We are social beings that live and work in the community. Working as a team and in collaboration is a task that we should learn from young people. There are numerous benefits that it brings, not only in the student stage but the future, many of the skills acquired in the classroom, thanks to working in groups, will help us to develop more adequately and safely in our environment.
Benefits Of Working In A Team In The Classroom
Teachers should encourage teamwork in the classes because it provides numerous benefits and advantages for the students. Interaction among students activates mental processes such as comprehension, critical thinking, reasoning, etc. Collaborating and working as a team brings the following advantages.
Generates positive relationships: the feeling of proposing teamwork projects is that everyone depends on everyone with the same objective in common. The students support each other. It favors the responsibility and the commitment with the others.
Improves social and interpersonal relationships: it is a skill that, thanks to teamwork, they acquire at an early age and that, without a doubt, will serve them in the future. Knowing how to put yourself in the other’s place, what is known as being empathetic, helps to identify and better understand people and thus have more capacity to solve situations. Group work is one of the best mechanisms to promote diversity among different people. The most capable help the least, thus enhancing values such as respect, effort, and commitment.
At this point and according to the theory (a theory that relates new technologies to learning) learning is mostly a social activity. Not only you learn by receiving information, but also when you use what you know (exploring, negotiating, interpreting with other classmates).
It encourages ‘learning to learn’: learning from what other colleagues know is one of the most significant benefits of working in a group. They build their knowledge through interaction with their peers, process the information together and have to come up with a unique solution, but in the process of this work, they acquire great knowledge. The performance of roles in the group is also encouraged.
It increases the self-esteem of the students, their motivation and interest: creating group tasks in the classroom, also makes the student autonomous and responsible. The student will be accountable for their successes and failures and, therefore, more independent of their decisions.
These are just some of the advantages acquired if teachers encourage collaborative work in the classroom. Also, this working model promotes the use of new technologies. ICT is a useful tool and another way to work as a team with students from other levels or other groups.…