Student collaboration is undoubtedly beneficial. It enhances academic learning, and helps students develop essential social skills. But before having students jump right into partner work and small group activities, it’s definitely worthwhile to first set a strong foundation for collaborative learning.
It helps to give clear guidelines and behavior expectations, and also to get students in the best possible mindset for working together. When students have a deeper understanding as to why it’s important to work as a team and how to be a helpful teammate, the effectiveness of group work in the classroom increases tenfold.
Collaboration Station is a mentor text that serves in setting the stage for classroom teamwork.
It can be used to spark class discussions about how to work together as a team! And there are several extension activities you can do with it to to help create a collaborative classroom community among your students.
Here are FOUR Collaboration Station book companions (all of which are available individually, or in bundles):
1. Slide Deck with Discussion Questions
After reading the book aloud with your class, use this slide deck (which comes in both Google Slides and PowerPoint) to start those conversations about being a team at school.
You can use this slide below to have students talk about the WHY behind collaborative learning. When they have a better understanding of the benefits of teamwork, kids are likely to have more buy-in (and positive behavior) when it comes time to start working together in partners and small groups.
The slides can also be used to start valuable discussions about conflict resolution and how to be a helpful teammate.
You might use this resource for mini lessons (just focusing on specific slides on different days, or throughout various times of the school year). Or you could do a full lesson with most or all of the slides at once, as a complete introduction or review for collaborative learning.
Class Teamwork Pennant Flags
This book companion activity pairs great with the slides above! After having discussions about the importance of teamwork, each student can make their own team pennant flag.
It comes with all sorts of flag design options, including this one with writing prompts that spell out the word TEAM:
You could either use the flag with writing prompts on its own, or choose to give students one of the various “cover” flag options to staple on top (and lift up the top flag to read the writing under it).
You could display their flags like team pennants on a classroom wall, windows, or a bulletin board.
This resource comes with vertical flags too, if you might prefer to string all the flags together and hang them as a banner.
Either way, this activity can help get students excited about the idea of being a part of a team at school! And the flags themselves make your classroom environment feel especially festive (and collaborative)!
Talking Stems for Collaborative Learning
If you’ve already read the book Collaboration Station, you may remember this particular illustration of all of the “talking bubbles” with sentence frames:
I thought it could be a very powerful literacy connection if these very same bubbles could continue to be used in the classroom after reading aloud the book.
And so with the help of my illustrator, Sandie Sonke, I’ve made these bubbles available as printables! They could be used to help introduce accountable talk phrases, and posted in the classroom as a visual reference during collaborative learning.
The download has 35 total talking stems, including the same ones that are illustrated in Collaboration Station.
Since that’s a pretty large number of sentence frames, I thought it may be helpful to break them down into categories (common types of phrases that come up in collaborative conversation).
- Agreement
- Disagreement
- Clarification
- Connections
- Ideas
- Encouragement
Here’s a small sample of the types of bubbles in a couple of the categories:
If you might choose to display the bubbles on a bulletin board, each of the category headings are included with the resource. Bubbles could be placed underneath the specific category heading as a helpful reference for students:
When introducing the sentence frames to your students, you could display just one current category type on the bulletin board to focus on at once, or a mix of some or all categories at the same time. Or you might start with a few, and then continue to add to the bulletin board throughout the year, as you introduce new talking stems.
This book companion comes with bulletin board letters too. Four different heading options are provided:
- Collaboration Station
- Collaborative Talk
- Accountable Talk
- Let’s Collaborate!
Whether you create a bulletin board display or use them during your lessons, hopefully these talking stem bubbles will serve as a useful visual reference for your students during collaborative conversations with their peers!
Student Job Role Cards for Collaborative Learning
This final book companion also goes right along with one of the illustrations from the book. When having students work together in small groups, these cards help in giving each student in a special job role.
When each student in the group has a specific job, it helps encourage responsibility and active participation.
After introducing the different types of jobs to your class, students can keep their card with them as a visual reference and reminder of their role as they are working with their group. The card has the job description, so that they can always go back and check what their duties are.
This resource includes 3 different design options for cards. One has a border that matches the illustration style of Collaboration Station, and another has a visual icon/symbol in the bottom right corner. The cards with either of these designs can be printed in color:
And the third design option can be printed in black and white on color paper:
Multiple student job options are provided with the resource, so that you can pick and choose the specific cards that best meet the needs of your class.
Alternative job titles are provided as well, so that you can choose the job title you most prefer. For example, there is a card that says Facilitator, one that says Team Captain, and another that says Team Leader. All of these roles are the same, just with different choices of title.
There is an editable version included too, in case you would like to customize the job cards with any of your own job titles and/or descriptions.
Whichever design options or job titles you choose, the cards are a very useful tool during group work throughout the school year!
Collaboration Station Activity Bundle
If you might like to use all four of these book companions to go with Collaboration Station, they’re available all together in a discounted bundle.
And for the very best value and savings (especially if you have any of my other books), all four of the Collaboration Station book companions are also included in both the original bundle and MEGA bundle of classroom community activities.
The original bundle has extension activities for all 5 books:
And the MEGA bundle has all of the activities from the original bundle, plus the Class Family Morning Meetings that can be used for weekly class team building throughout the whole school year:
If you’ve already purchased either of these bundles previously, you can just go and re-download the file and get these new book activities for free! YAY!
Where to Get the Book
Still need your copy of the book to go with all of the activities? You can grab it in my shop or on Amazon, in either paperback or hardcover. It is also included in The Classroom Community Collection Book Box Set (which has all 5 hardcover books in the series).
Collaborative Learning for the Win
While independent work in the classroom is important, there are undeniable benefits in having students work together in partners and small groups. Collaborative learning will help prepare students for the rest of their years in school, the future workplace, and lifelong learning.
Being able to work well with others is one of the most important skills. And with the use of books like Collaboration Station to help spark meaningful discussions and learning experiences, it can also be one of the most fun and rewarding skills to teach!