Summary of reform: Focus is on students exploration or application of material not simply the teacher's presentation. Shift away from teacher centered or lecture centered pedagogy. Student discussion and active work with course material is emphasized. New assumptions about learning include: learning is an active, constructive process, learning depends on context, learners are diverse, learning is inherently social. Goals for education include involvement, cooperation and teamwork, civic responsibility. Within undergraduate education used most among teaching of writing and recently in the sciences.
Rather than wait for students to develop social relations, this reform consciously tries to construct opportunities for students to work together to come to new understandings. Methods include group projects, working in teams, requiring out of classroom study groups. Teachers tend to design and structure activities but this is not a necessary component. Degree of autonomy is key to collaborative learning, students must have ability to make many of the choices, especially since collaborative learning addresses the way authority is distributed -- teacher gives up authority to some degree for students to negotiate task and learn. Can also involve having students collaborate syllabus, peer teaching, writing groups, discussion groups, team research projects and experiential education. Some scholars suggest collaboration should also happen among faculty, not just students.
Several scholars have done work on the value of collaborative learning including: Russell Garth, Clark Bouton (learning in groups), Kenneth Brufee (collaborative learning). Zee was on involvement in learning group and suggested collaborative learning as one of 27 recommendations -- learning through communities.
Collaboration makes boundaries between teaching and research less distinct since knowledge is seen as created in the classroom; collaboration means that knowledge is created not transferred and collaboration locates knowledge in the community rather than in the individual.
Connection to other reforms:Learning Communities, Cooperative Learning, Critical Thinking
Model Institutions: Brown University, Lesley College, Evergreen
State
Web Site:
http://www2.emc.maricopa.edu/innovation/CCL/CCLmodel.html
http://edweb.cnidr.org:90/edref.sys.lrn2.html
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/jte-v7n1/gokhale.jte-v7n1.html
http://parsons.ab.umd.edu/~demcdow/collabor.htm
http://csis3.kennesaw.edu/~cyong/grpware.htm
Types of institutions: Multiple institution types
Duration: Since 1970s.
Source list of institutions: NCTLA
Contact for further information: Zee Gamson, Center for Higher
Education at U Mass, Jean Macgregor at the Washington Center, Patrick
Hill, Provost at Evergreen State
Outcomes: Community which is seen as essential for learning especially among the learning styles of women; interdependence in increasingly collaborative world and for sustaining a democracy, improves student retention, complexity of thinking increases, acceptance of different ideas, motivation for learning and connection among students.
Process: Change in pedagogical beliefs and style
K-12 parallel: Similar type of change in K-12 but happened much earlier in 1960s
Origination of reform: Association or national level
Support: Government grant -FIPSE, AAHE
Linking Characteristic 1: Collaboration
Linking Characteristic 2: Student centered
Linking Characteristic 3: Humanist orientation
Linking Characteristic 4:
Assessment? No
Resistances: Student resistance to giving up passive role as sponge, working autonomously and competitively. Faculty resistance to give up authority and let students negotiate and challenge understandings.
Evolution/History: This evolves out of several different traditions including 1960's innovation such as cluster colleges, free schools and interdisciplinary programs that stressed that learning occurs among people not between people and things. Out of social constructivism and new ways that knowledge is assumed to be developed. Ted Newcomb's work on influence of peers on student's learning; learning is illustrated to be a social process. Also evolved out of Belenky's work on women's relational way of knowing. Also evolves out of critical pedagogies challenge to teacher authority.
Major sources:
Bruffee, Kenneth A. (1987.) The Art of Collaborative Learning. Change, March/April 1987, 42-47.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. (1995.) Sharing Our Toys: Collaborative Learning Versus Cooperative Learning. Change, January/February 1995, 12-18.
Byrne, Candace. (1994.) Collaborative Approaches in Science Education Reform. Washington Center News, 9(1), 1-2.
Gamson, Zelda F. (1994.) Collaborative Learning Comes of Age. Change, September/October 1994, 44-49.
Whipple, William R. (1987.) Collaborative Learning: Recognizing it when we see it. AAHE Bulletin, October 1987, 3-5.