When do you learn best? Thinking back to your personal primary years experience, is there a lesson that you can remember well? Can you visualize, feel, or hear the lesson that you are remembering?

Usually the most remembered classes are ones that have involved an experience where, as students, we can interact and experience the knowledge being taught. In an IB classroom, educators are trying to provide this experience through a collaborative environment.

In a collaborative classroom teachers and students can act as instructor, learner, and/or facilitator. The teacher, however, establishes the instructional goals. In collaborative learning, the teacher is responsible for setting the learning goals and for keeping the team activities and discussion focused on the content in a manner that both facilitates collaboration and ensures reasonable understanding of the content. Students have the opportunity to experience learning though different lenses, so that, the learning styles of all students are recognized.

There are various strategies to facilitate collaborative learning in the classroom; providing all students with agency and pride in their learning.  This week, our Grade 1 class used inquiry learning and cooperative group roles to solve math problems. Keep reading to learn about our activity!

Cooperative Group Roles in Math | In a previous lesson, we brainstormed a mind-map of what collaboration looks in the classroom.

What does collaboration look like?

This math class, students were introduced to four different facilitator roles: Manager, Time Keeper, Recorder, and Reporter. A coloured popsicle was handed out to each student in a group of four to delegate the role.

Manager: Makes sure your group completes its task= blue | Time Keeper: helps your group finish on tim = red | Recorder: Writes things down for your group= yellow| Reporter: Presents your group’s work to the class = green

Our math task was to explore measurement without rulers. Students were given the task to measure two different books using material they had in the classroom, for example, keys, paper clips, blocks, or buttons. Using the group collaborative strategy, students were able to complete this activity and successfully shared their findings to the class.