Collaborative Learning

Collaborative Learning promotes a sense of community and belonging by strengthening teacher-pupil relationships and integrating cooperative learning strategies into the curriculum. It is the over-arching pedagogical model for Abbott Community Primary School and effectively contributes to pupils and staff working together in a positive and inclusive, whole school learning environment.

Collaborative Learning is a structural approach to learning, based on the creation, analysis and systematic application of structures, or content-free ways of organising social interaction in the classroom. Structures usually involve a series of steps, with prescribed behaviour at each step. In addition, the 'Kagan collaborative' philosophy endorses the teaching and fostering of social skills within the classroom and playground culture, i.e. no put-downs, ongoing praise of fellow classmates and regular class-building and team-building activities are also practiced, making the classroom a social and accepting place.

Aims

Pupils will:

• Learn and engage with classmates and teachers through a variety of Kagan
structures.

• Learn and use the ‘quiet signal’.

• Learn and regularly use gambit/copycat praisers.

  Teachers will:

• Learn, teach and use Kagan Cooperative Learning structures/strategies and
embrace them as an agreed philosophy of teaching; embedding them within their daily practice.

• Establish classrooms with strong Kagan Cooperative Learning features such as appropriate seating plans and gambit/copycat/praiser use.

• Establish Kagan Cooperative Learning principles in learning programs including specific references to Classroom Management Plans and Personal Teaching Philosophies.

• Include regular Kagan Classbuilding and Teambuilding sessions in weekly timetables.