Ed Assignment

LACK OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN STUDENTS AND TEACHERS FOR CREATIVE PROJECTS

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Introduction: Teacher-parent relationship has a significant impact on students’ academic achievements. We can notice that, in some schools, teachers try to involve parents in school management and classroom activities. For this type of involvement, teacher-parent relationship might be improved.

For parent involvement, we can notice significant outcomes; i.e. decreased dropout rates, increased graduation rates etc.

Teachers can encourage parents’ involvement by doing several activities; i.e. teacherparent meetings, conferences etc. If parents join such kinds of activities, their knowledge might increase. So, they might be more competent in teaching and caring their children at home. So, teacher-parent relationship is very significant for better outcomes. Both parents and teachers might be more aware of students’ strengths and weaknesses.

Significance of the study: Both teachers and parents need to understand that a students’ behaviour at school and at home might be different from one another. So, if there is a good teacher-parent relationship both teachers and parents might be more aware of the students because they can inform one another about students’ behaviour at home and at school so they both can take different kinds of steps if necessary.

Can the academic performance of students be improved for parent teacher communication? this essential question will be addressed in this review.

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Objectives The long term goal of the research is to create collaboration between students and teachers for writing creative projects. The objective of the study is to provide a comprehensive review of literatures and current practices in writing projects and solution to eliminate lack of collaboration between students and teacher. Particularly, the study has the following sub-objective:

1. To provide a comprehensive review of sources and overall picture typically found in writing projects. 2. To develop a connection between students and teachers for writing more creative projects. 3. To review current practices and researches in regards to project writing. 4. To provide solution to eliminate lack of collaboration between students and teachers.

The result of this study will be valuable to the students as well as teachers in writing more creative projects.

Review of Literature Collaborative Learning People may agree on the benefits of collaborative learning but there is still a sigma around that somehow deters the expected amount of collaborations to take place in the education field. Especially creative collaboration between students and teachers are hardly ever seen. If the full potential of such collaboration is understood, the stigma will no longer be at work. It is seen in Terenzini and Cabrera’s study (2013) that, traditional teaching

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methods available in institutions like universities pales in comparison to collaborative learning methods when it comes to getting excellent results.

Creative Collaboration If collaborative learning can enhance normal syllabus-based education then surely it can do wonders with creative projects. Such ideas are presented in Barrett’s study (2006) that creative collaboration can be found in the music schools where student-teacher relationship would actually lead to composing creative pieces. In the case of a solitary person composing music there would not be an amalgamation of thoughts put into notes. The hybridization of thoughts, on the other hand would lead to development of both the teachers and students. Only one thing that is in the way of such collaboration is another superstition that a composer works best when he is alone. That is why there is a significant lack of creative collaboration in music schools. Student-Teacher Collaboration Collaboration between student and teacher and the reason why its lacking in educational institutions is a matter that needs to be seen from both the perspectives of students and teachers. In Pathak and Intratat’s study (2012), some teachers were interviewed and while some think that collaborations are impressive, some have doubts because the dominant nature of some collaborators would make the weak collaborators less at home. If such perspectives were to implemented onto student-teacher collaboration, the dominant collaborator would definitely be the teacher and the weak collaborator, the student will be at unease. If some teachers harbour this kind of perspective, they will never let their students collaborate with them on normal study let alone creative projects. Rather than shunning such collaboration, it would do

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better for the teachers to actually trust the students and allow them to grow and be themselves with collaborations.

Method The research method would include collecting data from students and teachers by structured interview and the students and teachers would be selected by SRS (Simple Random Sampling) within an educational institute. Interview questions would include 1. What is your take on student-teacher creative collaboration? 2. Have you ever done anything creative with you teacher or student? 3. Would you agree to collaborate with your teachers or students if it’s a creative project? These questions would provide the research with enough data to analyse and find the required information necessary to declare the results of this endeavour.

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References

Barrett, M. (2006). ‘Creative collaboration’: an ‘eminence’ study of teaching and learning in music composition. Psychology of Music, 34(2), 195– 218.https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735606061852 Pathak, A, Intratat C. (2012). Use of Semi-Structured Interviews to Investigate Teacher Perceptions of Student Collaboration. Malaysian Journal of ELT Research, 8(1), 1034. Retrieved from http://www.melta.org.my/journals/index.php/majer/article/view/149 Terenzini, P. T., Cabrera, A. F., Colbeck, C. L., Parente, J. M., & Bjorklund, S. A. (2001). Collaborative Learning vs. Lecture/Discussion: Students Reported Learning Gains*. Journalof Engineering Education,90(1), 123-130. doi:10.1002/j.21689830.2001.tb00579.x