Classroom, found wherever you listen to your podcasts! You can also check him out at trevormuir.com or follow him on social media
Click here to watch on Youtube!
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