About the Book
Students who know how to collaborate successfully in the classroom will be better prepared for professional success in a world where we are expected to work well with others. Students learn collaboratively, and acquire the skills needed to organize and complete collaborative work, when they participate in thoughtfully-designed learning activities. Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn uses the author's Taxonomy of Online Collaboration to illustrate levels of progressively more complex and integrated collaborative activities.
- Part I introduces the Taxonomy of Online Collaboration and offers theoretical and research foundations.
- Part II focuses on ways to use Taxonomy of Online Collaboration, including, clarifying roles and developing trust, communicating effectively, organizing project tasks and systems.
- Part III offers ways to design collaborative learning activities, assignments or projects, and ways to fairly assess participants' performance.
Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn is a professional guide intended for faculty, curriculum planners, or instructional designers who want to design, teach, facilitate, and assess collaborative learning. The book covers the use of information and communication technology tools by collaborative partners who may or may not be co-located. As such, the book will be appropriate for all-online, blended learning, or conventional classrooms that infuse technology with "flipped" instructional techniques.
About the Author :
Janet Salmons is an independent researcher and writer through Vision2Lead. She is the author of five books about online research; the most recent are Doing Qualitative Research Online (2016) and Qualitative Online Interviews (2015). Dr. Salmons served on the Ph.D. faculty in Educational Technology at Walden University and on the graduate faculty of the Capella University School of Business, where she was honored with the Harold Abel Distinguished Faculty Award for 2011-2012 and the Steven Shank Recognition for Teaching in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Dr. Salmons lives and works in Boulder, Colorado. Lynn A. Wilson
Review :
"Collaboration is fast becoming one of the most importantskills for leadership in the 21st-century. This fact is widely acknowledged andyet educators have few resources to teach students how to systematically pursuecollaborative problem-solving. Janet Salmon's book fills this gap withthis practical guide book that can be applied across any discipline. Dr.Salmons writes in a clear, logical, and engaging style that is research-basedand creates a sense of excitement and motivation for the collaborativeexperience."--Louise Kelly, Professor of Management and Leadership "University of La Verne, and author of The Psychologist Manager."
"Collaborativelearning has an amazing potential for supporting students to learn within adiscipline and to grow their agency and capacity for collaborative action.Unfortunately, the literature of learning in groups is also replete with storiesof how it all went wrong. This new book by Janet Salmons provides the latestversion of her highly accessible research-based, conceptual andvisual taxonomy of collaboration and shows us how to apply this rich vocabularyto the design of face-to-face and onlinecollaborative learning that can yield the desired learning benefits whileminimizing the pitfalls. And as a bonus the same principles can also beapplied to planning successful collaborative research and work processes."
--Tony Carr, Convener of e/merge Africa and educational technologist in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) "University of Cape Town, South Africa"
"Employerskeep saying that they want employees who can be good team players and workcollaboratively, and Janet Salmons has finally provided faculty andcourse-writing teams with a useful, well-grounded and practical guidebook forcreating learning experiences that help our students build those criticalskill-sets. Dr.Salmons has provided us with a remarkably well-grounded and useful guidebookfor helping create truly collaborative learning experiences for ourstudents--and helping students move from 'ugh, group work', to 'yes, collaborative teamwork'!"
--William C. Schulz III, Director of Academic Initiatives, Office of Academic Affairs, School of Management, and Founding Director, Walden Center for Social Change "Walden University"
"Western understanding of collaborative learning and work inAsia is in stark contrast to the way it is actually practiced among Chinesestudents. Surprisingly, they do notrelish many of our best attempts to design collaborative learning processes. This is due in large part to social loafing, over-reliance on linguistic skills of others, cross-cultural disconnects, and misalignmentsin student/teacher expectations.
Learning toCollaborate, Collaborating to Learn gives instructors a tangible frameworkto understand, organize, assess, implement, and redesign methodologies towardeffective student-centered existential collaborative processes inside oroutside of the classroom. In our Fieldwork in Leadership Studies course, westrive to give theory practical application. The taxonomical approaches, the assessments, and the activities offeredhere are invaluable and can give us tangible guidelines to help us improve ourdeliverables."
--Brendon C. Fox, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies "Fort Hays State University US/Sino partnership with Sias International University, Xinzheng, Henan, PR China"
"Janet Salmons's practical experience with collaboration in the classroom shines through in this book. Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn is packed with actionable advice and diverse examples. I know this book will be a go-to guide for instructors across disciplines looking to help their students learn the skills of collaboration and teamwork."--Katie Linder, Research Director, Oregon State University Ecampus
"Collaboration is a key component of working andlearning in the 21st century. As the world becomes more of a globalenvironment, it is important to learn how to purposely collaborate withindividuals and groups from diverse backgrounds. In some cases, the diversitymay be within a face-to-face classroom, or it could be a myriad of peopleonline from all over the world. Either way, learning to work with others on aproject or an idea is an important skill for the 21st century. Salmons states, 'When people collaborate, they think together as well as work together'.
This book is unique in that Salmons offers ataxonomy for collaborative learning that provides a framework for creating, implementing, and assessing group assignments and activities in the classroom.Throughout the book, numerous tables and figures are used to help explain theconcepts of collaboration.
Early in the book, Salmons gives a strongtheoretical background on taxonomies as frameworks that help students developcritical thinking skills and, in turn, use those skills in other contexts. Shealso demonstrates that these skills extend beyond the classroom and arevaluable in the workplace.
This book is a very useful text for a teacher or workplace leader whowants to incorporate the theories and practice of collaborative learning intotheir class or presentation. The book is very hands-on and gives multiplepractical examples of how to lead students in a collaborative learningexperience. Of particular note, Salmons also includes some reflections on herown experiences and research on how students worked through some collaborativeassignments. This type of 'learning from experience' is very helpful as a guidefor the reader and adds a personal feel to the writing.
Salmons' work is very timely in the current learning environment when more andmore instructors are looking to collaborative activities both for face-to faceclasses as well as the online platform. Given that the 21st century has changedthe way people learn and work, her book is a relevant and valuable contributionto the field."
-- "Teachers College Record"
"Collaboration is a part of our life.In this book Janet illuminates how collaboration can be a positive experienceand how we can intentionally learn to be an effective collaborator no matterthe circumstances, our role, our preference way of working, and end point. At atime when working effectively with others is seen as a vital skill, this bookunpacks how it possible to thrive and flourish as we learn to understand thecollaborative process, how working with others can be put into practice, andmost importantly how we can grow as individuals personally andprofessionally."
--Narelle Lemon, Associate Professor, Education "Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia"
"The future ofwork requires team adaptability, shared participation, and integratedcontributions among professionals. Educators need to create thoughtful learningexperiences that expose students to relevant collaboration opportunities theywill encounter in a connected world. Dr. Janet Salmons' book offers thefundamentals for collaborative learning paired with the pedagogical planningand assessment practices to reach this goal. With reflective questions, team-based design graphs, and visual mapping of the collaborative learningtaxonomy, instructors and learning designers will find this book to be avaluable resource for developing guided facilitation for learners."
--Laura Pasquini, Senior Lecturer "University of North Texas & Researcher with The Digital Learning and Social Media Research Group"
