Recently I visited one of the top-rated high schools in Britain – Colchester County High School for Girls (CCHS) in southeast England. CCHS is a specialist science college with a commitment to providing a creative and stimulating learning environment for students. I was there to visit the brand new innovation lab – a different kind of high tech – high touch classroom where students can write on the walls, brainstorm electronically and interact in large and small group discussions.
The purpose of my visit was to engage with a group of teachers in an exploration of how facilitation and a collaborative technology could be applied in a high school classroom. We played with a variety of collaborative techniques and it was fun and engaging. But one teacher quickly brought our conversation down to earth – “this is all well and good,” she said, “but what relevance does facilitation have to me as a teacher and the way I can help my students learn?”
This set off a very interesting conversation, challenging me and the teachers to think about how a facilitated learning approach might alter the way material is presented, topics are chosen, information is shared, ideas are explored and the role of the teacher and students in the learning process. We identified five areas of relevance and differentiation…
Learner Focus – a shift from a teacher-centric design and delivery greater involvement by students in choosing what and how they study. The teacher may become less a presenter of information and more an enabler of research, exploration and discovery.
New Thinking Skills – a greater variety in the way students are encouraged to think and approach topics with the introduction of a variety of dialogue and deliberation, problem-solving and decision-making techniques. A variety of techniques to appeal to different learning styles and preferences.
Collaborative Learning – a greater emphasis on small group work and interactive exercises encouraging students to share ideas and solutions and compare and contrast approaches. Less grading of homework and test questions by the teacher and increased group learning by students reading and evaluating each others’ responses.
Productivity through Collaborative Technology – application of new online facilitation tools to capture ideas from all students at once and facilitating greater interaction and collaboration with options such anonymous input and possibilities for connections with other schools around the world.
Student Engagement – increased participation by all students through group processes that engage everyone and move away from a traditional classroom setting to a more creative learning environment.
What I am left wondering about is… How much of this kind of facilitated learning is already happening in high schools? How might facilitators and teachers work together to further understand the possibilities for a collaborative learning approach?
View the mindmap from our discussion.
Read more about Innovation Labs.