What is it

Definition

Collaborative learning is the use of small groups so that all students can maximise their learning and that of their peers. It is a process of shared creation: two of more individuals interacting to create a shared understanding of a concept, discipline or area of practice that none had previously possessed or could have come to on their own. Collaboration requires the participation of all.

Collaborative learning does not occur in a traditional classroom where students work independently on learning tasks and take responsibility only for self. The focus of traditional groups is generally on individual performance and accountability so that they are not dependent on each other for learning. Independence is actively discouraged.

Collaborative Learning Principles

Johnson, Johnson & Smith (1991) have summarised these principles in their definition of a new paradigm of teaching:

• Knowledge is constructed, discovered, and transformed by students. Lecturers create the conditions within which students can construct meaning from the material studied by processing it through existing cognitive structures and then retaining it in long-term memory where it remains open to further processing and possible reconstruction.
• Students actively construct their knowledge. Learning is conceived of as something a learner does, not something that is done to the learner. Students do not passively accept knowledge from the teacher or curriculum. Students activate their existing cognitive structures or construct new ones to subsume the new input.
• Teaching effort is aimed at developing students' competencies and talents.
• Education is a personal transaction among students and between the lecturer and students as they work together.
• All of the above can only take place within a cooperative context.
• Teaching is assumed to be a complex application of theory and research that requires considerable teacher training and continuous refinement of skills and procedures.