ABSTRACT
In this chapter I describe three projects that I have undertaken with pupils at Key Stages Two and Three. The projects combine whole-class, group and individual learning within a programme of work that promotes speaking and listening, reading and writing in an integrated way. The approaches to learning emphasised pupil interaction, the sharing of knowledge, ideas and experience and cooperation, in order to achieve learning goals. As has already been stated, collaborative learning provides a structured framework that fosters positive interaction between pupils. The use of collaborative strategies enables teachers to simultaneously cover certain cross-curricular dimensions and National Curriculum programmes of study. For example, the very nature of collaborative group work, with its focus on cooperative endeavour between pupils in order to achieve collective goals, emphasises the importance of developing pupils’ social and emotional skills alongside other learning outcomes. Other aspects of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC) may also occur, particularly in classrooms where there are children from several cultural backgrounds. In the course of collaborative work pupils tend to volunteer information about their culture that might otherwise be lost when using less interactive forms of learning. A by-product of the approach, then, is the ‘multicultural capital’ that pupils acquire through interaction with their peers who are from different cultural backgrounds. By multicultural capital I mean an ability to decode and understand the diverse cultural signs and symbols that exist in a multicultural society. Multicultural capital also involves a recognition that culture is not static, and that group and individual identities are equally diverse. Multicultural capital has been acquired when an individual feels comfortable with his or her own identity and feels neither inferior nor superior to people from other cultural, ethnic or racial groups (Gardner 2001: 29). Collaborative group work is one process by which learning can be made more inclusive but its full effectiveness will only become apparent if supported by a classroom ethos in which the sharing of knowledge is valued and acceptance of difference is the norm. Given this kind of ethos pupils are more likely to feel psychologically secure to take risks without fear of ridicule and rejection by their peers.
