Collaborative learning is one of the teaching approaches where students work in groups in order to understand a concept, create a product or solve a problem. In this environment, students engage with one another to share information, evaluate ideas, and monitor work together.
As a teacher in a collaborative environment it requires clear objectives, clear explanation and examples of what collaborative looks like, and activities that require both team work and individual feedback. This teaching format also can enhance student’s success through the use of peer evaluations, well thought out grouping, and role assignments that may encourage students to demonstrate desirable collaborative behaviors.
When designing activities for teaching and assessing we must also be sure to consider the three elements of collaboration: interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, and task management. Creating activities that are aligned with clear objectives and individual skill level can help students work effectively. A collaborative learning environment also is a great support system for both the teacher and student on a social and academic level. Being able to share personal knowledge with one another can provide students and teachers a lot of benefits.
Some advantages for students involved in a collaborative learning environment include:
- While working within their groups they can generate more information, solve problems, and come up with alternatives than the average individual.
- Students tend to be more motivated by technology driven lessons today and take a more active role than they would in a lecture based environment.
- Students can also turn to each other for help when experiencing difficulty in a particular area.
- Collaborative learning environments also help strengthen social interactions while simultaneously increasing the students’ academic knowledge.
Teachers can also benefits from collaborative learning environments. Some advantage include:
- Can provide better instruction when providing collaborative based lessons
- Expands your teaching arsenal with a wide variety of web based tools and apps that can assist with your everyday teaching.
- Lessons become be more consistent and expectations must be very clear.
- Activities and lessons become more student centered allowing for both group and individual feedback.
Some drawbacks can be:
- Certain individuals may still not feel comfortable participating even at a distance
- Some members may contribute while others do not.
- Some group members may not agree or will not compromise with others
- Plagiarism or the inability to proper site work.
All of these are obvious concerns but providing our students with a collaborative learning environment can enhance academic achievement and personal social skills. Being able to become accustom to this sort of teaching allows students to engage and involve themselves more actively in the learning process, interact more effectively with their peers to handle problems and learn from one another making a learning environment that is fun and educational for all.
and skills in making sense of a complex phenomenon.
“Technology Learning Fund: A guide to implementation”
2017 (14)
Mr. Kotansky's Blog 
Robert,
The bullet point where you said, “Students tend to be more motivated by technology driven lessons today and take a more active role than they would in a lecture based environment.” stood out to me. As a current instructor who uses lecture based forms of theory in a face-to-face format, I see the future of education heading toward this collaborative format. As the years have gone on, I’ve realized students of all ages are becoming consistently more familiar and comfortable with the technologies required to facilitate an online collaborative format. Your bullet point stood out because my next big step with my courses is to at least move to a hybrid style where I have my theory portion online and students will only have to come in for the lab portion. I have received feedback that many of my students would prefer that method of instruction and I’m sure would easily adapt once I organize it. As a whole, I do agree with the benefits you laid out, but I wanted to pick that one out of the mix because I can currently relate to that topic.
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Robert,
One of your bullet points addressed the fact that when students are in a collaborative learning environment, they will turn to each other for help when experiencing difficulty. Currently, I am on a research team that has been observing interactions within an internship cohort to determine the validity of this statement. Guess what? It is, in fact, true (which I’m sure you knew)! Additionally, we’ve been seeing an increase in task trading when the students are involved in weekly/semi-weekly “vulnerability events.” There is no doubt, collaboration is key.
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Robert,
You made several valid points at the beginning of your posting on how we must prepare our students for this type of work and not assume they will be successful on their first try. ” …it requires clear objectives, clear explanation and examples of what collaborative looks like…” Students need to know what working together collaboratively looks and sounds like. Providing clearly worded objectives, along with explaining and modeling the work involved, will help provide the structure needed. Starting with small projects first can then lead into larger projects where students take more control. Too often teachers start with a big project, chaos ensures, and collaborative learning is thrown out the classroom door, never to be tried again.
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Robert,
When you mention the “three elements of collaboration: interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, and task management”, I immediately made the connection between those skills and my current career. Our teams work collaboratively (within the Pittsburgh office, with the Texas office, and globally) and even as adults, we have to manage tasks, communicate, and resolve conflict within the group. Usually it works quite well, but sometimes when we work with certain engineers or code developers, there are disagreements as to how to best proceed. It can really be a problem when team members don’t share the same collaborative skills, and it puts a great deal of strain on the entire work flow.
Providing students with the opportunity to learn these skills will be invaluable in the workforce!
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