Our model is founded on the belief that classrooms should respond to every student's individual needs. Self-pacing and mastery-based grading are approaches that help teachers personalize learning to the individual student.

With that said, we believe deeply that students should learn from, and help teach, one another. Collaboration is essential to any successful Modern Classroom -- and the fact that students control their own learning (as opposed to sitting quietly and listening) creates space for authentic collaboration on a daily basis.

We believe there are three keys to effective collaboration in a self-paced setting:

1. Tasks Worth the Effort. There's no reason to collaborate on simple tasks or problems—it's just as easy to work alone. As adults, we collaborate because the things we need help on are too big, or too challenging, or too important for us to tackle by ourselves. Student tasks must be significant enough in scope that students see a real reason to ask others to contribute.

2. Freedom to Choose. Forced collaboration is burdensome. Why, students wonder, do I have to work with others when I could do this better by myself? (Or, in some cases, when another group member can do it all for me?) When students choose to collaborate, however, the true benefits of working together start to appear. Collaboration will be most effective when it's most authentic.

3. Positive Reinforcement. Students may not instinctively choose to work together—they're often shy or hesitant to share ideas. As educators, therefore, it's incumbent upon us to encourage students to take the risk of collaborating, to explain why collaboration might be useful, and to help students reflect after the fact on the benefits that collaboration has provided. We can't force student mindsets to shift, but we can certainly spur them along.

For more on collaboration in Modern Classrooms, please watch our recent webinar: