At last year's EdmodoCon Live in Orlando, Dean Shareski shared some great reminders about the differences between cooperation and collaboration:
Cooperation: A group working together.
Collaboration: Each group member contributes a necessary element that is needed for an end product to be useful.
In the classroom it is easy to shoot for collaboration but really just be asking for cooperation. A few simple tweaks though can often make the difference.
This week my students completed an activity in class that I set up with Google Presenter. I created a presentation template Features of the 13 Colonies and had pairs of students complete the notes for the individual colonies using their books and internet resources. Once they were done with the organizers they were given a blank map that they had to label and annotate using the resource that they had created collaboratively. Breaking the task into individual pieces that need to be completed by individuals or pairs allows for accountability and prevents the social loafing that is often present in cooperative activities.
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