Only the Teacher Talks to Me

As part of my inquiry this year I have been thinking about inclusion and how this manifests itself in our classes. It became glaringly obvious one day in a Cybersmart session that we can unintentionally exclude students, rather than provide an inclusive environment for them.

In most of the classes I work in the teacher's use a prompt of "turn and talk" to get students to talk in pairs or small groups. When this prompt was given one day, I noticed some students on the fringes of the mat area alone with no one to talk to. The teacher quickly intervened and guided these 5 students to make a pair and a threesome. In subsequent lessons, one of the boys often ended up alone and so the teacher took on the role of being his partner to share ideas. In most classes when students are bought together on the mat, friends sit with friends and only interact with their chosen few. 

You might ask - is this a problem? I think it is. One of the big points of moving to flexible spaces is to provide the opportunities and conditions for students to collaborate. And wouldn't you like your students to collaborate with more than just their friends? Or in the case of the lonely boy who only talks to his teacher, to widen his world and have him included in the learning in the class with his peers. 

This got me thinking about my cooperative learning training many years ago with RTLB and how the philosophical approach to cooperative learning can raise social and academic learning. Our whakatauākī was "a rising tide lifts all boats" - J. F. Kennedy

Now lets jump along to the Cybersmart lesson on "Collaborating Online". I asked the teachers to pair the students prior to the lesson and to use the tuakana/teina principles. That is, to be paired with a buddy that is closely matched in ability. In these pairings there needs to be opportunities for reciprocity. At the beginning of the lesson, we sat the students in pairs and moved on to the thinking and talking part before their digital work. 

This proved to be a good way to work but there was still something missing...what was it?

Cohesion - that was what was missing. In all the classes I facilitated the collaborating online lesson, there was the uncomfortable stage at the beginning of having to talk to the partner assigned to you. I know now that in the pressure of only having an hour to deliver the lesson, there was a negligible amount of time given to building cohesion in these pairs. 

So - how can I rectify this? I would like to use CyberBuddies in my Cybersmart lessons next year and have partners that stay together and work together over time. In this way, I can build cohesion so that they build trust and are able to work together. This is also a way to model to teachers how to work students in collaborative spaces and build resilience in the ability to work with a range of people.

In this way, the socially isolated students will be talking and interacting with their peers, and not be the person that only the teacher talks to.