Collaborative learning is an interesting way for people to learn together. As we all have noticed, it is a lot easier to work in a group than if we were alone. In my PBL group we discussed on what areas of collaborative learning we would focus on for this topic and we chose “Teachers role in collaborative learning” and “limitations of collaborative learning”. These were the most interesting topics and were something we wanted to discuss.
Collaborative learning is not something you can implement in every type of education. Collaborative learning might not be beneficial for some assignment in some subject. For example, in art, an assignment could be to draw a portrait of yourself. This assignment is an individual assignment and would not benefit from working with someone else. My PBL group discussed a lot about group work and individual work. We came to the conclusion that we must have individual assignment when the students are working in a group. There are some limitations to this which is that we teachers cannot grade every students during their collaborative work. They might benefit from collaborative learning but we teachers have no knowledge about it. When I worked in a group when I studied, I would do most of the work and then my group would present my work. The teachers would think that I did nothing while my group did all the work. My PBL group came up with two possible solutions for this and one was individual assignment that is a part of the group assignment, e.g. the students do their individual assignment and the group assignment is to discuss the individual assignment. This could give the students the benefit of collaborative learning while giving us teachers the information we need.
The teachers’ role in collaborative learning is also important. The preparation of student groups and choice of assignment is the key to success within collaborative learning. Deciding on which students will work together can make a difference in their work. In some of my courses we mix the groups so they are similar in age and gender to make the groups as equal as possible. A group contract is an interesting document that can be used within collaborative learning and it is something my faculty have implemented in some of our courses. The group contract allows the students to write some specific rules that every student should follow as well as what happen if someone breaks the contract. The choice of assignment should mimic a real world problem which students can relate to whenever they start working. Teachers have to understand that some real life problems might be too complex for students and for the teachers (Steiner et al., 2006). One solution to this is to create an assignment of a real life problem which is scaled down so students have the knowledge and time to solve the problem.
Brundiers et al. (2010) states that when using real-world learning the students will not automatically build competencies. This means that the teachers needs to incorporate three principles:
- Collaborative design – Students must work together, get a role, set responsibilities and expectations.
- Coordination – Coordination between faculties which provides supervision to the students when they are in need.
- Integration in general introductory courses – Introduce the students to the real world problems. Most of them have not participated in real world assignment.
In one of our courses at my university we have course that focuses on these three points. The students’ assignment is to create a system that can talk to two other system. In the course we allow the students to choose their own role (Team leader, programmer, designer, tester, etc) with their own responsibilities, and then we combine them together so they have a full team. The teachers in the courses acts as the students “senior colleague” and does not have any knowledge of the students work expect what they present during meeting. As a senior colleague we set our expectations for the whole project. The teacher coordinate to only give the information our role has and have the same types of meeting and response time (e.g. with email.) We also give the students an introductory to the project which they are allow to ask any question they want about the course or the assignment before the roleplaying starts.
I feel like collaborative learning is an important aspect of studies in higher education, but it is not useful if the students does not use it properly. Students that enrolls to a university simply to get a diploma are not motivated enough to contribute with a collaborative learning method. Those students would rather slack off and let other do most of the work and in the end they will get the same grade. Therefore, it is important to implement individual assignments that should be graded and the group assignment should be used to discuss these individual assignments.
References
Brundiers, K., Wiek, A., & Redman, C. L. (2010). Real‐world learning opportunities in sustainability: from classroom into the real world. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Steiner, G., & Laws, D. (2006). How appropriate are two established concepts from higher education for solving complex real‐world problems? A comparison of the Harvard and the ETH case study approach. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education.
May 20, 2022 at 14:03
Hello Alexander!
I read through your blog and I’d like to thank you for the interesting insights you provide!
In particular, the idea of the contract is very unique! 🙂
I have never thought to create a contract that establishes some rules of collaboration among the students. Indeed, I could even not imagine that it would be possible to have one!
So, I find this idea interesting … to think it over, I’d say, because there is an aspect related to the “contract” that makes me sceptic. That is, “constraining” too much the freedom of individuals (perhaps, due to its formal name :)) )
While establishing some behavioural rules within the group is beneficial (and it would help me, as teacher, to solve some group problems and dynamics), I do not like the idea to be so formal in a collaborative learning experience.
Indeed, when I think to collaborative learning I like to think to persons who freely will to share their knowledge and build on the others’ knowledge to achieve a common objective. The common objective becomes, as such, the group’s and the participants’ motivation.
The problem is that we, teacher, like very much to “force” the students working together on a project.. because “this is the way of working in the real context”.
But, as you also pointed out, the students who are not motivated (for some reasons) to play this game, will not contribute to the work group and, as such, will “destroy” the collaborative experience and eventually outcomes.
I experienced many time this situation, namely students who do not contribute to the group work. This is source of frustration for both students and teachers.
I am not sure that the solution to control the group creation by mixing the students, as you propose, is always successful. In my experience, the best set is to leave the students choose with whom they want to work. When the students know each other, the groups consist mostly of “friends”, which can be a drawback in terms that they do not develop the “ability” to work with “unknown” persons. If they do not know each other, they just pick some group mates… randomly?? :)))
Anyway, I like to see that they freely choose (in a way or in another) the persons with whom “do a journey in the knowledge”.
So, coming back to my ideal of collaborative learning, I think that it is a good method to be employed in higher education, as you also stated in your post. And, the reason for that is, in my opinion, to teach students to develop critical thinking and to respect the other’s opinions.
But, collaborative learning cannot be the only good way of learning at university. I think that this method might not be appropriate, for example, for persons with some psychological diseases, such as autism. Autistic persons are very much introverted and have difficulty to communicate and to interact. But these persons can create connections among a disparate set of things that is just wonderful!
So, promoting individual reflection and search for knowledge (validated through individual assignments, as you propose) is also a valid and inevitable way of learning to be encouraged at university also to make the courses inclusive.
thanks!
luciana (seasaltlucy)
May 24, 2022 at 07:58
Thank you for introducing me to the group work contract. It seemed first strange to regulate the group work but it makes a lot of sense to define the rules of a group. I work a lot in and with institutional tasks that are done in “group work” i.e. commities. Sometimes it is difficult to get people (staff) to be committed to the work in the group. I think of a way to introduce the contract system to define working routes of the group.