I said this before, and I’ll say it again: In a true collaborative task, the task itself cannot be completed without the thinking and work of everyone on the team. This was hard enough in the traditional classroom, but it’s even more difficult as a distance teacher and learner. In this post, I’ll show you one activity I loved using with kids and teachers, and how it’s been adapted for the remote world.
This activity, More Brains are Better, used the old teacher standby of sticky notes and paper. (Remember those good old days?) Kids were presented with a question or problem, and individually wrote their own answers on the notes. Then they got together with their groups and each post it note was put on the paper. Students shared their notes aloud, asked questions, and worked together to write a final solution or answer in the middle that represented everyone’s best ideas.

Now, the Remote Version!
We’ve adapted this resource for use in the remote classroom using Google Slides. Instead of students writing their thoughts on sticky notes, they create their own individual slide. Next, they paste their slide into the shared presentation of their group, present and discuss, and then work collaboratively (online) to create their final slide.
Get Yours Free!
While collaboration is still a huge challenge in the virtual world, it doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t try and find little ways for students to continue to work together. In the coming weeks we will showcase more of these resources to share with you!
This template is a freebie, available right now at Teachers Pay Teachers.
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Teachers and homeschoolers: check out this resource, Complete Curriculum, created by my former teaching partner. She designs meticulous and well-researched curriculum resources. I love this example of a collaborative teamwork idea for remote learners. It holds the kids not only to high standards surrounding their understanding of the core subject concept but pushes them to use the technology in authentic ways as well.