Collaboration

Collaboration is an interesting thing. This weekend I was working on a collaborative project with friends, and we were discussing how much better the work that we were doing becomes when we gather input from others than when we simply work alone.

This made me begin to think about syllabus design. This winter I'm teaching a service learning course, and I believe that part of service learning comes from the discussions of what we learn. This is making me think about restructuring my syllabus-- I think I want to have my students do their service in pairs.

I still believe it is important to have some individual work in a composition classroom, and I know that some students really despise group work. Yet, I think that if they have a partner throughout for their service project that they will be able to understand the project more fully. I also think it will build up their security in working in a service environment to have someone with them rather than attempting to conquer it all alone.

Maybe I should talk with someone about this.