Blog Assignment 3 - Community and Collaboration

     During this week's reading and module assignments, I have learned many valuable aspects that I will be adding to my course outline.  In the module reading I furthered my understanding of a collaborative environment and why it is important.  A collaborative environment is important aspect to incorporate into every type of classroom because the team work and cooperation skills learned while collaborating can and will be used outside of the classroom.  Collaborative activities, however, are only effective when the stage is set, the correct environment is created, the process is modeled, and the process is evaluated.  The item that I am interested in this week is similar to last week's interest, but this week I am working on putting together the best environment for my collaborative activities and the best type of collaborative activities.  I am going to do discussion boards.  I will do one for the orientation, and I believe I will also do one about every two weeks.  I may also try to incorporate at least one discussion prompt for each type of discussion question; a metacognitive question, a practical relevance question, a more evidence question, and a student-created question.  My Item of concern is the lab report that I want to incorporate.  I want to group the students together, give each group a scenario, and require research-based evidence on the topic I give them.  I have to figure out the best way to introduce this assignment and the best way to use this assignment to connect the class to the world outside of school.