I´ve been thinking how this concept – collaborative learning – has different meaning for us, and in different situations, concept and in other cultures, how wide is this concept? And what does it mean to me. Earlier, during my time as a student at the university, I haven´t thought so much about working collaborative, maybe I don´t like it, cause I more like to work individually, and there always are those who works and those who don´t work when it comes to collaborative working or group work. So, what´s the meaning of working in groups? Others will get approved without doing anything, just passive participation and not take part in the group as an active member, just for the credits for the actual course, for getting ready with the whole education. BUT the more I read about teamwork, collaborative work, working in couples I begin to see the effort and the result is often more of 1 +1=3 and this is what we want to achieve of course.
I see collaborative learning, as a process, where you can have a goal, to achieve, but how to reach the goal is not pointed out, which can be confusing for some people to work without guidelines or instruction and for some people they get interested and real motivated by this kind of working or collaborating, a good opportunity to use their own creativity and fantasy. According the recommended articles we are supposed to read, as Wenger, 2010; Brindley et al., 2009; I think it appears that the environment is of great importance to get and when it comes to the benefits with collaborative learning, I found this little list of that, have a look and you will see how much advantages there are with this kind of learning http://www.gdrc.org/kmgmt/c-learn/44.html.
I have really learnt a lot with this topic and a new way of thinking, about the students and about creating learning activities, and that´s nice…..
.svg/2000px-One_day_living_with_commons-based_peer_production_communities_(CBPP).svg.png)
villywonka 
Hi Veronica! Thank you for sharing. Very promising list of benefits 🙂 I have also been thinking about what to do with students who have a different learning style and do not want to collaborate. Probably, a solution for a course would be to combine different learning activities so that everybody could find something. But, I agree, it is frustrating when you are in a group with passive participants…
LikeLike
Yes, and there are different kind of people, some like it and find it easy to collaborate and some not, because we are different as persons and also at learners, we prefer different things
LikeLike
Reblogged this on The OER World.
LikeLike
Please, keep in mind that for some students, due to special needs, may be difficult to collaborate and different ways to interact must be made available, thus the importance of creating flexible learning environments.
LikeLike
And fantastic picture for sharing economy 🙂
LikeLike
Hi Veronica! I like the way that you describe it as a process. I also think that the desire to collaborate has something to do with maturity. Hopefully we all mature sooner or later and come to the insight that 1+1=3!
LikeLike
Thank you for the post! I can relate to your notion that collaborative projects can be cumbersome unless they are executed properly. Mostly I think teacher don’t know how to plan for group assignments and a lot of the time they leave students alone to figure out all issues. It’s a bit like PBL – I’ve heard teachers say that they just give an assignment and then go do something else, but the teacher should be interested in the process, not only the product. Otherwise all responsibility falls on the students which isn’t fair, nor is that what teaching is about. 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for a nice post, Veronica!
I agree it’s important to reflect on collaboration and ways to encourage it.
Perhaps thinking of it as a process – that needs to be implement- might practically result in overcomplicate and structured ways to make students to work together. But does working together equate to collaboration?
LikeLike