I am currently teaching my research paper unit with my sophomores and today I tried out the collaborative process. One student wasn't working and was putting in an earbud. I told him to stay on task and he said he wanted to listen to a new album that dropped. I said to do both at the same time, and he did! Similarly, today I wanted the students to work quietly for the majority of class (they can get rowdy) but the students really wanted to discuss Kendrick vs. Drake. I told them we could do both today, as long as they worked quietly for the majority of class time, they could have that discussion during the last 12 minutes. This is bordering on a compromise process, but I don't feel like either party had to give up anything; my goal was never to have every minute be quiet, I don't feel like I lost anything in fact I feel like I gained the ease of structure and they probably worked better than they would have otherwise. Maybe the students had to give up the immediacy they wanted, but to be honest it's so rare that they are allowed to have such a chunk of time to do whatever they desire, I think they felt completely satisfied as well.
