The social
context of learning can be very influential in the type of processing learners do.
Certain perspectives of learning support this idea.
1. Cooperative
Learning
In cooperative
learning (see Johnson, 1988; Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Slavin, 1995), students
work together to accomplish a learning task. Cooperation is accomplished by the
division of labour among the participants; each person is responsible for a
portion of the problem-solving task (Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O’Malley,
1996). The interaction required in cooperative tasks requires individuals to
externalize their thinking. Students benefit from this process because it
requires them to put ideas into amore concrete form and because of the feedback
that is available.
2. Collaborative
Learning
Collaborative learning appears to be one of the
core concepts in learning sciences. In the public conversation the term “collaboration”
appears to refer to any activities that a pair of individuals or a group of
people, perform together. In learning sciences, the term is understood rather
differently; common to the definitions within the learning sciences is that the
idea of co-construction of knowledge and mutual engagement of participants.
Some examples of the definitions:
Ø Collaborative learning is a co-ordinated, synchronous activity that is
the result of continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception
of a problem (Rochelle & Teasley 1995).
Ø Collaborative learning is a process of
participation in knowledge community (Brufee, 1993).
Ø Collaborative learning is a process, which is
distributed between the learner, the environment and the activity conducted by
the learners' community (Barab & Kirchner, 2001). One basic idea to define
collaboration is to make a distinction between collaboration and cooperation,
when the cooperation is accomplished by the division of labour, collaboration
is a coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt
to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem (Rochelle & Teasley,
1995).
