You might have heard the phrase, “Study well, focus on your academics. Don’t discuss with your friends.”

Our education system focuses too much on grades and academics, which leads to too much competition. In the movie “3 idiots”, the dialogue goes “, life is a race” we are taught to race and come first from the time we step foot on earth.  

Collaboration is not equal to helping, sharing, caring, or even co-operating. There is a fine line between competing and collaborating. When two people compete, they put each others’ skills to the test. When you collaborate, you combine each others’ skills into something and make it bigger.

Therefore, we can define collaboration as the practice of breaking into small groups to answer questions, work on projects, and learn from one another. 

Take social media, for instance, be it YouTubers or other social media influencers. All of them collab/collaborate to make products(merch), music, shoot videos etc. 

Similarly, you should build the essence and spirit to collaborate, i.e., study together, play together.

Group studying will help you understand better. A few of your friends may understand a subject better than you and vice versa. This exchange of skills and cooperating and co-ordinating enables you to socialise and also do well in school. 

The same thing applies to playing together as well. 

All these  “collaboration” skills help you socialise, grow your contacts and grow on the professional front as well. 

When do we need to collaborate?

• In a team-based project: When there is a team-based project, you must finish together. Then brainstorming and collaborating makes you more efficient.
• When time is limited: When there is a set time frame, it is better to collaborate because you will finish faster and become more efficient in your responsibilities.
• When complementary skills are required: When you need a set of skills that go hand-in-hand to complete a given task, it’s better to get together and do it as this will improve the quality of the work.
• Too much for one person: You can collaborate and spread the workload amongst yourselves, so one person doesn’t have to deal with all of the pressure such as:
• Required Creativity
• Work Load / Problem
• Resources

There are some prerequisites to collaborate. Some of them are listed here if you can think of more comments below in the comment section:

• Shared Goal / Vision: When you have a shared goal or a vision. It makes it easier if like-minded people are grouped, so there is no pressure of “getting along.”
• Team Members to have Complimentary Skills &/ Resources: Make sure all of your team members have the same set of skill levels and resources so all of you are on the same page and none are slacking.

• Harmony with each other: When you get along with someone and rarely fight, that is an example of a situation where you have a harmonious relationship.
• Willing to share and care: You all should ensure you share each other’s skill sets, resources, etc. You should have a good rapo, going on so there is no “trust issue” 

Now that you have your pre-requisites set, let’s get on with the steps to collaborate or how to collaborate:

1. Build Rapport: Build a relationship with someone. Befriend them, exchange ideas and discuss general topics, so you understand where they stand, and you can accordingly take the following steps.
2. Form a Team: Once you have built a rapo, you need to form a group together. Having like-minded people will enhance the speed and quality of your group’s skills.
3. Create a Positive Environment: Make sure you create a positive environment. “No wrong answers”, “any type of question is welcomed”, “your opinion matters, and it is heard.”
4. Define Team Goals: Make a list of set a list of goals for you as a group to achieve and accomplish.
5. Clarify Individual Roles: Make sure you let everyone know their roles in the group, so nobody overshadows anyone.
6. Execute Mindfully: Be mindful of what you say and do so nobody feels left out.
7. Review Respectfully: Be respectful of the things you say while giving feedback. 
8. Learn & Celebrate: Celebrate once you accomplish each goal. This will help you bond and gel better as a group and also help you revive yourself individually.

Working together means:

Sharing Ideas, Skills & Resources, supporting each other in their Objectives, Needs and Challenges, celebrating each other’s Likes, Opinions and Personalities.

Essentials for collaborating:

As a student, you can collaborate in your studies. Yes collaboration and not competition. Read below and apply them in your student life.

Benefits of Collective Learning

Celebration of Diversity: You should be culturally and socially very diverse. Thus, collaborative learning projects could open up the world to learners as you begin to gain a new perspective on life from your peers. You should also get to reflect upon your lives and values against those of your classmates and learn to acknowledge differences without being critical.

Interpersonal Development: In a group enterprise, you must learn to work with all types of people and relate to your peers so that the project at hand benefits from your structured interaction.

Confidence, Communication: Collaborative learning projects at an early age can help you boost your confidence and self-esteem, besides improving your sense of ownership at work. Presenting their ideas, defending them, and collaborating with others to expand their horizons also requires good communication skills, which also get a boost in these activities.

Build trust: To achieve a goal, you all need to work together. You can all work together without trusting each other, but you need to learn to trust each other for effective collaboration and reaching a common goal.

Engage in learning:  In a small group setting, each of you has the opportunity to express their ideas. Being able to do so and being heard can give the feeling of importance and value. The learning experience becomes more fun, and you get eager to learn more.

In our holistic education sessions, we work with our students discussing each of the transactions and understanding their point of view and explaining what collaboration is and why it is crucial. You can do the same too. If you want to watch the entire session recording, you can download our app and watch the recording from our holistic education batch. The link to the app is here 

For iPhone: http://on-app.in/app/home?orgCode=lkckc

For  Android: https://on-app.in/app/br/he2fnh1?oCode=lkckc

You can also get in touch with us if you have any questions at info@novoleaders.com

Now that you have read the blog, let us know in the comments below what you think are the differences and similarities between collaboration, collusion, cooperation and coordination.

SOURCE

Importance of collaborative learning in the classroom|Beas Dev Ralhan

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