Collaborative Learning

[Page 262]Collaborative learning refers to a range of instructional practices that feature intellectual efforts by students working in groups and that are underpinned by divergent theoretical perspectives. This approach to learning was catalyzed by the use of peer support in teaching beginning around the 1970s to address increasing cultural differences among students, and since has become a prominent teaching method in higher education. In the late 1990s, governments, education authorities, and world organizations began recommending collaborative learning for its potential for achieving a wider educational agenda in a globalized century. This entry describes collaborative learning, its benefits, and its theoretical basis. It then discusses variants of collaborative learning and considerations in designing collaborative learning strategies.

Collaborative learning is consensually defined as a collaborative construction of knowledge through problem-solving. This approach to learning engages learners in an open-ended, problem-based, or research question-driven investigation. Learners work on solutions to authentic problems without a specified division of labor, through deliberation among members, constructing answers, and disseminating solutions in plenary sessions to stimulate wider debate in a social context and to create artifacts and outputs that represent the group inquiry. Collaborative learning has facilitated the development of computer-supported collaborative learning, which provides a format for developing blended learning pedagogies by synchronous communication tools to create spaces of interaction and co-construction of knowledge.

Collaborative learning can lead to the construction of conceptual knowledge, elaboration of knowledge, critical thinking, long-term knowledge retention, and meta-cognitive knowledge. It also has been found to enhance students’ intrinsic motivation and self-esteem.

The premise of collaborative learning is based on learning theories from a constructivist learning perspective. Sociocognitive conflict theory, developed by Jean Piaget (1896–1980), postulates learning as an important process of interaction with people and the world. This process helps individuals realize cognitive conflicts in their mental structure and prompts them to refine their previous knowledge structure. Sociocultural theory, developed by Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), sees individual learners’ thoughts, languages, and reasoning processes as a result of culture. Individuals’ cognitive development depends on an acculturation process in which communication with peers, engaging in play, and exposure to the social environment can develop the capacity for understanding. This learning process can be facilitated by learners who work in collaboration with more capable others such as peers or under adult guidance such as teachers. Such social interactive supports, known as scaffolding, can help learners to exceed the developmental level that would be determined by their own independent learning.

The emphasis on human dialogue and social context by contemporary authors also establishes the grounds for collaborative learning. Kenneth Bruffee views constructive conversation as a means of learning. He argued that in contrast to earlier stages of schooling focused on foundational knowledge, or the basic rules of subject matter, learning at the university level should be viewed in a nonfoundational knowledge position that is derived from reasoning and questioning. Students at the university level should challenge answers from authority sources and learn to produce answers based on critical reasoning developed in a knowledge community. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger postulated that learning is a process of developing situated cognition. In this case, learning happens when a group of people produce and use knowledge in real-life activities. This community of learners reifies the form of tacit knowledge into a form of practical knowledge.

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