Blog Post #3: The Collaborative Classroom By: Anna Davison

Video from Edutopia, The Collaborative Classroom: An Interview with Linda Darling-Hammond

I am actually in a collaborative classroom two days a week for my student teaching. In the classroom are myself, my supervising teacher and one other teacher who is special ed. certified who is the collaborative teacher as well as 32 students. I have found that thus far in my experience with the collaborative classroom that it is quite difficult to manage. In the video, I noticed that Linda Darling-Hammond discussed the different approaches to collaborative teaching as well as some of the strategies implimented within the classroom. I have found that when using any kind of technology in the classroom that these students who have learning dissabilities or discipline problems are much more inclined to pay attention to a movie or a power point presentation because it is something visual. The students really enjoy and typically respond better on tests or worksheets covering the material shown on the power point or movie. However, one area that I disagree with is that although it is a goal for the collaborative classroom to help students develop group interaction skills it is a very difficult thing to impliment in the classroom. Students who have discipline problems are mixed with students who have learning disabilities and unless you have a teacher supervising each individual group it tends to be incredably hard to manage. Therefore, I believe that there are drawbacks to the collaborative classroom, but that there are also many positive aspects as well. Hopefully over the next few years there will be some incredably innovative ideas as to ways to improve the collaborative classroom.