What can collaboration teach us?

Context

As we’ve discussed thus far this semester, collaboration involves working together within established communities. Some examples of collaboration that you’ve shared have occurred within gaming communities, workplaces, fan bases for reality shows, and competitive sports, just to name a few. In each example, participants work together towards a common goal and the creation of knowledge together for the benefit of the community. As Bruffee notes in his article “Collaboration and the ‘Conversation of Mankind,’” collaborative learning is at its best when “knowledge is maintained and established by communities of knowledgeable peers” (646). Since peers bring different expertise to their communities, authority shifts during collaborative learning; peers teach and learn at different times and in different ways throughout a collaborative experience.

Your Assignment

For your first major project this semester, you will produce a Collaborative Learning History Project. Your final product will introduce a common goal that your group’s collaborative learning narratives support; this will be collaboratively authored by the whole group and involves curating each group member’s individual narratives in a way that you decide best supports your common goal. Your final product will end with a collaboratively authored conclusion. In short, your project will answer the question, “What has collaboration taught us?”

This project involves working individually to draft your own narrative of collaborative learning and working in a group to discover how to best present all of your narratives as a cohesive whole. Your individual narrative should exemplify how you’ve participated in collaborative learning in the way we’ve defined above. You will then work within your groups to conceive of the most effective way to present your histories together, as one piece, the Collaborative Learning History Project. We’ve looked at scholars who have modeled collaborative writing in their own work: McNamee & Miley, Efthymiou & Zea, and Lunsford & Ede (available on Blackboard). Although each piece is different, they have a few things in common: this kind of collaborative writing involves organizing and curating individually authored sections between collaboratively authored introductions and conclusions. In your groups, you will decide which model of organizing your collaborative writing works best for your goals.

I am structuring in-class and out-of-class work in the following ways to support the delivery of your final Collaborative Learning History Project.

• Blog Post 1, revised post due TH 2/8: this blog post asked you to write a brief history of your collaborative learning experience, focusing on explaining how you’ve collaborated within a community to which you belong towards a common goal.
• In-class on TH 2/8: Together, you will begin to answer these questions: What do our different experiences say about collaborative learning? What might our common goal or purpose be? Take time to work in your group to compare your individual narratives to each other. You may identify important differences between your narratives; you should also take note of similarities across difference. This work could be early drafting for your introduction and/or conclusion of your final project. You may also be inspired to add detail to your writing or select more examples of how you partook in collaborative learning within your communities.
• In-class on T 2/13: Compare published models of collaborative writing. Decide together what could work for your group. Assign Blog Post 2: Our Current Writing Plan.
• In-class on TH 2/15: Project management time using ideas from Team Writing.
• Blog Post 2, due before class on T 2/20: this post draws on terms from Wolfe’s Team Writing to identify a project manager, and create a task schedule and straw document. Link to your group’s task schedule and straw document in your post; also reflect on areas you feels confident and concerns you have that you want to address by next class on T 2/20.
• T 2/27: In-class due date for the Collaborative Learning History Project. Your final project will be posted as a new page to your WordPress sites. We will work on collaboratively authoring the rubric for this assignment.
• F 3/1: Final Project DUE. Use our rubric as you complete your revisions.

Expectations of the Final Project

The Collaborative Learning History Project is worth 20% of your final grade and will be assessed according to this rubric we authored together. I expect the following in your final:

• A collaboratively authored introduction that indicates the common goal or purpose of your group’s individual narratives.
• Logically organized–or curated–individually authored narratives of your collaborative learning histories.
• A collaboratively authored conclusion.
• Your work should engage with at least two of our assigned sources and cite according to APA or MLA citation method.
• Your final project will be posted as a new page to your WordPress sites.

Work Cited

Bruffee, Kenneth. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” College English, vol. 46, no. 7, 1984, pp. 635-652.