2. TOPIC : COLLABORATIVE
LEARNING AND ITS STEPS
INTRODUCTION
Collaborative learning is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn
something together. The real word demands collaboration, the collective solving of problems.
3. Collaborative learning is heavily rooted in Vygotsky’s views that there exists an inherent social
nature of learning which is shown through his theory of zone of proximal development.
Collaborative learning occurs when individuals are actively engaged in a community in which
learning takes place through explicit or implicit collaborative efforts.
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
The broadest [but satisfactory] definition of ‘collaborative learning’ is that it is a situation in
which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together. Collaborative learning is
not one single mechanism. Collaborative learning is not a method because of the low
predictability specific types of interactions. Collaboration is more than just working together in
groups. It is the whole communication process in the classroom.
The real word demands collaboration, the collective solving of problems and learning to get
along, to function effectively in a group is essential. Evidence and experience also strongly
suggest that an individual’s personal learning is enhanced by collaborative effort. The act of
sharing ideas, of having to put one’s own views clearly to others, of finding defensible
compromises and conclusions, is in itself educative.
Collaborative learning is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn
something together. Unlike individual learning , people engaged in collaborative learning
capitalize on one another’s resources and skills [asking one another for information, evaluating
one another ideas, monitoring one another’s work, etc.]. Collaborative learning is based on the
model that knowledge can be created with in a population where members actively interact by
sharing experiences and take on asymmetry roles. Collaborative learning refers to methodologies
and environments in which learners engage in common task where each individual depends on
and is accountable to each other. These include both face-to-face conversations and computer
discussions. Collaborative learning processes include conversation analysis and statistical
discourse analysis.
Collaborative learning is heavily rooted in Vygotsky’s view that there exists an inherent social
nature of learning which is shown through his theory of zone of proximal development.
Collaborative learning is used as umbrella term for a variety of approaches in education that
involve joint intellectual effort by students or students and teachers. Collaborative learning is
commonly illustrated when groups of students work together to search for understanding,
meaning, or solutions or to create an artifact or product of their learning. Collaborative learning
activities can include collaborative writing, group projects, joint problem solving, debates, study
teams, and other activities. The approach is closely related to cooperative learning.
Collaborative learning occurs when individuals are actively engaged in a community in which
learning takes place through explicit or implicit collaborative efforts. Collaborative learning has
often been portrayed as solely a cognitive process by which adults participate as facilitators of
4. knowledge and children as receivers. However, Indigenous communities of the American
illustrate that collaborative learning occurs on horizontal plane where children and adults are
equals. Thus collaborative learning also occurs when children and adults in engage play, work,
and other activities together.
Steps of Collaborative learning
1. Identifying Common Ground Across Research Contexts :
The design experiment laboratory science collaboration process is perhaps best conceived
as a dialogue in search of common ground, rather than as an undirectional transfer of
information from “research to application” or as a request for a lab to test specific
hypothesis. As some laboratory investigations approach increasingly complex
developmental learning questions.
2. Converging on Measures of Success :
One useful activity is to establish shared understandings in the form of operational
definitions of successful outcomes, thereby collaborating on artifacts that have currency
in both communities of research. Although some measures are likely to be insensitive to
many of the profound and subtle changes that a successful design experiment might
engender with in a classroom, operational definitions hold the distinct advantage of being
highly transportable from the context of the design experiment to other contexts, such as
laboratory investigations.
CONCLUSION
Collaborative learning is an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups
of learners working together to solve a problem, complete task or create a product. Collaborative
learning is based on the idea that, learning is naturally a social act in which the participants talk
among themselves. It is through the talk that learning occurs.
5. In a collaborative setting, the students have positive interdependence, individual accountability,
face-to-face progressive interaction, appropriate use of collaborative skills and self setting of
goals and periodical self-assessment. Learners get opportunity to converse with peers, present
and defend ideas, exchange diverse beliefs, question other conceptual frame works, and to
actively engage in the learning process.
REFERENCES
1. Jamaluddeen K, Effective Teaching of English, Quality Publishers, Manjeri (2014).
2. Sivarajan K, English Language Education, Calicut University, Calicut (2014).
3. http://tewt.org/index.php/discussion-collaboration/blogs.
