Student collaboration is an integral part of the learning process. Understanding how to navigate collaborative work with peers means building a valuable skill in teamwork. Teaching students to participate in a collaborative work within a classroom setting enables each student to tap into educational and life skills. Collaboration tools for students inform classroom instruction and enhance curriculum.

To facilitate the best experience in collaborative learning, every teacher and educator should tap into resources available outside the classroom. Gale promotes high-level collaboration by offering extensive online collaboration tools for education. These tools can be used in both a virtual and in-person setting and allow students to share research and documents in real time bolstering collaboration in all areas of academia. 

Why Collaborate?

With technology ramping up an ever-connected world, the concept of student interaction has become second nature for many children in their daily lives. However, collaboration in a classroom setting as well as teacher-student collaboration facilitates an important, informative style of academics. These moments of teamwork mean far more than teaching students how to interact with one another, although group projects also serve as life lessons in problem-solving and conflict resolution. 

Collaboration between peers strengthens academics and curriculum by combining the efforts, knowledge, and perception of each participant. The intention behind a group project is to spark conversation, develop interpersonal skills, and reveal a deeper understanding of the material at hand through discussion and interaction. 

When students are exposed to group work at a young age, they develop skills aiding in academia and beyond. Understanding how to utilize resources and work together with their teacher and peers instills the concept of networking and communal strength, which students can carry into adulthood (and their professional lives).

Collaborating Efficiently

Beyond using the best classroom collaboration tools available, it’s important for teachers to instill the importance of teamwork in their students. Students should understand not only the importance of navigating digital collections and classroom materials but also to use these resources in discussion with one another. Recognizing how to listen to each other, how to set goals together, and how to orchestrate roles for each member of a group will set students up for success in collaboration. 

In assigning grades on group projects, teachers should recognize the impact on how students can perceive their efforts. The results of a project should be graded on its final product, the level of cooperation involved, and the individual efforts within. This way, students will understand that their efforts and contributions have merit as well as the activity of the group as a whole.

Gale In Context Suite

Offering an extensive list of classroom collaboration tools, Gale In Context suite allows students to conduct research and easily collaborate with teachers and other students in any classroom setting. Student collaboration and teacher-student collaboration is simplified and streamlined by seamlessly integrating with curriculum. 

These collaboration tools for students are optimized for both in-person and remote learning, advancing academics through the latest media-rich information. The student resources engage learners with digital collections and databases specific to curriculum. Gale In Context inspires students with articles, videos, charts, images, infographics, and more—all in a user-friendly, mobile-responsive format. 

Making Collaboration Easy

Through Google Workspace for Education and Microsoft 365 tools, users can save, share, and download content faster than ever before. These online collaboration tools for education take academics to a new level—providing a collaborative system that’s easy to use and boosts all areas of learning. 

Students should learn to work together and build the imperative interpersonal skills they can access throughout their lives. Gale makes intricate group work and teacher-student collaboration possible through these invaluable classroom collaboration tools. Librarians and teachers can utilize these tools to amplify curriculum and instill a foundation of expertise in each student.  

Additional Tools

From searching for specific content to checking the reading level of each article, Gale provides  additional tools to optimize academics at every corner. Instead of diving into resources with limited options, these resources and collaboration tools for students allow learners to connect with teachers and peers efficiently. Students can interact with texts, highlighting important notes and even downloading articles as PDF files that retain each notation and highlight—enhancing their academics with powerful online collaboration tools for education.