Collaborative and Cooperative Learning
Collaborative learning involves students working together to create synergy. Through a shared learning experience, students are able to accomplish more than they would be able to do individually. In distance learning, collaborative work has the added benefit of contributing a social element to a learning experience. This is particularly useful for students who find online learning isolating and crave interaction with classmates.
Identifying a Purpose
Before designing group learning experiences, identify the purpose of the collaboration. Group work can be time consuming and technically challenging. In addition, not all students enjoy or benefit from this approach. Use collaborative or cooperative learning approaches to meet specific learning goals.
Collaborative experiences are particularly useful when:
- individual students have specialized skills and experiences that would benefit classmates
- course content lends itself to categories of information or multiple perspectives that can be explored
- a project demands varied skill sets or expertise such as writing, editing, leading, drawing, calculating
- an activity requires role playing
Assigning Learner Roles
Before selecting collaboration activities, consider the role of learners.
- Who assigns the roles? The instructor, individual students, the team as a group
Example: Each student will represent a non-profit organization of their choice. - Will roles be permanent?
Example: Students will select a country and play the role of their diplomat throughout the semester. - Will roles be rotated?
Example: Teams of four will work through four scenarios. The roles of leader, author, editor, and illustrator will be rotated. Each student will play each role sometime during the semester. - Will roles vary within a particular activity?
Example: Students start by posting an assignment, then reply to the work of others. - Will roles vary within the semester?
Example: Each student will lead a discussion sometime during the semester. Signup will begin at midnight on April 1. Students will work in pairs, so no more than two people can sign up for each time slot.
Providing Clear Guidelines
When designing collaborative assignments, provide clear guidelines including:
- learner outcomes and expectations
- schedule of activities
- individual responsibilities, assignments and assessment
- group assignments and assessment
- learning spaces for group work
Providing Learning Spaces
Students need designated learning spaces for collaborative activities including:
- general forums for discussion
- specific places to share documents
- collaborative workspace such as collaborative whiteboards, collaborative concept mapping tools, and wiki spaces
Explore the Sustainability Wiki. It's an example of a class wiki focusing on sustainability.
Promoting Cooperative Learning
In cooperative learning situations, students work through an assignment as a team. Each member is responsible for their own learning as well as the work of their teammates. As a result, students learn from each other's effort and share in the success and/or failure of the group. These types of experiences have been shown to promote a sense of community in online learning environments.
This type of teamwork has been shown to promote learning, student retention, and enhance student satisfaction. In online learning environments, the sense of social presence is increased making some student more comfortable about distance learning.
Cooperative learning involves:
- Interpersonal Skills. Each member must apply social skills including communicating, trusting, resolving conflicts, leading, and decision-making.
- Interaction. Each member shares information, checks for understanding, and connects ideas for the good of the group.
- Interdependence. The work of each member is critical for the success of the team. Each person makes a unique contribution. However the group works together to process information, take action, and make decisions.
- Individual & Group Accountability. Both individual and team assessments are used to ensure that all students are learning.
Designing Group Activities
Although there are many ways to structure cooperative learning activities, three popular approaches are listed below.
Brainstorming. Although there are many ways to use brainstorming, a round robin works well in an online, cooperative learning situation.
- In a small group discussion forum, an open ending problem or question is presented.
- Each group member posts one response or idea.
- After everyone has responded, each person posts a second idea, then third, and fourth until everyone runs out of ideas.
Jigsaw. Developed by Elliot Arnson, this approach involves learners becoming experts in a topic and sharing their expertise with others. Learn more about the Jigsaw approach at Jigsaw Classroom. This approach can be used to chapters or a book, novels, math problems, software packages learned, websites evaluated, etc.
- Groups are formed to learn about a general topic such as biomes.
- Each group member is charged with becoming an expert in one area such as freshwater, marine, desert, forest, grassland, or tundra.
- Expert groups meet to share what they've learned, discuss presentation options, and help each other create materials. In online environments, students may use tools such as Google Docs to create collaborative documents and presentations. Wikis would be another efficient tool for sharing content.
- Students return to their original group to share what they've learned.
- Individual assessments are given to ensure that all students understand all concepts.
Think-Pair-Share.
- Think. Individuals think about a question or problem posed by the instructor.
- Pair. Two people share their thoughts and exchange ideas. This works well through email or in a chat room.
- Share. The pairs share their ideas with a small group or the entire class.
Reminders!
Establish a positive atmosphere for community building.
Design ongoing activities to establish and maintain a sense of community.
Apply It!
Examine your online course.
Design activities that will help establish community at the beginning of the course.
Identify a few ways that you will nurture community throughout your course.