Collaboration

Collaboration/collaborative learning, what is it?

Collaboration was previously defined as ‘a situation in which particular forms of interaction among people are expected to occur, which would trigger learning mechanisms, but there is no guarantee that the expected interactions will actually occur’ (Dillenbourg, 1999).

Today ‘A collaborative (or cooperative) learning approach involves learners working together on activities or learning tasks in a group small enough for everyone to participate on a collective task that has been clearly assigned. Learners in the group may work on separate tasks contributing to a common overall outcome or work together on a shared task’ (Education Scotland, 2019).

Using collaborative learning approaches puts together children of mixed ability into teams or groups so that they can work in competition with each other to pilot more effective collaboration (Education Scotland, 2019). 

For collaborative learning in the classroom to be effective there are some things that need to be considered: -

1. Pupils need support and practice to work together; it does not happen automatically.
2. Tasks need to be designed carefully so that working together is effective and efficient, otherwise some pupils will try to work on their own.
3. Competition between groups can be used to support pupils in working together more effectively. However, overemphasis on competition can cause learners to focus on winning rather than succeeding in their learning.
4. It is particularly important to encourage lower achieving pupils to talk and articulate their thinking in collaborative tasks to ensure they benefit fully.
5. Have you considered what professional development is required to support effective use of these approaches?

(Education Endowment Foundation, 2018)

According to Siraj-Blatchford (2007) collaboration is a part of sustained shared thinking that involves compatible skills combining to foster creativity, communication and shared understandings between pupils. Collaboration is also seen to be entwined with constructive competition to and can be a driving force in pupil’s learning (Fülöp, 2002; Sheridan and Williams, 2006).

Some research has shown that collaboration may contribute somewhat to children's understandings of justice, development of self-esteem, willingness to share and care, ability to handle symbolic thinking, development of communicative skills and engagement in creativity (Damon, 1984; Williams, 2008).

From my own experience within primary schools I have seen first hand the interaction between children when working in groups. I agree with Damon (1984) and Williams (2008) in saying that it helps to develop their self-esteem. I have seen children who are usually quite shy in class start to engage more within the group discussions or tasks with their peers. They start to contribute and share their ideas more. I also saw that the children got all excited when the teacher had said that they would be working in groups to do a certain task, I think this was because they do not get to do group work often. This is something that I believe needs to be done more within the classroom. 

Communication is a key part of one of the six key areas of Learning and Experience in Donaldson’s new curriculum (Donaldson, 2015). I believe that this will hopefully give the children more of a chance to communicate and collaborate as a group which could help to aid their own learning and help each other to co-construct knowledge.

Although, collaborative learning is not a new way of teaching and collaborative learning has actually been around for many years dating back to early 1970s (Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O’Malley, 1996). Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory is the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ which states that a learner is not able to achieve a full understanding of a new idea or concept if they are not receiving help or feedback from their peers or a teacher (Vygotsky, 1978).

According to Vygotsky’s ideas, having peer interaction within a classroom is an important way to further individual cognitive growth and knowledge acquisition, and peer collaboration can help learners to become problem solvers.

At university a primary school took part in a mindfulness project with two lecturers. From listening to what the lecturers and children had to say about it, it seemed to help enable to children to work and think for themselves but to also help each other and work together with their peers. They were able to collaborate and co-construct their own knowledge to come up with questions etc. This also seemed to help the children’s self-esteem, they started to think with each other and for themselves.

Strategies to help build on student collaboration within the classroom: -

1.          Purposefully select which students will work together.
2.                Size the groups for maximum effectiveness.
3.          Teach students how to listen to each other.
4.          Set the rules of language and collaboration.
5.          Make your goals and expectations clear.
6.          Assign roles to each member of the group (may be more difficult for younger groups of      children).
7.          Use real-world problems, not imaginary ones.
8.         Consider giving each group a different task.
9.         Play a game to get the students warmed up and engaged.
10.         Assess and evaluate each group individually. 

(Graduate School of Education and Human Development, 2018)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzr5x2cLljg

Here is a link to a YouTube video which includes some tips and ideas on how to include great groupwork within the classroom, however it does mention a few things which slightly disagree with what Graduate School of Education and Human Development (2018) states above. It suggests that children shouldn’t be given individual different roles, but they should all be able to work together and assess each other’s work.

Overall, collaboration, communication and group work seem to be an important part of school life. Especially for children to be able to grow as an individual and learn.

Reference list

Common Sense Education (2017). Tips for great groupwork in the classroom. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzr5x2cLljg (Last accessed 30/3/19)

Damon, W. (1984). Peer education. The untapped potential. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 5, pp. 331–343.

Dillenbourg, P., Baker, M., Blaye, A. and O’Malley, C. (1996). ‘The evolution of research on collaborative learning’. P. Reinman, H. Spada (Eds.), Learning in humans and machines: Towards an interdisciplinary learning science, Pergamon, New York (1996), pp. 189-211.

Dillenbourg, P. (1999). “What do you mean by collaborative learning?”. In Collaborative-learning: Cognitive and computational approaches, Edited by: Dillenbourg, P. 1–19. Oxford: Elsevier.

Donaldson, G. (2015). Successful Futures. Available at: https://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/150225-successful-futures-en.pdf (Last accessed 30/3/19)

Education Endowment Foundation. (2018). Collaborative Learning. Available at:  https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/collaborative-learning/ (Last accessed 30/3/19)

Education Scotland. (2019). Collaborative Learning. Available at: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/pages/EEF-Toolkit-Results.aspx?c9b35acf8163f12cfbefaa3b45d636a42956957a1837d5f52f768aedfd7b971c (Last Accessed 30/3/19)

Fülöp, M. (2002). Competition in educational settings. Paper presented at The Faculty of Education, University of Ljubliana, Slovenia. 

Graduate School of Education and Human Development (2018). 10 Strategies to Build on Student Collaboration. Available at: https://gsehd.gwu.edu/articles/10-strategies-build-student-collaboration-classroom (Last accessed 30/3/19)

Sheridan, S. and Williams, P. (2006). Constructive competition in preschool. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 4(3), pp. 291–310. 

Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2007). Creativity, communication and collaboration: The identification of pedagogic progression in sustained shared thinking. Asia-Pacific Journal of Research in Early Childhood Education, 1(2), pp. 3–23.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological process, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Williams, P. (2008). Kreativt samarbete i förskolan. [Creativity and collaboration preschool, in Swedish]. Paper presented at the Preschool Biennale in Norrköping, Sweden.