Apple Elements of Learning - Teamwork

This post is as much informational as it is for me to synthesize my own understanding of the Elements of Learning. Plus if I do 1 every day that's 5 days of writing that I don't brainstorm a new idea for. 

The 5 Elements of Learning are:

Teamwork

Communication & Creation

Personalized Learning

Critical Thinking 

Real-World Engagement

A note about the Elements of Learning. Apple's research shows that students that come from classrooms with the 5 Elements of Learning are highly effective learners and the technology just amplifies that learning. 

Element # 1 - Teamwork

Teamwork must include 3 components to be highly effective. The first and most obvious is that students must be working with at least 1 more person in order to form a "team". The second is shared product. The student must be working towards a final shared product. Finally, they must engage in joint reasoning. Let's look a little deeper at the latter two. The team must create a final product that they work on together. The team turns in one project that they all receive the same grade for. The final product is large and complex and could not be completed by only one student. 

For instance, a group of students creates a podcast. The different parts of the script are written by more than 1 person and the technical pieces of the podcast are also done by more than 1 person. Another way is that 1 person writes the script, one person does the music and/or sound effects. One person does that talking and one person does the editing. It could all be done by one person but the specialty of skills and the amount of time needed is not doable in a 4th - 12th grade classroom. 

The second attribute of a highly effective project using teamwork is joint reasoning. Together students engage in analysis, synthesis and evaluation (higher order thinking skills) to complete group work. Using the podcast example again the team would need to look at all the information that has been gathered for the podcast script, before, during and after right the script ALL members of the team need to evaluate what is important and should be included and what should not be included. 

In my opinion, if these things are not happening then a teacher should add one at a time. I think it would be too overwhelming for a teacher and possibly for their students to add them both during the same lesson or project. 

Excerpt From: Apple Education. “Elements of Learning.” Apple Inc. - Education, 2018. Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/elements-of-learning/id1367981260