Collaborative Learning and Self-Pacing

The concept of “collaborative self-pacing” might initially seem like an oxymoron. For many, the idea of self-paced learning may bring to mind images of students sitting in rows in a silent classroom, computers open and headphones on, working independently on 25 different tasks.

This type of sterile, siloed learning environment couldn’t be further from the reality of my self-paced Algebra classes at Washington Leadership Academy in Washington, DC, where organic, authentic collaboration was a central feature of every class. My most exciting and rewarding moments as a teacher came not when I explained a new concept in a way that led a student to an “aha” moment, but when I would see those moments of understanding emerge naturally in conversations among students.

Why was promoting authentic collaboration so important to me and my learning community?

For one, collaboration multiplies the opportunities for learning and ensures that it doesn’t start and end with the teacher. Every teacher can surely relate to that sense of inadequacy that comes when you want to be able to clone yourself – to have multiple simultaneous conversations with individual students who are struggling in different ways – but can’t. Peer collaboration expands learning beyond a one-way flow of information from teacher to student.

Moreover, teaching their peers is a valuable way for students to extend their own learning. Explaining the content to their peers promotes deep understanding and retention. Collaboration also creates classroom communities where students develop positive identities as learners and build life-long skills and mindsets, such as self-regulation, empathy, and communication.

A few key strategies allowed me to create a productive, positive collaborative learning community in my math classes:

Facilitate flexible, student-led groupings informed by transparency around pacing. In my Algebra classes, I found that collaborative groupings worked best when they were driven by students and their needs, as students know themselves best as learners. I would start every self-paced work block by projecting a daily pacing tracker that indicated what lessons students were currently working on (and whether they were on pace, ahead of pace, or catching up), and then I would allow students to get up and move to different spaces within the classroom – within reason – to collaborate with a specific peer or group of students. Students weren’t wandering around the room throughout the class to socialize with their closest friends; rather, they were moving with purpose within the space: to a table where a “lesson superstar” could help them, to a group of peers working on catching up on the same lesson, or to a quiet corner where they could focus on an independent task.

While many educators might bristle at the thought of giving this much autonomy to 14 and 15-year-olds, I found that the more freedom I gave students to drive how and when they worked together, the more effectively they would own their learning process and self-advocate for their needs.

Regularly discuss why we collaborate and how to work together effectively. A large part of what allowed this system of flexible, organic groupings to function as organized chaos, and not pure chaos, was grounding our norms and systems for collaboration in discussions of the purpose behind working together. This wasn’t a one-time conversation at the beginning of the year; instead, we would frequently check in throughout the year to reflect on and refine our norms for collaboration. Any time I noticed an issue with the way my students were collaborating – such as seeing a student hand their Chromebook to a peer to select the correct answer – I would resist the urge to simply correct the behavior and move on, and instead instigated a class discussion. Through reflection and conversation, my students identified for themselves that having another student complete their work wouldn’t ultimately help them to learn the content and named better ways to seek and provide help. Co-developing clear parameters for collaboration, grounded in purpose, allowed students to meet the expectations and hold themselves and each other accountable.

Develop daily routines that support collaboration. Routine was one of my favorite tools as an educator. It may seem counterintuitive, as the idea of routine could bring to mind a boring, repetitive learning environment, but I found that predictable daily classroom routines fostered a sense of security, through which my students could then take academic risks. Some of these routines involved whole-group activities to build a sense of belonging and community, such as a number talk to open class or student shout-outs at the end of class (these shout-outs were a great opportunity to name and recognize good collaboration practices). Some of the routines involved practicing collaboration through small-group challenge games and logic puzzles. And some of the routines, such as student surveys, promoted metacognition, allowing students to reflect on how they were collaborating, set goals, and evaluate their progress.

My ultimate purpose in implementing these routines was to enable students to be independent, self-directed learners. I knew that I had been successful in this mission when I had to miss a day of school, and students continued to progress and support each other without interruption to their learning.