Collaborative learning

Collaborative learning

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.

Assumptions about 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

Learning depends on rich contexts

Learners are diverse

Learning is inherently social


Goals for Education

While we use collaborative learning because we believe it helps students learn more
effectively, many of us also place a high premium on teaching strategies that go beyond
mere mastery of content and ideas. We believe collaborative learning promotes a larger
educational agenda, one that encompasses several intertwined rationales.

Involvement: Calls to involve students more actively in their learning are coming from
virtually every quarter of higher education

Cooperation and teamwork: In collaborative endeavors, students inevitably encounter
difference, and must grapple with recognizing and working with it.

Civic Responsibility:Collaborative learning encourages students to acquire an active voice in shaping their
ideas and values and a sensitive ear in hearing others.

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