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Episode 505: Collaborative Learning: Providing a Safe Space to Think
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Take learning to the next level by encouraging students to work together! Join us in conversation with Stephanie Sisk of Fayette County Public Schools to learn more about collaborative learning.
![Stephanie Sisk in Classroom Conversations](https://www.gpb.org/sites/default/files/styles/flexheight/public/2024-08/1200x800_collablrn2.png?itok=sAU_Mptc)
Take learning to the next level by encouraging students to work together! Join us in conversation with Stephanie Sisk of Fayette County Public Schools to learn more about collaborative learning.
TRANSCRIPT
Ashley Mengwasser: Hello, how are you? Welcome to Classroom Conversations. I'm Ashley Mengwasser and this is the platform for Georgia's teachers. Our educators need a place to share and learn, of course. I usually tell you at the top of each episode that this podcast series is a collaboration between the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting, which it is. But today, allow your ears to perk up at the word collaboration. What one among us can do matters, but what masses of us can do, that can move mountains. Imagine the orchestra with but a soloist or a build site with one construction worker. How about a surgical suite with only the surgeon? Bye-bye nurses. Not only do these scenarios lose their charm and singularity, but they don't really work. There's no stirring symphony, no marbled Taj Mahal, no heroic coronary artery bypass. Collaboration has significance for all living things. And my guest today is a biology teacher, so this quote feels fitting. Here's the quote. "It is the long history of humankind, and animal kind too, that those who learn to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." These words from the father of evolution, Charles Darwin. We often think of survival in a solo I will survive Gloria Gaynor sense. But the basic idea of Darwinism is survival of a species, a group of collaborators. So what if collaborative learning were the basis for instruction in your classroom? Is Darwin correct that those who collaborate prevail? Would students somehow evolve differently in these environments? Educator Stephanie Sisk is a Grade A spokeswoman for collaborative learning at McIntosh High School located in Peachtree City, and that's part of Fayette County School District. Hi, Stephanie.
Stephanie Sisk: Hello, Ashley. How are you?
Ashley Mengwasser: I'm good. Thank you for being here.
Stephanie Sisk: Great. Thanks for having me.
Ashley Mengwasser: Did that Darwin quote spark something within you? Did you know it?
Stephanie Sisk: I have to tell you that I actually have it written on my page right here.
Ashley Mengwasser: Are you kidding me?
Stephanie Sisk: Right?
Ashley Mengwasser: This is telepathic.
Stephanie Sisk: So yeah, it did, actually. The original spirit of collaboration, right?
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.
Stephanie Sisk: Charles Darwin.
Ashley Mengwasser: Exactly. Okay. I want to hear first about what biology courses you teach now and maybe courses you have taught.
Stephanie Sisk: I currently teach advanced placement biology to juniors and seniors. I also teach gifted biology to freshmen at McIntosh. But I've also taught collaborative biology, which would be a regular biology class with special education component of students in there with a collaborative teacher. And in the past I've also taught oceanography as well.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, that sounds cool.
Stephanie Sisk: So yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Biology of all types for all types.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Can I get your origin story as an organism, I mean, as a teacher? Can you tell me about that?
Stephanie Sisk: Yeah. I did not always want to be a teacher. My passion is actually the outdoors and nature. So I love to be outside. I always did those types of things. And I ended up at University of Georgia in the Wildlife School, which is a very hands-on program. So we caught animals and did all sorts of things. I had plans to become a researcher. I actually went and listened to Jane Goodall give a-
Ashley Mengwasser: Whoa.
Stephanie Sisk: ... talk. Yep. Drove all hours and hours to get there and hear her speak.
Ashley Mengwasser: Where was that?
Stephanie Sisk: It was actually in Alabama, at a small private college in Alabama.
Ashley Mengwasser: Okay, Jane.
Stephanie Sisk: I know, right? But when I graduated with a wildlife biology degree, it was a tough time to find those jobs. I actually got declined for a position counting ducks in North Dakota for a winter.
Ashley Mengwasser: I am so sorry.
Stephanie Sisk: I know.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh.
Stephanie Sisk: So, I decided to go into something near Atlanta, and I applied for a position in education at Zoo Atlanta. And I actually ended up in their education department and started doing programming. And I was doing hands-on things with live audiences, but I was also doing a video conferencing-
Ashley Mengwasser: Pre-Zoom.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes. And we ended up, I really loved it. So it was just an amazing experience. So in that education department, when I was about halfway through that year I decided to go ahead and apply to graduate school. So I went to Georgia Southern and got my master's degree in science education, right? And from there, I got hired. I worked at a small school in South Georgia, and then I moved up to McIntosh High School.
Ashley Mengwasser: And how long have you been teaching?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, gosh, since 2001. A long-
Ashley Mengwasser: You're a long timer.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: I like it. What animals did you work with at the zoo?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, gosh. Let's see. I worked with tenrecs and possums and crocodiles and snakes and gopher tortoises and all those things.
Ashley Mengwasser: And you have evidence of those animals in your classroom?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.
Stephanie Sisk: I have quite a lot of, we call them bio facts, but really my students call them dead things, right? So there's dead things everywhere. I have horse skulls and black bear skulls and mountain lion pelts and all sorts of things.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, my gosh. And you worked with alligators. Wow.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: So then do you have street cred or swamp cred in your classroom?
Stephanie Sisk: I do have-
Ashley Mengwasser: Both.
Stephanie Sisk: ... both.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.
Stephanie Sisk: Actually, have the scales that we cut off of the alligators to tag them-
Ashley Mengwasser: Wow.
Stephanie Sisk: ... and to mark them. And I show those to my students every year.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, my gosh.
Stephanie Sisk: Yeah.
Ashley Mengwasser: That's very interesting. And in my mind, you are one of the rarest creatures of all, Stephanie. You're an actual happy camper. Explain the pastime of camping to me.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes. So my family, my husband and I historically have backpacked, right? So we were ultralight backpackers. Once we had children, that was a little more difficult, so-
Ashley Mengwasser: Not so ultralight.
Stephanie Sisk: That's right. So we had to carry everybody along. So we ended up getting a pop-up camper, which is like a tent with a mattress in it. And we have been all over the place. We've been up to Canada in it, we've been to Acadia National Park, we've been out to Wyoming, all over the place.
Ashley Mengwasser: What's your next trip?
Stephanie Sisk: Our next trip is actually to the Ozarks of Arkansas to view the solar eclipse on April 8th this year.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh.
Stephanie Sisk: Yeah.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.
Stephanie Sisk: Super exciting.
Ashley Mengwasser: I love an astronomy experience. That's cool. What is something that people might not know about teachers or teaching that you wish they understood?
Stephanie Sisk: I suppose the thing that I really wish that everybody knew, and I hope this is true for all teachers, is that we just want to teach our students. All of the other things that get in the way of that are usually something that kind are in a back burner for us. So we just really want to teach them to get that curiosity, to spark the interest, to build the confidence.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. Very good. Can you share a few of your favorite collaborations of all time?
Stephanie Sisk: Okay.
Ashley Mengwasser: Because we need to tee up our collaboration discussion here.
Stephanie Sisk: Okay. I was trying to get creative with my collaborations here.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh.
Stephanie Sisk: So, my first one is potato chips and ketchup.
Ashley Mengwasser: That's good.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: You dip your potato chips in ketchup?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, yes, yes. My grandfather started this. I evidently, I was like two-years-old. To this day, I'm a chip and ketchup person.
Ashley Mengwasser: Family traditions.
Stephanie Sisk: Right?
Ashley Mengwasser: What else?
Stephanie Sisk: Let's see. Another one, road trips and roadkill is my other favorite collaboration. So-
Ashley Mengwasser: I feel like that's a T-shirt waiting to happen.
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, it is, right? So on all of our road trips, when there's roadkill, we stop. I jump out of the car, I take pictures. I actually have an assignment for my AP biology students. They have a bucket list in the summer and we make this giant list of things that they can do. And one of the things is to take a selfie with roadkill safely, safely. So I have lots of roadkill selfies.
Ashley Mengwasser: You are so cool. Any other collabs?
Stephanie Sisk: Okay. The only other one, Joe Wright and Jane Austen, right? So I'm a huge 2005 Pride and Prejudice fan, that movie. Just amazing.
Ashley Mengwasser: I need to go back and watch that.
Stephanie Sisk: You should, yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: It's been a while. I think I've seen pieces of it. I have a few fave collaborations, the left hand and the right hand. They do great work. We need-
Stephanie Sisk: They do.
Ashley Mengwasser: ... Ultas and Targets.
Stephanie Sisk: Oh.
Ashley Mengwasser: Really into this.
Stephanie Sisk: That's a big one.
Ashley Mengwasser: Because now you can go into a lot of Targets and get your makeup refreshed. John Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, that's a good one.
Ashley Mengwasser: Heartthrobs. Ben and Jerry, thank you for the ice cream, and I love their dairy-free line is fantastic. The dairy-free chocolate chip cookie dough.
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, we're going to try that.
Ashley Mengwasser: I have emptied freezers at public stores to grab that. And any book club, I think, is a favorite collaboration.
Stephanie Sisk: Yeah, that's great.
Ashley Mengwasser: When you get like-minded people together to talk about books-
Stephanie Sisk: It is so true.
Ashley Mengwasser: ... the learning is just fantastic. So get us into the concept of collaborative learning for first-timers. Generally speaking, how is collaborative learning defined?
Stephanie Sisk: Collaborative learning is really about having students work with other students. So as opposed to this teacher-centric model where the teacher is explaining, telling, you're giving the kids a chance to then talk with each other, take the information in their head, turn it around, make sense of it, and then either say it or somehow get it out in another way so that they've actually thought about that information a little bit.
Ashley Mengwasser: Very good. Describe what collaborative learning looks like in your classroom, Stephanie. You're the queen, so tell me.
Stephanie Sisk: Well, so I am a very informal collaborative teacher, although in the past I've collaborated, for example, last year when I taught with a co-lab teacher where we actually co-taught together. I do this every day, all day throughout my classroom, so I do have some formal collaborative activities that I use. But on a daily basis, my questioning techniques are probably my most useful collaborative tool.
Ashley Mengwasser: Very good.
Stephanie Sisk: In this case, when I ask a question out loud, my juniors and seniors tend to stay quiet. They are more reserved. But my freshmen will yell out things. So-
Ashley Mengwasser: As they do.
Stephanie Sisk: ... before I even get the question out, I'll say, "Do not say this out loud. Think the answer in your head." I'll say the question, I give them a few minutes to ruminate, and then I'll have them share with their partner. Maybe it's the table, right? Other students. It could be up to three, but it might just be the person next to them. And then they all have them all share with each other. And then often I'll actually say, "Point to the person who had a great answer."
Ashley Mengwasser: I love that.
Stephanie Sisk: And then that person shares with the class. This is especially useful for students who don't have quite as much confidence as others. So I tend to pick those students and have them share so that they get a little bit more confidence and they feel better about answering that question on their own next time.
Ashley Mengwasser: And think-pair-share.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes. And that's a version of think-pair-share, yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Okay, you told me about.
Stephanie Sisk: And every teacher knows about think-pair-share. It is required in the education world. So that's the idea, right? We think on-
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.
Stephanie Sisk: ... our own, we pair up, we talk to the other person about it, and then we share it out loud.
Ashley Mengwasser: What does this visually look like in your classroom? How is your lab?
Stephanie Sisk: Yes. So I am in a lab room, so I don't have desks. We have tables that are set up for two students each. I have those facing each other. So I'll have two students facing another two students. So we typically, you would have that maybe during a lab, but other teachers might separate it out on a daily basis, but I leave them like that all the time. So-
Ashley Mengwasser: How do you decide how you pair the students and who works together?
Stephanie Sisk: So, this is typically very intentional. I have to get to know the students first. But after I get to know them, then I'll do a new seating chart. I try to put a student who is an excellent critical thinker with someone who might need a little bit more practice with that critical thinking. I try to pair up people who might be a little more patient with people who might need someone who's more patient with them as well.
Ashley Mengwasser: It's intentional collaboration and pairing. You said in your classroom, "Collaborative learning is constant. It's happening all day, every day." Could you share some examples of how you're using it on an everyday basis?
Stephanie Sisk: So, besides the think-pair-share, which is my go-to, which we do on a daily basis, I also, after tests, so any kind of assessment that the students do, the day after that, we call it a test talk. And I have to say here that teachers borrow everything. So there is nothing that I do that is unique to me. I've picked up things from people along the way, at conferences, and just seeing other people. But this test talk idea I got from someone at an AP conference a long time ago. But the students pair up and I put them in intentional groups. Typically, I try to set them up so that we have the most success with their understanding and mastery. So I might put students in one group there might be a student who made an A on the test and a B on the test and a C on the test in one group together. They then get a copy of the test again and they get to retake the entire test. So I ask them to self-identify the weakest student in this topic area, right? I tell them, "Make sure you don't point to a person."
Ashley Mengwasser: Not in this case.
Stephanie Sisk: They should raise their own hand. So they raise their hand, they're the one that holds the answer sheet. And in this case, I think one of the important things to note is that I am very explicit with my instructions and what I expect them to do. So I always have a slide on the front of the room that has all the instructions again, even though we're doing it with every test. And I go through those every time as well. So I ask them to make sure that they are listening and they're not just talking. They're not just waiting for their turn. I give them sentence starters. So I need to hear you saying things like, "Can you explain to me why you didn't pick this answer?", or, "Can you tell me why this answer is correct?" And they retake the entire test again. The thinking is that they increase their mastery, so they earn points back on their actual original test score based on how they do on the group retest.
Ashley Mengwasser: A win for all.
Stephanie Sisk: It really is.
Ashley Mengwasser: Is that typically the case in the outcome that you find?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Absolutely.
Stephanie Sisk: It is one of the richest educational strategies I've ever seen or used.
Ashley Mengwasser: Test talk. Do certain collaborative activities work better than others for collaborative learning, have you found?
Stephanie Sisk: I would say so. I would recommend, when you're doing any kind of collaboration, you need to have very small groups. A pair is really ideal, but perhaps three students, maybe four depending on the activity. Try to keep it small, be extremely explicit about what they're doing, and make sure that you're giving them these sentence starters. And you're walking around. Here's what I want to hear when I walk past you. One thing that sounds hokey, because a lot of my students are practically college students, is assigning roles. So it sounds a little goofy, but if you actually give them a role, so in a lab setting, for example, okay, you're going to have a pipette-er, right? You're going to have a bacteria handler. You're going to have a timer. When you give those roles to students, they really take them seriously. And I would set a timer. So anything that you can time, if you can keep it shorter, that's great. I would not recommend letting it just go for an undisclosed amount of time. And another recommendation is to have some sort of outcome to hold them accountable, whether it's sharing an answer with the group, whether it's brainstorming a list and they have to contribute a certain number of ideas to this list, some sort of outcome.
Ashley Mengwasser: They're driving towards something.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Exactly. Can you give an example of a lesson where you've used these techniques recently? Something in your bio class?
Stephanie Sisk: Yeah, we actually do something called We Design Experiments. So I do this with the ninth graders. I even used it with my collaborative students last year in my just normal level ninth grade class. It can be used with anyone. But the students will design an experiment. So I set up a template and they design their experiment in a group. Again, I've got a timer going. They have a certain number of minutes that they have to accomplish this. And I limit their words that they can use typically so that they're not as verbose. So maybe you can only use 20 words on your poster. They make a poster, they then share that with the class, and we actually give feedback. So every group gives feedback to another group and they actually can earn points for pointing out potential flaws in experiments and points for pointing out things that are perhaps solutions to those problems.
Ashley Mengwasser: This is fascinating. You really are a maven at this. And I think one of the things that you've found is your students are rising to the occasion. So that's something that I want to talk about next. John Hattie's book, Visible Learning, shows that collaborative learning has a positive effect on student learning. What positive effects have you seen in your students as a result of this?
Stephanie Sisk: I think one of the things that's the most satisfying to see is when you have a student that doesn't have quite as much confidence as a student sitting next to them. And when we do these think-pair-share activities, I try to praise the behaviors that I want to see. I try to praise the answers that I'm looking for. So when you have them collaboratively share an answer, then I know that student that maybe is less confident has an answer in their head now. And so I'm not afraid to call on that student. If they give a particularly good answer, I'll actually stop the class and say, "Everybody needs to listen to John. Say this answer again." You can see those students increase their confidence real-time. So they are a little bit more confident, they puff up just a little bit, and it gives them enough of that positive feeling that they're more likely to share the next time.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. And you told me when we first spoke about this that you're requiring to see or hear evidence of their thinking.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.
Stephanie Sisk: When I tell the students all the time the only evidence I hear or know that tells me that they're learning or thinking about something is if they say it out loud or if they're writing it down in some way. Otherwise, I really don't have any information about what they're doing.
Ashley Mengwasser: And do you find that this link between confidence and knowledge, is that bidirectional?
Stephanie Sisk: I would say it is. As the students gain that confidence, I think that they are now more open to learning more information. Instead of being maybe afraid that I'm going to call on them, it gives them a little bit of a safer space so that then they can actually think about it a little bit more. We've all been in that classroom where you call on a student and they don't know what was said.
Ashley Mengwasser: They're stunned, yes.
Stephanie Sisk: And I think often that comes from they're scared. They're nervous that they're going to get called on. And they can't even hear the information that you're teaching because they're worried that they're going to be called on. And when they gain that confidence, it gives them a little bit more room in their brain to take in some information.
Ashley Mengwasser: I can imagine that this translates well to other courses in the school. Are you seeing that once they become confident and capable and conversational on their collaborative learning, does that play out in any subject matter? Could it?
Stephanie Sisk: Yeah, I do think that is true. I know that one of the things that I focus on is this positive culture in my classroom, and that's-
Ashley Mengwasser: We love that here, positive classroom climate.
Stephanie Sisk: That's right.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.
Stephanie Sisk: And it's huge. And so all of these things, I want the kids, first day they come in I say, "I want you. My goal is for you to be able to look at anybody in this room, regardless of how you feel that you are rated academically compared to that person, that you're able to ask them to explain something to you. Can you please explain this to me?" That's our goal at the end of the year. So if students can leave my classroom with that information and take it anywhere else, I think that is something that will last a lifetime.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes, it will. And they're in these pods together. They're growing together. How can you ensure that all the students are participating and not just one or two?
Stephanie Sisk: I do think keeping the groups small is critical to this task and holding them accountable in some way. So using the example of the weakest self-identified person holding the answer sheet.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.
Stephanie Sisk: That would be an example.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, that's good.
Stephanie Sisk: When they do the test talks, one of the things that I tell them I don't want to hear, I don't want to them get to a question and say, "Obviously it's A." Right? I said, "Because if I hear you say that, now I'm never going to actually say my answer because I'm intimidated by you." Those are the things that are important.
Ashley Mengwasser: They have to be angling their communication in a way that's open for a discussion-
Stephanie Sisk: They do.
Ashley Mengwasser: ... and dialectic. Can you think of a time when your students understood a topic better as a result of collaborative learning?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, this happens on a daily basis.
Ashley Mengwasser: You're like daily Ashley.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: Every day this is proven.
Stephanie Sisk: Well, it really is. It doesn't take very much. One of the activities that I use in AP biology is I pair students up and they go through these very difficult, very lengthy multiple choice questions. And it's difficult for these kids to figure out and pick out the important information to even figure out what the question is asking. So I'll often pair these students up and I'll give them a dry erase marker. I have it laminated so they can actually write on this question. And I'll encourage them to say all of their thinking. So everything that they're thinking while they're reading the question should be coming out of their mouth.
Ashley Mengwasser: Unfiltered.
Stephanie Sisk: And you don't have to tell the students which one should go first. They automatically, the stronger kid picks it up-
Ashley Mengwasser: Darwin.
Stephanie Sisk: ... and starts going, right? And they will start saying it. And I'll tell them, "Don't just talk about why you picked the correct answer. Talk about why the other ones are incorrect, right? How you knew what it was even asking." So this is something that we use on a daily basis.
Ashley Mengwasser: What do you find is their favorite activity in collaborative learning? Do they have some favorite techniques?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh. I tell you, they do love test talks, of course, but I think it's because they're point hungry, right?
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah, ravenous.
Stephanie Sisk: They want those points back. But they do love the test talks. They often, when we do any kind of peer review, when they get in these groups and they're doing some sort of peer feedback, they love that as well. I think part of them just wants to be super critical of the other groups. But we often, if it's structured well enough, and this is what I can't emphasize enough, there has to be structure. They have to know exactly what they're supposed to do. If they're giving feedback to another group collaboratively, I will say, "All right, let's point out two positive things about what they did, and then let's ask a question about something that might've done better." So they love this.
Ashley Mengwasser: They love that.
Stephanie Sisk: They love giving the feedback.
Ashley Mengwasser: The critical part made me laugh. But some of natural selection, some of the strongest species have a herd mentality or a team mentality, like ants, lions, for instance. Do you ever see them protecting their young or their fledgling teammates in ways or lifting them up when just the empathy that comes with sharing that shared space together?
Stephanie Sisk: You do hope to see that over time. And I think part of that, I just had a teacher tell me the other day that the kids watch the teachers to see how we treat those students. That might be slightly irritating to everyone.
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.
Stephanie Sisk: That might be a little bit annoying. And you will see that. I think giving the example as we move through these activities and making sure that you're showing the behavior that you want the kids to see, using that language, being explicit about it, all those things-
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.
Stephanie Sisk: ... the kids end up hopefully, in most cases, a little bit closer than they were before.
Ashley Mengwasser: Supporting each other.
Stephanie Sisk: Yes.
Ashley Mengwasser: One of my favorite things about this is it's not just about black and white, right or wrong. It's no, that's not correct, and here's why. And here's what is correct. And we arrived at this as a team. The community in that I think is really powerful for high school students as well who are going into the workforce and going into the world. So do you feel like these skills are translating to that?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, definitely. And this whole collaboration, right? When the kids are working towards something, we have a brainstorming activity that we do before we do labs in AP biology. And one of the things that I say is we're just brainstorming. So the sky is the limit, right? Let's just go with anything at first. We can narrow it down later, but let's just think of any possible, any factor that might have an impact on whatever we're measuring. And this is the important thing. Also, when a student does come up with an idea that might not be, let's say, one of the best ideas, that we are careful about how we respond to that. And I think the kids do over time. They get better at noting that and perhaps being a little bit more diplomatic about they approach those things.
Ashley Mengwasser: Bringing it back to positive classroom climate. One of my favorite things about you, Stephanie, is this phrase you say, "I like to enjoy my students, and I enjoy them." Tell me about your relationships with them and communicating that.
Stephanie Sisk: So, as I've said, I am extremely explicit about how I interact with my students, and intentional about that as well. So on a daily basis, I typically tell my kids that I'm happy that they came to school. And I'll say, "I'm so glad you guys came today." And then they look puzzled, right? So do we have a choice?
Ashley Mengwasser: Right.
Stephanie Sisk: We all have choices, right? You could have been sick this morning. You could have decided to not come. I think it matters. So knowing that I am there and I want them to be there as well, it makes a difference in my classroom.
Ashley Mengwasser: And these techniques, collaborative learning, are for the every student. You've taught biology in a bunch of different capacities, but you find it works just as well for everyone.
Stephanie Sisk: It really does. I mean, you have to give the kids a chance to talk with each other and really turn the information over in their heads. I tell them all the time, "Listen, don't count the holes in the ceiling, right? We need to actually be thinking about what we're saying because that's the only way that you're ever going to learn anything."
Ashley Mengwasser: What tips do you have for our teacher listeners who are considering this strategy but maybe aren't sure how to get started?
Stephanie Sisk: I would recommend perhaps at first using a formal collaborative technique, setting a timer, having your instructions bulleted on the board, and keeping a close eye and ear on those first few interactions and praise the behavior that you want to see. So when you hear something happening in a group, stop everyone, turn their attention. Point it out. Say it out loud. Have those kids maybe recreate that conversation for everyone. And over time, they do get better at this. And they want to hear, especially if you're giving them some sort of feedback on it, they love to hear feedback that's personal to what they've done or said, positive and constructive criticisms.
Ashley Mengwasser: You said they really like the praise.
Stephanie Sisk: They love the praise, right? If you see something in your classroom and you want to see it more, you have to explicitly say, "Let's everybody stop. Listen to this. Say it again. Do it again." And you will get that behavior back.
Ashley Mengwasser: For our biology science teachers, where do you get your ideas for cool-
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, my goodness.
Ashley Mengwasser: ... collaborative learning lessons? Do you have some free resources you can share?
Stephanie Sisk: We have so many things. I would say the best resource is other teachers, and it doesn't matter the content area. I have gotten information and just strategies. It's not about content, it's small strategies. Go in your school, visit master teachers. It doesn't have to be for an hour. It could be during your planning period, although I know we're always short on planning periods. But any opportunity that you have to visit a master teacher in the room, take that opportunity because that's where I've gotten all my ideas.
Ashley Mengwasser: Wow. I'll bet Charles Darwin did not see this coming, evolution in the classroom. Stephanie, this is brilliant. Next time, could you please bring one of those handleable animals with you?
Stephanie Sisk: Definitely. I only have a saltwater aquarium in my room right now, so it'd be difficult to travel.
Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, man. We'll have to think of something else. We actually need a mascot for this podcast. We don't have one. Can you think of a creature that fits the character of our teacher talk show here?
Stephanie Sisk: Oh, my gosh.
Ashley Mengwasser: Help us think. What could we be?
Stephanie Sisk: It depends on if you want to be a little bit spicy-
Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.
Stephanie Sisk: ... or if you want to be calm, right?
Ashley Mengwasser: Always spicy.
Stephanie Sisk: Oh.
Ashley Mengwasser: Spicy, creative, collaborative.
Stephanie Sisk: That's right.
Ashley Mengwasser: I feel like that's the vibe of this-
Stephanie Sisk: That's right.
Ashley Mengwasser: ... talk show.
Stephanie Sisk: Collaboration.
Ashley Mengwasser: Exactly. We'll have to think about it. If anything comes to mind, just shout it out.
Stephanie Sisk: Sure will.
Ashley Mengwasser: Please do. To the enthusiastic evolved educator listening today, see what happens when your students adapt to learning in packs. And remember, you're a great teacher. I'm Ashley. Let's collaboratively learn about a new topic next week, huh? Tune in for more Classroom Conversations. Goodbye for now. Funding for Classroom Conversations is made possible through the School Climate Transformation Grant.
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