Cooperative and Collaborative Learning

17.04 |

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).

Examples of some basic assumptions behind the idea of collaborative learning:

·Learning is an active process whereby learners assimilate the information and relate this new knowledge to a framework of prior knowledge.
Learning requires a challenge to learner to actively engage his/her peers, and to process and synthesize information rather than simply memorize it.
Learners benefit when exposed to diverse viewpoints from people with varied backgrounds.
Learning flourishes in a social environment where conversation between learners takes place.
\In the collaborative learning environment, the learners are challenged both socially and emotionally as they listen to different perspectives, and are required to articulate and defend their ideas. In so doing, the learners begin to create their own unique conceptual frameworks and not rely solely on an experts’ or a texts’ framework.

Pedagogical requirements for effective collaborative learning:

Ø Positive interdependence. Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve the goal. If any team members fail to do their part, everyone suffers consequence

Ø Individual accountability. All students in a group are held accountable for doing their share of the work.

Ø Face-to-face promotive interaction. Although some of the group work may be parceled out and done individually, some must be done interactively, with group members providing one another with feedback, challenging one another's conclusions and reasoning, and perhaps most importantly, teaching and encouraging one another.

Ø Appropriate use of collaborative skills. Students are encouraged and helped to develop and practice trust-building, leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management skills.

Ø Group processing. Team members set group goals, periodically assess what they are doing well as a team, and identify changes they will make to function more effectively in the future.

Traditional Teaching	Collaborative Learning
A teacher centered environment	A student centered environment
Teacher is in control	Students are in control of their own Learning
Power and responsibility are primarily teacher centered	Power and responsibility are primarily student centered
The teacher is the instructor and decision maker	The teacher is a facilitator and guide and the students are the decision makers
The learning experience is often competitive in nature	Students work together to reach a common goal
Series of smaller teacher defined tasks organized within separate subject disciplines	Authentic, interdisciplinary projects and Problems
Learning takes place in the classroom	Learning extends beyond the classroom
The content is the most important	The way information is processed and used is the most important
Students master knowledge through drill and practice	Students master knowledge by constructing it

Table1. Comparing traditional teaching and collaborative learning

3. Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

Collaboration can be supported with very different instructional ideas and computer applications. Crook (1994) has proposed four kinds of interaction in which computers play a part:

1) Interactions at the computers,

2) Interactions around computers

3) Interactions related to computer applications, and

4) Interactions through computers.

The first aspects are face-to-face interaction situations where meanings are mediated through spoken and nonverbal language. In these situations, computers can act as a referential anchor, and mediate the coordination of attention and collaborative actions (Crook, 1994; Järvelä, 1998; Bonk, Järvelä, Lehtinen, & Lehti, 1999; Rochelle, 1992).

Learning research has proved that technology can enhance individuals' cognitive activities and groups' collaborative work. Here are some examples:

1) Technology can work as an interaction tool to facilitate communication;

2) Technology can work as a knowledge and resource sharing tool for representing ideas, reflection and improving ideas;

3) Technology can work as a mediation tool for helping learners to focus on a shared problem;

4) Technology can work as a visualization tool for making thinking more visible by giving opportunities to reflect ones thinking by writing and sharing expertise;

Collaboration through networked learning environments is still mainly based on written language, and interaction lacks of certain basic features of face-to-face collaboration: social nonverbal cues intonations of speech and rich referential field that is present in face-to-face situations.

4. How Teacher Can Support Co-operative and Collaborative Learning?

Learners’ adaptation to complex collaborative learning situations, such as sharing knowledge and maintaining coordinated activity, presumes more advanced cognitive, motivational and socio-emotional regulation skills than more conventional and well-structured learning or working situations. Therefore it is not self-evident how to engage in collaborative learning situations.

Teacher plays a major role in directing (on-line or face-to-face) discussions, influencing the discussion by entering new topics, sharing new material and redirecting conversational patterns. Learners are needed to feel a sense of security in order to participate to groups' activities. Forming a sense of community, where people feel they will are being treated sympathetically by their fellows, seems to be a necessary first step for collaborative learning.

Teacher can use pedagogical models, which have been developed to support and structure collaborative learning. Pedagogical models are based on theoretical framework of learning and offers practical instruction of teaching and learning process.

In the following sections three pedagogical models are introduced:

a. Inquiry based learning;

b. Problem based learning (PBL);

c. Reciprocal teaching.

a. Inquiry Based Learning

Inquiry based learning is a pedagogical model which aims for knowledge building. Key concepts in inquiry model are: distributed expertise, collaboration, and shared ideas, social practices and collective knowledge. The instructional design of the model promotes and guides students to generate their own research problems and intuitive theories and also to search for explanatory information (Hakkarainen & Sintonen, 2002).

The phases of the inquiry process are:

1. Setting up the context;

2. Presenting research problems;

3. Creating working theories;

4. Critical evaluation;

5. Searching deepening knowledge;

6. Developing deepening problem;

7. New theory.

a. Problem Based Learning (PBL)

Problem-based approaches are based on the idea that knowledge can’t be transmitted from teacher to learner, because learning is a process of interpretation and elaboration conducted by the learner (Williams & Hmelo, 1998). The PBL model was originally developed in medical education, but it has been adapted to many other areas.

Essential components are: problem formulation, self-directed learning and reflection. The phases of the problem solving process are (7 steps model) - for example, if you are using an article as an impulse for problem solving:

1. Clarification of the difficult consepts;

2. Setting up the problem and the first analysis of the problem;

3. Brainstorming;

4. Analysis of the problem;

5. Setting up the learning goals;

6. Individual work – information searching;

7. Conclusions and evaluation.

b. Reciprocal Teaching

The reciprocal teaching model (Brown & Palincsar, 1982; Palincsar & Brown, 1984) is especially developed for understanding and remembering text content. The aim of reciprocal teaching model is that expert helps novice to learn reading skills and skills for critical evaluation. The basic procedure includes that a teacher and a group of students take turns leading a discussion of a section of the text that they are jointly attempting to understand. Since a group's effort are externalised and novices can learn from the contributions of those who are more expert than they, the model provide a zone of proximal development for the students. Expert shows an example, which novice imitate.

The phases of the reciprocal teaching include:

1. Questions concerning the text;

2. Clarification of difficult concepts and the main points of the text;

3. Summary of the text;

4. Divination from the text.

1. Assessment in Co-operative and Collaborative Learning

Assessment is a part of the instructional process, and it plays a central role in supporting learning. Current debates on theories of learning have indicated the need to consider both cognitive and situated perspectives - knowledge and social interaction in computer supported collaborative learning.

Traditionally the purpose of assessment has been testing and ranking of the students. Currently the focus has changed so that assessment is been viewed as a part of the instructional process and it plays a central role in supporting and enhancing students learning. There is a link between assessment methods and what learning strategies students use. For example if the test consists mainly of factual and recall questions, students may use memorization tactics to study to meet the task demands.

On the other hand, if assessment tasks involve higher-order thinking, deep knowledge and conceptual understanding, the students are required to use deeper level learning strategies. So one way to influence students learning is to change how learning will be assessed. Since the contemporary view of learning defines learning as a complex process of interpreting, seeking meaning and constructing new knowledge, also the assessment methods should capture the complex structure and quality of student learning and understanding. Therefore it is necessary to design challenging tasks that assess knowledge, conceptual change and higher-order thinking. It is also important to consider how assessment is conducted and how it can support learning.

Collaborative learning is about collaborating to learn, but also about learning to collaborate and therefore it is useful to assess participants' progress in terms of the quality of the learning process, not just the outcome. It is important to realize, that learning is also a social achievement, and its traces can be seen in increased capacities of groups to collectively create knowledge and deal with problems.

	Traditional view	Social-constructivist view
Purpose	Summative: to rank and to select	Formative: to support and transform learning, to provide positive effects
Time Sequence	Assessment usually follows instruction	A dynamic and ongoing process embedded in instruction
Task	Objective tests, achievement tests, standardized tests	Challenging and collaborative tasks assessing and eliciting thinking and understanding
Inquiry	Learning products	Both learning processes and products
Standard	Criteria not transparent	Expectations made clear to students with explicit criteria and rubrics to scaffold student learning and collaboration
Assessor	Teacher is the solo assessor	Students play active roles in assessing their own and peers' work
Unit of Analysis	Individual learning and achievements	Both individual and collaborative learning; collective knowledge advances
Focus	Assessment is separated from learning	Alignment of learning, assessment and collaboration

Table 2. Comparing traditional and social-constructivist view from the assessment point of view

2. Methods for Assessment

Ø Concept map

Concept mapping has been used as an instructional and assessment tool for assessing student learning and conceptual change. As students draw concept maps, they need to elicit their knowledge, organize the relations among concepts, and construct their understanding of the topic in question. Assessment of concept maps by examining the number of concepts, linkages and hierarchies can show the quality of knowledge.

Ø Self-generated questions

Students' self-generated questions can support and characterize reflection and meta-cognition. Assessment of problem posing and meta-cognition skills can identify gaps and inconsistencies in understanding.

Ø Project

Project approach has been used as an instructional and assessment tool for assessing student ability to do a systematic and focused inquiry of a problem; focus on research and inquiry skills.

Ø Presentation

Presentation and/or poster tasks have been used for assessing for example student ability to construct relevant presentation and present and discus about it

Ø Learning diary

Learning diary has been used for assessing student reflection and meta-cognition; how student reflect and construct questions based on lectures, seminars and readings.

Ø Case studies

Case study approach has been used for assessing student problem solving skills. Important aspect is authentic problems and real-life situations.

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