Crafting Deeper Collaboration: An Invitation

Regardless of context, we'd all likely agree that facilitating student collaboration isn't an easy task. And if we're being fully transparent, we can confess that sometimes it's downright painful! Somewhere along the secondary grades, we tend to lose sight of explicitly teaching students skills such as collaboration, and rather expect students to simply be able to successfully work in a group together.

With limited time, support, and resources available to develop our craft in regards to student collaboration, it's easy to focus on other demands and hope that students will organically develop these skills. If this resonates with

you and sounds like something you need support with, I'd like to invite you to sign up for one of the 50 open seats in a new learning experience starting on November 10th, with an online launch at noon Pacific/3 PM Eastern. Over five weeks, we'll work together to try strategies for increasing student collaboration in the classroom, concluding our journey on December 15th.

We hope you consider joining this group of reflective practitioners who plan to collectively dive into our practice and explore scaffolds for student collaboration. The purpose of the group is twofold:

• To provide collegial support for an identified problem of practice related to student collaboration in order for teachers to build their professional learning network.
• To interact with deeper learning teaching strategies so that teachers have the tools to increase their bandwidth to deliver deeper learning experiences.

During this time we will:

• Identify a problem of practice related to student collaboration
• Dive into leading research on progressive approaches to facilitating student collaboration
• Interact with and leverage the Teams video coaching cycle and video platform
• Receive access to CraftED Curriculum's Deeper Learning strategies for scaffolding collaboration
• Give and receive feedback on teaching practice, implementing CraftED’s strategies
• Reflect on our practice and support one another through the process of becoming deeper learner’s ourselves

Upholding the tenets of deeper learning is a powerful undertaking -- filled with shifts and challenges -- but more importantly, possibilities. Deeper learning acknowledges learning as a social process and requires that students make sense of their learning together -- collaboration is not an add-on, it's an expectation. The work of deeper learning doesn't happen without intention, explicit teaching, and a reflective teacher leading the way; and as members of the group, we can support one another through this learning process.

If you're interested in joining this group of educators looking to develop our craft through the use of high quality teaching tools and our collective wisdom, then register here by November 9th. Remember, space is limited. I look forward to learning with you.

Jenny Pieratt, PhD is the Founder and President of CraftED Curriculum, an online resource of teaching tools for designing deeper learning experiences. She is a National Faculty member of Buck Institute for Education, a former founding staff member of High Tech High North County, and School Development Coach for New Tech Network. While she was in the classroom, she taught grades 5-10. Learn more about Jenny and her work with CraftED on her website and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.