Collaborative Learning Homepage

Welcome to Collaborative Learning.

Join Our Network. Try out our Resources. Adapt them to your classes and share on our network.

Come to one of our Workshops.

Collaborative learning is a teaching style that has evolved over the last thirty years and is still evolving. We are a teacher network that shares resources either to be used as they are, or tweaked a little to suit different classrooms or to be an inspiration/a template to develop new resources that we hope you will in turn share.

First to develop resources that empower learners by encouraging them to work with every other learner in the class in a playful but purposeful way. We want to nurture emotional and social development and make learners confident in sharing what they know....more

Second to make complex ideas accessible by presenting them in concrete, visual and tactile ways. By taking abstract thinking out of your head and putting it on the table. Breaking ideas down and presenting them as case studies with lots of detail and examples. Providing scaffolding... more

Third to encourage exploratory talk in the classroom. There is increasing evidence that talk and thinking work together to develop new meanings. There is also evidence that talk has been neglected in our classrooms and this has widened the gap in attainment. Talk is good for all learners and vital for children learning a new language while they are learning. Our activities scaffold talk and help teachers plan for the language to support thinking. They also allow learners to move from social language to curriculum/academic talk and from there to confident writing......more

Our new partnership with Mantra Lingua has expanded the possibilities for collaborative work. They have taken tried and tested activities. They have produced brilliant new attractive artwork. Their printed versions arrive laminated and the cards are perforated so they can easily be prepared for the classroom. And of course the Mantra versions are sound enabled and you can add more sound stickers if necessary. They are not prerecorded, but ready for a variety of possible uses. Here are some suggestions on how they might be used.

Teachers can add the text - either the text written down or an extended version or a translation. They can make pictures talk. They can provide extra comments or instructions. Children can work together to add sound to an activity, comment on a activity or use it as a springboard to prepare oral presentation. And all the sound files can be shared with Sharelink. In the same way as we share activities and adapt them, Sharelink allows you to upload your sound files into the cloud so that others can download them for use in their classrooms. And you have access to all the sound ideas that colleagues have added to the resources. And the other way round you can download a language that is less common in your school or use other sound files to share ideas about an activity.

Would you like to support our work? We only rely on colleagues to spread the word since the project has no funding for publicity! Please download our little publicity leaflet or our even smaller publicity leaflet and hand it out to colleagues and at courses and workshops. Also if you are interested in hosting a workshop please take a look at how this could benefit your school - information here!



	Welcome to Collaborative Learning. Join Our Network. Try out our Resources. Adapt them to your classes and share on our network. Come to one of our Workshops. Collaborative learning is a teaching style that has evolved over the last thirty years and is still evolving. We are a teacher network that shares resources either to be used as they are, or tweaked a little to suit different classrooms or to be an inspiration/a template to develop new resources that we hope you will in turn share. We have three aims: First to develop resources that empower learners by encouraging them to work with every other learner in the class in a playful but purposeful way. We want to nurture emotional and social development and make learners confident in sharing what they know....more Second to make complex ideas accessible by presenting them in concrete, visual and tactile ways. By taking abstract thinking out of your head and putting it on the table. Breaking ideas down and presenting them as case studies with lots of detail and examples. Providing scaffolding... more Third to encourage exploratory talk in the classroom. There is increasing evidence that talk and thinking work together to develop new meanings. There is also evidence that talk has been neglected in our classrooms and this has widened the gap in attainment. Talk is good for all learners and vital for children learning a new language while they are learning. Our activities scaffold talk and help teachers plan for the language to support thinking. They also allow learners to move from social language to curriculum/academic talk and from there to confident writing......more And we want these three aims to be realised simultaneously. Our new partnership with Mantra Lingua has expanded the possibilities for collaborative work. They have taken tried and tested activities. They have produced brilliant new attractive artwork. Their printed versions arrive laminated and the cards are perforated so they can easily be prepared for the classroom. And of course the Mantra versions are sound enabled and you can add more sound stickers if necessary. They are not prerecorded, but ready for a variety of possible uses. Here are some suggestions on how they might be used. Teachers can add the text - either the text written down or an extended version or a translation. They can make pictures talk. They can provide extra comments or instructions. Children can work together to add sound to an activity, comment on a activity or use it as a springboard to prepare oral presentation. And all the sound files can be shared with Sharelink. In the same way as we share activities and adapt them, Sharelink allows you to upload your sound files into the cloud so that others can download them for use in their classrooms. And you have access to all the sound ideas that colleagues have added to the resources. And the other way round you can download a language that is less common in your school or use other sound files to share ideas about an activity. Description and history of project and a list of commonly asked questions and answers (in html) or questions and answers in leaflet form in pdf about collaborative learning. Booklet on collaborative learning by Steve Cooke. Would you like to support our work? We only rely on colleagues to spread the word since the project has no funding for publicity! Please download our little publicity leaflet or our even smaller publicity leaflet and hand it out to colleagues and at courses and workshops. Also if you are interested in hosting a workshop please take a look at how this could benefit your school - information here!

		UK TALK FOR LEARNING NEWS! Did you know that children in schools for Deaf Children will be required to take the KS1 Phonics Test? Would you be interested in completing the NATE/UKLA phonics survey. You have till the 4th May to do so! DFE Experts Panel Report, following consultation on the new National Curriculum, is now published on DFE website. Chapter Nine emphasises the importance of oral language development on closing the gap in attainment at 11. Our UK gap is a lot wider than other countries, because up to now we have only paid lip service to oracy. As Andrew Wilkinson wrote in 1965 "Rhetoric was never one of the three 'R's". Will this government now ignore the experts? PS The site is being reconstructed to make resources more accessible, work better on ipads and create room for more activities. Please email me if you find any bad links. email: stuart.scott@collaborativelearning.org



Vital for bilingual learners, good for all other learners.

Please tell others about our network!