Collaboration Tools | Center for Teaching Innovation (2024)

FAQs

What are the uses of collaborative tools for teaching and learning can? ›

Why Use Collaboration Tools? Collaborative assignments and tasks can be created for both in and outside class. They can be used to help develop active learning assignments, facilitate team-building activities, and help students engage with the content through group activities and peer-to-peer learning.

Vygotsky termed this as collaborative dialogue, as the learner seeks knowledge, internalises the information provided by the More Knowledgeable Other, then uses that information to guide their own actions. More Knowledgeable Others allow the learner to operate within the Zone of Proximal Development.

Effective Teacher Collaboration Strategies

For example, if your team identifies that it is committed to building relationships with students and student learning, set goals related to that vision, discuss how to reach those goals, and assess progress and alignment regularly.

The tools can be as simple as email or as complex as a sophisticated project management software. The primary goal of a team collaboration tool is to align workers by providing support to a group of two or more individuals and assisting them in the accomplishment of a common objective.

In John Dewey's learning theory, all learning occurs within a social environment. In this sense, knowledge is socially constructed based on our experiences. As Dewey puts it, the 'educational process has two sides — one is psychological and the other is sociological'.

Discovery Learning was introduced by Jerome Bruner, and is a method of Inquiry-Based Instruction. This popular theory encourages learners to build on past experiences and knowledge, use their intuition, imagination and creativity, and search for new information to discover facts, correlations and new truths.

Collaborative learning theory is rooted in Lev Vygotsky's idea, Zone of Proximal Development. Here, learners rely on one another to accomplish tasks that they otherwise wouldn't be able to complete individually.

Which tool in education allows effective collaboration? ›

Educational technology, such as video conferencing, digital writing applications, wikis, and social bookmarking tools can help to fuel students' ability to grow their collaborative skills.

Less engagement and personal contact

Another disadvantage of online collaboration is reduced engagement and connection between team members than when working and collaborating in person. Collaborative work management tools cannot exactly mimic the energy of real-life events and activities.

Even when team members are not geographically dispersed, online collaboration tools can still enhance communication within your team. These tools effectively reduce the risk of colleagues overlooking critical emails or updates, ensuring that everyone involved in a project remains well-informed and aligned.

For students, these tools help not only to effectively organize the learning process, collaborate with classmates and teachers. But also to create comfortable learning conditions, even in remote education. So, collaboration tools don't just make it easier for students and teachers to work together.

Teacher collaboration provides fellow educators opportunities to meet, share insights, create cohesive plans, and work together effectively. Some of the primary purposes of collaboration are: Identifying educational practices that consistently help students of all abilities across classrooms and content areas.

Flexibility: Learning and teaching with technology provides flexibility since it can take place anywhere. This will promote self-paced learning among students and curriculum resources can be accessed anytime. Engagement: Gamification tools will make learning more fun and engaging for students.