Westminster School

One of the many reasons parents choose Westminster School is because the program is founded on rigorous academic standards, as well as an atmosphere that promotes respect, integrity, kindness, and excellence. Because of this focus, the school takes a collaborative and holistic approach. They seek to shape not just what students learn but how they learn.

Why Collaborative Learning Is So Valuable

An abundance of research demonstrates students benefit from active, collective, and contextual educational experiences. Student-owned collaborative learning leads to higher-level cognitive skills, improved communication, and more effective problem-solving skills. Collaboration involves cooperation. This approach develops executive functions that help students plan and focus. It also improves regulation patterns, such as reflecting on one’s own actions.

Studies show active or collaborative educational methods result in both statistically significant and measurable gains in student learning and retention compared to those associated with more traditional and lecture-based instructional methods.

Top Benefits of Collaboration in Education

Westminster School has placed a high value on collaboration since the private school began in 1962. Since that time, generations of students have benefitted from its classical education and collaborative educational environment.

Here are the top advantages of collaborative learning.

Students Learn Diversity Leads to Better Solutions

When students work in groups, they learn the value of their unique skills and the unique skills of others, and they discover how all are beneficial in solving problems. They learn they can reach better solutions more efficiently using diverse skills than individual skills alone.

Collaboration Leads to Innovation

Collaboration leads to innovation by creating joint ownership, promoting the adoption of diverse practices and ideas, unlocking cognitive pathways, and spreading the risk over a greater number of participants.

Collaboration Helps Remove Biases

Every person is exposed to biases daily. Working in a diverse group helps break down common misbeliefs. Having multiple diverse people working on the same project helps make it easier to identify and dispel those incorrect assumptions.

Collaboration Demonstrates the Need for a Community

Rather than letting a complex problem hinder learning advancement, students discover an effective team can conquer difficult challenges successfully when they work together.

Collaborative Work Results in Higher-Caliber Results

When students work in a group environment, they use all their skills in problem-solving. This results in increased learning gains and better solutions. This environment encourages better communication, leadership, and preparation.

Collaboration Is in Demand

While many professionals lean toward increasingly siloed work environments, employees who thrive in a collaborative environment are highly sought after for high-paying and in-demand jobs.

Collaboration Helps Promote Emotional Maturity

Working as a team helps promote emotional maturity by building empathy, learning to appreciate different perspectives, developing conflict resolution skills, and learning to listen actively.

Learning Collaboratively Removes Barriers

In a collaborative environment, students learn they do not have to be the best at everything. Rather, they can utilize their strengths while learning from others and bolstering other areas of their learning. It demonstrates there is always more to learn and that individuals always have something to contribute to the learning process, no matter the age or stage.

Westminster School | Private School

For individuals looking for a private school that equips students to think analytically, approach the world with kindness and virtue, and succeed in modern society, Westminster School is a top choice in Annandale, VA. The Westminster program is founded on a classical curriculum; rigorous academic standards; and an atmosphere that promotes respect, integrity, kindness, and excellence.