Randy Nelson Analysis

Nicole Ellison

November 14, 2013

EDSE 532

Reading Response #2

Pixar’s Randy Nelson said “collaboration is the amplification of communication.” I agree with Randy Nelson’s opinion on collaboration and I think it is important for success in school and in a career. In a collaborative group communication is happening on multiple different levels. Collaboration offers a way for our students to share their knowledge in different ways. As a teacher I can use a variety of different strategies to try and reach each student, but there are times where I can’t. With collaborative learning groups students can work together to solve a problem. The great benefit of a collaborative group is that there is more than one mind working on the problem and those minds can also explain the material in different ways. Our book says, “In short, the effective use of heterogeneous cooperative learning helps students grow academically, socially, and emotionally, and they enjoy doing it” (330).

What I think is very important about his statement is that as teachers we need to make our subject interesting and tap into the variety of talents that our students have. We talk in class about having a hook so that the students buy in to the lesson. A great way to get the students to buy in to the lesson is to incorporate their talents by allowing diversity with the lesson. Traditionally, classes are taught using worksheets that aren’t creative or allow for student creativity. When I teach Romeo and Juliet, for example, instead of using a worksheet, I can have an assignment where the students can act, write, dance, draw, or use some other media to present key scenes to the class. By recognizing that every student has talents and using them in an assignment or lesson, the students are more likely to buy into the lesson and in turn they should remember the lesson years down the