Collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches in education that involve joint intellectual effort by students or students and teachers. Groups of students work together in searching for understanding, meaning or solutions or in creating a product. The approach is closely related to cooperative learning, but is considered to be more radical. Collaborative learning activities can include collaborative writing, group projects, and other activities. Cooperative learning was proposed in response to traditional curriculum-driven education. ...
Criticisms
Critics of collaborative learning techniques contend that even though the techniques have potential for great results, the application of the techniques is very difficult to do right due to factors such as group dynamics, varying skill and intellectual levels among group members, and varying abilities to interact effectively with other group members. These difficulties can easily overwhelm the possible positive benefits collaborative learning techniques may have. Thus a talented, eager student may learn little to nothing and become disenchanted. The result may be the fulfillment of the popular phrase that the pace of public education proceeds at the pace of the slowest [students].
External links
The Collaborative Learning Environments Sourcebook
The concept of collaborativelearning, the grouping and pairing of students for the purpose of achieving an academic goal, has been widely researched and advocated throughout the professional literature.
For collaborativelearning to be effective, the instructor must view teaching as a process of developing and enhancing students' ability to learn.
learning, amount of teacher intervention in the group learning process, differences in preference for collaborativelearning associated with gender and ethnicity, and differences in preference and possibly effectiveness due to different learning styles, all merit investigation.
Various names have been given to this form of teaching, and there are some distinctions among these: cooperative learning, collaborativelearning, collective learning, learning communities, peer teaching, peer learning, reciprocal learning, team learning, study circles, study groups, and work groups.
Informal learning groups can be initiated, for example, by asking students to turn to a neighbor and spend two minutes discussing a question you have posed.
Formal learning groups are teams established to complete a specific task, such as perform a lab experiment, write a report, carry out a project, or prepare a position paper.
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