2. Strategies & Solutions

3.  By acting as a team, students can expand their potential for knowledge.  Students can learn to come up with and solve new problems developing the capability to solve problems.  Instead of memorizing information, learning rules, and regurgitating the material and rules on demand, students learn to develop abilities through collaborative learning situations.  Students learn problem solving skills that can be used in the job market.

4.  Students learn to problem solve.  Students learn to expand their thoughts beyond the information in the textbook.  Students learn to use guidance for developing group processes and assess their progress.  Students learn to work together for a common goal.

5.  Shift course situations and reward structures to encourage students to view group work and participate with peers.  Assign tasks that are suitable for collaboration.  Make the collaborative activity values large enough that students cannot safely ignore them.  Schedule the first group activities in ways that build trust among group members so they can get to work on the task and get to know one another. Trust is especially important to virtual groups.  Have student groups post results of their collaboration to other student groups.  Most of all guide the process as the instructor to ensure students are involved. If needed, offer encouragement to the inactive group members.

6. Directions: Click on the Collaboration Activity link above to access the Group Pages. Working together online, complete the following tasks: 1. Determine a name, and slogan for your weather team. 2. Assign members to the following roles. Researcher - searches for theoretical and functional weather information. Observer - observes conditions and records weather data. Forecaster - analyzes weather data and makes predictions. Weathercaster - communicates weather information to the public audience. You must assign at least one team member to each role. While the members will not necessarily be performing the specific tasks of a particular role, they should fit the personality and traits for that role. 3. Select one team member to post a promotional for your team in the Main Discussion Board "Meet the Teams" discussion. The goal is to sell the rest of the class on your team's strengths and abilities. **Please note that there is no link to the main Discussion Board provided within this activity. You may access the Discussion Board through the menu item on the left. Review: You will definitely want to "size up the competition" by reading the posts from the other teams