“Collaborative learning” is an umbrella term for a variety of educational approaches
involving joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together. Usually,
students are working in groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding,
solutions, or meanings, or creating a product. Collaborative learning activities vary
widely, but most center on students’ exploration or application of the course material, not
simply the teacher’s presentation or explication of it.
Collaborative learning represents a significant shift away from the typical teachercentered
or lecture-centered milieu in college classrooms. In collaborative classrooms,
the lecturing/ listening/note-taking process may not disappear entirely, but it lives
alongside other processes that are based in students’ discussion and active work with the
course material. Teachers who use collaborative learning approaches tend to think of
themselves less as expert transmitters of knowledge to students, and more as expert
designers of intellectual experiences for students-as coaches or mid-wives of a more
emergent learning process.
About Collaborative Learning
Though collaborative learning takes on a variety of forms and is practiced by teachers of
different disciplinary backgrounds and teaching traditions, the field is tied together by a
number of important assumptions about learners and the learning process.
Learning is an active, constructive process: To learn new information, ideas or skills,
our students have to work actively with them in purposeful ways. They need to integrate
this new material with what they already know-or use it to reorganize what they thought
they knew. In collaborative learning situations, our students are not simply taking in new
information or ideas. They are creating something new with the information and ideas.
These acts of intellectual processing- of constructing meaning or creating something
new-are crucial to learning.
Learning depends on rich contexts: Recent research suggests learning is fundamentally
influenced by the context and activity in which it is embedded (Brown, Collins and
Duguid, 1989). Collaborative learning activities immerse students in challenging tasks or
questions. Rather than beginning with facts and ideas and then moving to applications,
collaborative learning activities frequently begin with problems, for which students must
marshal pertinent facts and ideas. Instead of being distant observers of questions and
answers, or problems and solutions, students become immediate practitioners. Rich
contexts challenge students to practice and develop higher order reasoning and problemsolving
skills.
Learners are diverse: Our students bring multiple perspectives to the classroom-diverse
backgrounds, learning styles, experiences, and aspirations. As teachers, we can no longer
assume a one-size-fits- all approach. When students work together on their learning in
class, we get a direct and immediate sense of how they are learning, and what
experiences and ideas they bring to their work. The diverse perspectives that emerge in
collaborative ‘activities are clarifying but not just for us. They are illuminating for our
students as well.
Learning is inherently social: As Jeff Golub points out, “Collaborative learning has as
its main feature a structure that allows for student talk: students are supposed to talk with
each other....and it is in this talking that much of the learning occurs.” (Golub, 1988)
Collaborative learning produces intellectual synergy of many minds coming to bear on a
problem, and the social stimulation of mutual engagement in a common endeavor. This
mutual exploration, meaning-making, and feedback often leads to better understanding on
the part of students, and to the creation of new understandings for all of us.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning represents the most carefully structured end of the collaborative
learning continuum. Defined as “the instructional use of small groups so that students
work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning” (Johnson et al. 1990),
cooperative learning is based on the social interdependence theories of Kurt Lewin and
Morton Deutsch (Deutsch, 1949; Lewin, 1935).
Cooperative Learning Exercises
For more complex projects, where many heads are better than one or two, you may want to have students work in groups of three or more. As the term "cooperative learning" suggests, students working in groups will help each other to learn. Generally, it is better to form heterogeneous groups (with regard to gender, ethnicity, and academic performance), particularly when the groups will be working together over time or on complex projects; however, some of these techniques work well with spontaneously formed groups. Cooperative groups encourage discussion of problem solving techniques ("Should we try this?", etc.), and avoid the embarrassment of students who have not yet mastered all of the skills required.
- Cooperative Groups in Class - Pose a question to be worked on in each cooperative group and then circulate around the room answering questions, asking further questions, keeping the groups on task, and so forth.. After an appropriate time for group discussion, students are asked to share their discussion points with the rest of the class. (The ensuing discussion can be guided according to the "Questions and Answers" techniques outlined above.)
- Active Review Sessions - In the traditional class review session the students ask questions and the instructor answers them. Students spend their time copying down answers rather than thinking about the material. In an active review session the instructor posses questions and the students work on them in groups. Then students are asked to show their solutions to the whole group and discuss any differences among solutions proposed.
- Work at the Blackboard - In many problem solving courses (e.g., logic or critical thinking), instructors tend to review homework or teach problem solving techniques by solving the problems themselves. Because students learn more by doing, rather than watching, this is probably not the optimal scenario. Rather than illustrating problem solving, have students work out the problems themselves, by asking them to go to the blackboard in small groups to solve problems. If there is insufficient blackboard space, students can still work out problems as a group, using paper and pencil or computers if appropriate software is available.
- Concept Mapping - A concept map is a way of illustrating the connections that exist between terms or concepts covered in course material; students construct concept maps by connecting individual terms by lines which indicate the relationship between each set of connected terms. Most of the terms in a concept map have multiple connections. Developing a concept map requires the students to identify and organize information and to establish meaningful relationships between the pieces of information.
- Visual Lists - Here students are asked to make a list--on paper or on the blackboard; by working in groups, students typically can generate more comprehensive lists than they might if working alone. This method is particularly effective when students are asked to compare views or to list pros and cons of a position. One technique which works well with such comparisons is to have students draw a "T" and to label the left- and right-hand sides of the cross bar with the opposing positions (or 'Pro' and 'Con'). They then list everything they can think of which supports these positions on the relevant side of the vertical line. Once they have generated as thorough a list as they can, ask them to analyze the lists with questions appropriate to the exercise. For example, when discussing Utilitarianism (a theory which claims that an action is morally right whenever it results in more benefits than harms) students can use the "T" method to list all of the (potential) benefits and harms of an action, and then discuss which side is more heavily "weighted". Often having the list before them helps to determine the ultimate utility of the action, and the requirement to fill in the "T" generally results in a more thorough accounting of the consequences of the action in question. In science classes this would work well with such topics as massive vaccination programs, nuclear power, eliminating chlorofluorocarbons, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and so forth.
- Jigsaw Group Projects - In jigsaw projects, each member of a group is asked to complete some discrete part of an assignment; when every member has completed his assigned task, the pieces can be joined together to form a finished project. For example, students in a course in African geography might be grouped and each assigned a country; individual students in the group could then be assigned to research the economy, political structure, ethnic makeup, terrain and climate, or folklore of the assigned country. When each student has completed his research, the group then reforms to complete a comprehensive report. In a chemistry course each student group could research a different form of power generation (nuclear, fossil fuel, hydroelectric, etc.). Then the groups are reformed so that each group has an expert in one form of power generation. They then tackle the difficult problem of how much emphasis should be placed on each method.
- Role Playing - Here students are asked to "act out" a part. In doing so, they get a better idea of the concepts and theories being discussed. Role-playing exercises can range from the simple (e.g., "What would you do if a Nazi came to your door, and you were hiding a Jewish family in the attic?") to the complex. Complex role playing might take the form of a play (depending on time and resources); for example, students studying ancient philosophy might be asked to recreate the trial of Socrates. Using various sources (e.g., Plato's dialogues, Stone's The Trial of Socrates, and Aristophanes' The Clouds), student teams can prepare the prosecution and defense of Socrates on the charges of corruption of youth and treason; each team may present witnesses (limited to characters which appear in the Dialogues, for instance) to construct their case, and prepare questions for cross-examination.
- Panel Discussions - Panel discussions are especially useful when students are asked to give class presentations or reports as a way of including the entire class in the presentation. Student groups are assigned a topic to research and asked to prepare presentations (note that this may readily be combined with the jigsaw method outlined above). Each panelist is then expected to make a very short presentation, before the floor is opened to questions from "the audience". The key to success is to choose topics carefully and to give students sufficient direction to ensure that they are well-prepared for their presentations. You might also want to prepare the "audience", by assigning them various roles. For example, if students are presenting the results of their research into several forms of energy, you might have some of the other students role play as concerned environmentalists, transportation officials, commuters, and so forth.
- Debates - Actually a variation of #27, formal debates provide an efficient structure for class presentations when the subject matter easily divides into opposing views or ‘Pro’/‘Con’ considerations. Students are assigned to debate teams, given a position to defend, and then asked to present arguments in support of their position on the presentation day. The opposing team should be given an opportunity to rebut the argument(s) and, time permitting, the original presenters asked to respond to the rebuttal. This format is particularly useful in developing argumentation skills (in addition to teaching content).
- Games - Many will scoff at the idea that one would literally play games in a university setting, but occasionally there is no better instructional tool. In particular, there are some concepts or theories which are more easily illustrated than discussed and in these cases, a well-conceived game may convey the idea more readily. For example, when students are introduced to the concepts of "laws of nature" and "the scientific method", it is hard to convey through lectures the nature of scientific work and the fallibility of inductive hypotheses. Instead, students play a couple rounds of the Induction Game, in which playing cards are turned up and either added to a running series or discarded according to the dealer’s pre-conceived "law of nature". Students are asked to "discover" the natural law, by formulating and testing hypotheses as the game proceeds.