Teaching Meaningful Stuff

I spent some time this week reading a little and thinking a little more deeply about collaborative learning.  The essence of what I've gathered is the strong message that, by teaching students to work together, solve conflicts, and communicate effectively, they gain critical skills for success in the "real world" - outside the classroom.   I think it is generally understood that it is no longer necessary, or sometimes even possible, to have work teams all in one geographic location; and now that people are relating socially and professionally online,  we can't really afford not to teach students these skills.

Being new to the teaching profession, I have far more experience in the "real world" than in the classroom.  So, this topic is something I can strongly relate to.  

I was a Team Leader in the Information Technology Department of a large company in Maine and it was my responsibility to hire and develop team members, manage performance, collaborate with other team leaders, ensure efficient processes, manage the team budget, contract with vendors, manage team projects/changes, and make sure that problems were resolved and prevented from reoccurring. In addition to all that, both the Director whom I reported to, and two, of my six, team members were in North Carolina.

There is no way I could have done all that without working with, and learning from the people on my team.  All of us have our strengths and weaknesses and we regularly had to lean into each other to get things done effectively.  There were always problems and decisions to make, some of them having huge financial impact.  Negotiation, teamwork, problem solving, and critical thinking were essential.  Our team needed to stay connected despite our physical and cultural (north/south) differences, so video conferencing and other online communication use and etiquette were also key skills for success.  Our most important collaborative tool (akin to Google Drive) was our Incident Management System.  Customers entered their problems into the system in a variety of ways and individual team members could all see the tickets, prioritize, take ownership, document progress, and resolve incidents.  This system allowed us to always see where each indecent and team member was  with each item should someone be out sick or get stuck and need to escalate or transfer the problem to another professional.

These types of skills and communication are needed, not just in an office job, but in any job - health care, small businesses owners, activists writers - they all need to solve important problems, collaborate, share information, and resolve conflict.

One might make the argument that some professions may not need these collaborative and tactful negotiation skills.  But I beg to differ.  I have witnessed a lot of people in technical or hands-on type of jobs who are amazingly skilled at the mechanics of work, but who lack the very skills I'm writing about in this post.

Most tech departments I've worked have a lot of great people who do not know what each other are doing.  Their customers do not know when to expect a response and they are wasting a lot of time duplicating efforts because either solutions are not documented and shared or there is no system in place for prioritization and organization (grouping) of tasks.  Basically, despite vast storehouses of knowledge and technical skills, the right hand does not know what the left is doing.

Recently, I had to contract a Sealcoating expert to work on the driveway for our condominium association.  I had his business card and called several times with no response.  Finally, over two weeks later, the man called back and told me that he really only responds to his cell phone.   Even then, the response rate was not much better.   Unbeknownst to any of us, last Summer, our lawn person did not get paid due to a mixup with the change in our treasurer, so in response, his wife/office manager posted a nasty message about our association on Facebook.   I also have a fantastic auto mechanic with a great personality, but he does not have a web presence and does not respond to email.  He would have even more business if he did!

Since it is so easy for customers to share their experiences and choose vendors using the Internet and their digital tools, anybody who works anywhere needs to have effective and tactful communication skills, online, for teamwork and for customer service.  Successful workers are all collaborators and problem solvers.

One thing that I've noticed since being a student, is that it is very rare, in any job that I've ever had, that I would have to solve any problems or make any decisions in a vacuum.  I've always had peers, superiors, documentation, or the Internet to help me learn and find solutions, or at least leads.   That is not the experience I've had as a student, where so much of my work had to be done individually.  The group work that I've done, as a student, has felt mostly forced and awkward, as if it were solely for the purpose of collaborating, or breaking up the lecture, and not for the purpose of really getting to a solution.

I'm very fortunate this year to have the opportunity to work with a small group of students on the Student Technology Team.  Because it is a small group and I do not have a stressful agenda with regard to ELTs, I can have them do some of the meaningful "real world" stuff that I care so much about.   For example, I have given them tasks with no directions and let them figure out a good way to complete them.  I encourage them not to go it alone - but to help each other out.   Two of my students are working on a project to build a server.  I don't know how to build a server.  Neither do they.  But they're under the table every chance they get, researching on the Internet, talking, negotiating, trying, and trying again.

I've noticed that, when students are deeply engaged with the task at hand, they are driving themselves to learn the content.  The role I take in these situations is more like a coach.  I encourage them to give each other suggestions and help, rather than just taking over and doing it for each other.  I also require them to document the process of what they're doing in some way (text, video, audio, etc.) so that they will have evidence, remember what they did, and share knowledge with others.  When my lesson falls short of interesting, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to teach the collaboration and interpersonal skills because students are so frequently of task.

I believe it is possible to have regularly assigned projects that engage a whole range of students enough so that classroom management takes a back seat to coaching use of these higher order communication skills, but I also think it will take us all some time to develop them.  For right now, I have between two and five of them in my repertoire, so I have a long way to go!  I'm glad I work with a lot of awesome teachers that I can learn from and I look forward to sharing my own with them.