The first point of interest that I found in
the text was the big line “Most students need to be taught the social skills
needed for effective peer collaboration.” I think this is relevant in the sense
that some young learners are not all used to work in group. Some of them are
probably the only child in their family, so someone, the teacher, must, most of
the time, teach his or her students how to work with others. Not every student
is able to do this right, but if they learn how to work well with their peers,
it will result in better work, better cooperation and therefore better grades.
The second point of interest is that they
write that “L1 studies provide a persuasive argument in favor of writing groups
by suggesting that students develop critical thinking skills…” along with many
other skills that they improve with writing groups. I agree to the fact that
they improve their critical thinking skills because they have to work with
their peers, so they see how their team members work and write and they can
develop their own writing techniques. They can judge if the techniques of their
peers are good and how they write.
I totally agree with you David about the importance of learning social skills. As you said, many students do not have the opportunity to learn how to behave with others at home.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the students need to develop their critical thinking skills while reading their peers’ text. However, as mentioned earlier, it is important that they also know how to suggest improvement or indicate mistakes to their peers in a respectful manner.
I agree with both of you! Before doing any peer collaboration it is important for the students to know, understand and apply the social skills. I think that the teacher should take some time to cover this material and make sure that all the students are going to be able to work properly during the team work. And after all that , as you mentioned, students will develop their skills and they will apply it to do some critical thinking for others.
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