Collaborative learning

By Matt Bower, Deborah Richards. 2006

265 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Collaborative learning has become recognised as a means of encouraging deep learning and a key technique in problem and experienced based learning. For Computing students collaboration is not only a learning strategy but a learning outcome. While this is not a new idea, there appears to be reluctance on the part of teachers and students to create and take those opportunities. This paper seeks to revisit the possibilities that exist for collaboration ranging from team based work to peer review in the hope of motivating a change in culture and practice. We include discussion of these strategies together with highlights from student surveys regarding student dispositions towards collaborative learning. We note that the perceived overheads and logistical difficulties, to students and teachers, will often discourage the use of collaborative tasks, but that the educational outcomes achievable through collaborative learning exceed those possible when students work in isolation. Particular attention is given to technological approaches for facilitating collaborative learning. While the discussions that follow relate to computer science education specifically, it is intended that many of the approaches and associated issues will apply to other learning domains.

Subfields: Computer Science Applications, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Media Technology

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Citations in the corpus

• Modelling with stakeholders (2010, unknown): “It appeared in the late 1960s as an approach to teaching and learning that puts learners in groups to work together on problems, complete a task, or create a product (Mason,1970; Goodsell et al.,1992).”
• Making the Black Box of Collaborative Learning Transparent: Combining Process-Oriented and Cognitive Load Approaches (2010, unknown): “Studies in this so-called process-oriented tradition (Dillenbourg et al. 1996; Van der Linden et al. 2000) focus on interaction processes such as giving detailed, elaborated explanations (Webb and Farivar 1999), negotiating meaning (Beers et al. 2007), co-constructing solutions and lines of…”
• Examining pre-service teacher competence in lesson planning pertaining to collaborative learning (2012, unknown): “‘The aim is to work towards a shared meaning as a result of the negotiation process and towards a common learning result, a result that also serves as the basis for individual understanding, a personal viewpoint and identity’ (Van der Linden et al. 2000: 39).”
• Historical developments in the understanding of learning (2010, unknown): “The traditional dominant form of school learning has been teacher-directed or – as termed by simons, van der Linden and Duffy (2000b) – “guided learning” – “a trainer or teacher takes all the relevant decisions and the learner can and should follow him or her. he decides about the goals of…”
• Socio-emotional connections: identity, belonging and learning in online interactions. A literature review (2014, background): “Community ‘happens’ through dialogic exchanges where pooling of individual mental resources along with appropriate support results in cognitive development beyond individual mental capacity (Vygotsky, 1978; Brown & Cole, 2000; Mercer, 2000; Bower & Richards, 2006).”
• Boundary Crossings: Cooperative Learning, Collaborative Learning, and Problem-Based Learning (2014, unknown): “Smith and MacGregor (1992), however, provide some insight into the essential features: In most collaborative learning situations, students are working in groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding, solutions, or meanings, or creating a product.”
• Technology in Support of Collaborative Learning (2007, unknown): “Dillenbourg (1999) agrees when he stressed that “cooperation refers to a more fixed division of labor” (p. 22).”
• Formative Assessment: Assessment Is for Self-regulated Learning (2012, unknown): “Meaning is socially constructed because “human thought is consummately social: social in its origins, social in its functions, social in its form, social in its applications” (Geertz cited in Bruffee 1993, p. 114).”
• Adding Value: Learning Communities and Student Engagement (2004, unknown): “As a result, rather than an authority (instructor) transmitting information, students actively construct and assimilate knowledge through a reciprocal process (Bruffee, 1995; Schon, 1995; Whipple, 1987).”
• Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. (2014, unknown): “Many of the necessary changes are reflected in the educational approaches presented in Part 1 of this Handbook , for instance adopting educational frameworks such as knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, Chapter 18, this volume), scaffolding (Reiser & Tabak, Chapter 3, this volume) or…”
• 21st Century Learning; Learning in Collaboration (2012, unknown): “In a CL setting, learners have the opportunity to converse with peers, present and defend ideas, exchange diverse beliefs, question other conceptual frameworks, and are actively engaged (Srinivas, H., 2011). Brown and Lara (2011) cite Johnsons (2009) that say; there are three ways when individuals t”
• Support of the collaborative inquiry learning process: influence of support on task and team regulation (2012, unknown): “Inquiry learning and collaborative learning have separately been studied systematically (e.g., De Jong and Van Joolingen 1998; Van der Linden et al. 2000).”