In what contexts does the student need to display this skill, now and in the future?
With many students , there are more contexts and opportunities for the use of this skill than there are skills! Again, as with other complex skills, look at this one as a career goal or a life goal. The skill is obviously important. However, your systematic and incremental response to teaching it is essential as well. The instructor must break down the sub-skills necessary for co-operative work and teach each sub-skill, combining them as skills develop.
How can you break this skill down?
A major question for your consideration in approaching this skill is: Where do I start in order to get success? The structure of intervention involves:
In most cases, building self-management around solitary task completion is a necessary first step to more complex co-operative work skills.
Self-management involves:
If a student has defined abilities to use visual supports to apply these self-management skills at some level, can the instructional team shift the target of intervention to strategies for working with co-workers? *Be careful to work on only a few skills at one time. Frustration can crush student self-concept and annihilate motivation to perform. The student does not have to be a wizard in handling priorities. He just has to have a set of strategies, personal supports and visual supports in place so that the target can be shifted to working cooperatively.
When faced with cooperative work tasks, develop a plan (possibly scripted) for negotiating separate responsibilities. Obviously, the student may benefit from working with only one other person at first, then three, then four. The plan is often more complex and involves more attention shifting and negotiation with more people. If I cannot work with one person, I probably cannot work well with three. Make sure that the plan developed in priming with the student’s involvement is robust and can be used with a variety of situations, with varying numbers on the team and in future environments. Identify how frequently and when the student will ‘check in’ with collaborators on the status of the cooperative project.
Next, implement the plan with those strategies of existing visual supports (planner, notebook, etc.), so that the student has a way of monitoring progress on the cooperative task. Monitoring neither too frequently or too infrequently is a judgment that you will initially need to support.
Finally, if during ‘check ins’ a problem arises, identify and practice the process for labeling a perceived problem with team members, finding a solution, and if necessary, seeking supervisor assistance in resolving the problem so that the task can be completed.
What sub-skill should you target first for the student to initiate? Given what the student can do presently, how will you present the task so that the student can perform steps within his capacity while learning a new step?
As stated above, a certain degree of independence with self-management strategies is crucial before the student will be ready to successfully participate in group work projects. Once the student’s self-management strategies are in place, the second step is carrying out a plan in collaboration with another student. Is this pre-designed so that each student has pre-determined responsibilities? Or does the student use a script and possibly a graphic organizer to make a plan for doling out tasks, identifying a timeline, etc. with the other student?
For instance, careful assessment has defined that one particular student uses a watch with multiple alarm functions, a daily agenda (with monthly calendars built in as well) that he keeps in his backpack, a notebook for each class with dividers and pockets to organize work, and finally, an accommodation of text books available in each class and at home (reduces materials with which to keep up). The student has written cues built into his schedule and into specific work activities to remind him to use these supports. It is determined at one of the review times with his resource teacher, through priming, that the student will carry out scripted practice in working together with another student on small projects. The resource teacher designs a set of visual instructions for the student to use to ‘negotiate’ the project with the other student.
After a biology teacher assigns these two students with a small project that is due by the end of the week, the resource teacher meets with the target student and orients him to the set of instructions. The teachers monitor as the targeted student uses the plan to identify the steps of the project, determine who will do what steps separately, come back together in 2 days with completed parts, and work together in 3rd period study hall on Thursday to complete the project. The last step of the written instructions designates a time on Friday morning to make final adjustments and to turn in the project.
This process involves moving from self-management to planning to self-management to problem-solving. The list above addresses planning but also provides practice in the use of existing self-management supports in a collaborative process. It also requires close initial prompting to identify problems in the process, to add scripts or cues, and to teach the student to use the instructions.
Then there is the situation where the student has a set of self-management strategies and he has a degree of success in using a collaborative plan. It is time to introduce the other major skill within the completion of the project: the skill of coming together with the peer, labeling where they are in the process, identifying any problems and either seeking assistance or solving the problem themselves. There will likely be a script or set of visual instructions to guide this step as well.
It is a sequential process the student will use. The instructor must determine the concrete targets of intervention within this process and build independence around those targeted skills.