WHAT IS COLLABORATIVE LEARNING?

EDITHA B. NALUZ

Why use collaborative learning? As defined, Collaborative learning is the educational approach of using groups to enhance learning through working together. It involves pupils working together on activities or learning tasks in a group small enough to ensure that everyone participates.

The goal of collaborative learning is to develop essential skills to work effectively in groups namely communication, negotiation, feedback, and problem-solving. A task considered to be collaborative should relate closely to real-world scenarios, encourage students’ cooperation to conduct research, develop solutions to problems, raise and defend opinions, and critically reflect on others’ group contribution and that of themselves. Teachers use collaborative learning because they believe it helps students learn more effectively, that will prepare students for the real working setting.

Likewise, in collaborative learning, individual participants must also take responsibility for their team ‘success. Learner’s work with each other on projects, where they must collaborate as a group to understand the concepts being presented to them. It can develop self-management and leadership skills, where learners are tasks to work in a group to achieve the given task to develop high-level skills. While having to organize and assign, they are learning how to manage both themselves and others while leading in a productive output.

Through collaboration it can increase students’ skills and knowledge while they are working together as they share different ideas by means of brainstorming and feedbacking. Not only will they strengthen their existing skills by having to teach others, but they in turn will also learn new skills from other learners.

Learners are diverse, as teachers, we can no longer apply a one-size-fits- all approach. When students work collectively, we get direct feedback of how they are learning, and what experiences and ideas they bring to their work.

Thus, directing students to reflect on their group members’ performance stimulates a sense of responsibility, and accountability which is the main objective of this type of learning.

-oOoThe author is SST-III at AT ARAYAT NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL