Abstract
The author provides examples of curriculum tasks that can be integrated into the core curriculum to explicitly teach the skills of collaboration across the grade levels. These include self-assessment, roles, and goals.
“The relationship between collaboration and gifted and talented students often is assumed to be an easy and successful learning experience.”
The relationship between collaboration and gifted and talented students often is assumed to be an easy and successful learning experience. However, the transition from working alone to working with others necessitates an understanding of issues related to ability, sociability, and mobility. Collaboration has been identified as both an asset and a liability and as a constructive or destructive quality of personal or group achievements and innovations. The necessity to develop both an appreciation for and the skill sets required to collaborate is noted formally with references to the 21st Century Skills and the Common Core State Standards. The skills are also addressed relative to personal and group realizations and performances. In the book 21st Century Skills, Trilling and Fadel (2009) clearly state that research supports the significant gains derived for learners who work together versus those who work independently. If collaboration is currently considered an integral feature of curriculum and instruction, a question emerges: What factors need to be considered and explicitly taught to prepare gifted and talented students to participate successfully in collaborative experiences?
Becoming familiar with the impact of collaboration on self and society should be part of a topic studied thoroughly. Why and when scholars, entrepreneurs, and citizens have deliberately collaborated to solve a problem, invent an object, and lend new meaning to traditional ideas provides the background to acquire an appreciation for the process and outcomes of collaboration. Importantly, collaboration also includes the context to realize that being part of a group can enhance rather than erode one’s identity. The “loss of identity” as a consequence of group membership is a fear and could become reality for many gifted learners unless it is understood as it applied to others and perceived clearly as it applies to oneself. It is critical to remember that gifted students work diligently to form a definition of the self as an achiever. The ability to learn that one’s contribution in a well-constructed collaborative endeavor can highlight rather than dissipate one’s aptitude or talent is a fundamental skill needed to participate in a collaborative situation.
The concepts of roles needed to succeed in a collaborative project are simple in definition and complex in practice. Comprehension of the balance between leadership and followership is vital and is derived from an understanding of how the individuals’ roles change in a group dependent on time, materials, members, and objectives. Most importantly, learning how to balance dependency, interdependency, and intra-dependency are vital to the gifted/talented students’ abilities to know when and why their talents are considered to be contributions to the group. The following graphic provides an example of the language that can be used with children across the grade levels to distinguish the times, situations, and conditions when one assumes the role of either a leader or a follower in a collaborative setting.
Recognizing when and how to change one’s affiliation to the group is important to discuss and model within the classroom. This activity has a direct relationship to the how and why of teachers’ grouping practices within classrooms. When teachers consistently assign students in the same grouping pattern each day, students are inhibited to learn how to shift their roles as members of various groups for various goals. The following chart can be used in the classroom by both teachers and students to articulate the roles and responsibilities of a collaborate experience.
A prerequisite to becoming a collaborator is to conduct a self-inventory of one’s needs, abilities, and interests. The assumption that identification as gifted or talented means that the individual has capabilities across all areas of endeavor is a misnomer. The self-inventory prior to entering the collaborative experiences facilitates determining the nature or type of contributions one brings to the group and the roles one plays in the collaborative process. Understanding the balance between interest and effort, active and supportive involvement, and expectations and performance is critical. The self-inventory procedure also shapes the students’ abilities to receive credit for one’s contributions as both an individual and/or group member. The chart below outlines the thought process necessary to conduct a self-inventory toward a specific goal, outcome, or task. Students are asked to make a connection between the steps needed to accomplish the task and the level of involvement necessary from each member.
An important lesson obtained from working collaboratively should be the understanding that the potential to utilize and recognize giftedness and talent is situational. What is honored and valued related to giftedness and talent often is acknowledged by BOTH the work accomplished alone and in a group; this is a lesson that should be taught to students and is critically in meeting the Common Core State Standards and 21st Century Skills. The inventory requires the learner to analyze the task against both known (prior knowledge) and unknown (needed or new) information.
Discussing the nature and ramifications surrounding the concept of collaboration provides the foundation to address the matter of how to teach collaboration. The examples of curriculum provided throughout this article are samples of curriculum tasks that can be integrated into the core curriculum to explicitly teach the skills of collaboration across the grade levels.
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Bio
Sandra N. Kaplan, EdD, is a professor of clinical professor at the University of Southern California and past-president of the National Association for Gifted Children.