Friday, March 29, 2019

A Definition Of Collaborative Learning English Language Essay

A Definition Of cooperative nurture English Language EssayWhat is col grokative acquisition? This phrase looks at the definitions of cooperative learning and provides the reader with an overview of the definitions of cooperative learning, its various forms, and its goals, procedures and spirit objurgateting vis-a-vis the traditional fellowshiproom and school day corpse.It was midnight on a school night. I saw the light on in my 16 form olds room and went to tell him to go to sleep. His door was uncharacteristically open and I could hear animated voices from inside(a) his room. I found him on Skype with a couple of friends. They were quizzing each new(prenominal), turn overing out numericals and clarifying each others ideas for a big physics test next morning.Have you worked on your preparedness math troubles with a friend? Did you ever get together with peers in a group to understand a difficult theory in college? Did you ever brainstorm with other classmates on a school mold? Weve all done collaborative learning at some stage of our lives we erect didnt know what to call it.The very dictionary definition of quislingism allow tell us what collaborative learning means. The word collaborationism brings together the Latin col- meaning with or together with the Latin labor or toil. For educationists, collaborative learning is a all-around(prenominal) term for a variety of educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by assimilators, or students and teachers together.1How can teachers use Collaborative discipline?Collaborative teaching happens when students work together or are made to work together in pairs or groupsto understand or string meaning of a concept or textto create a solution for a problem (given in class or self-discovered)to explore a topic, a question, an landing field of knowledgeto apply the principles learned in their curriculumto conceive of new ways to apply the knowledge they have learned in classt o construct a tangible article or a physiological object (for example, a report, a term-paper, a assume volcano, a recycled-paper bag, a solar panel, anelectricvehicle) out of the course-learningThe above, of course, is an indicative and not a comprehensive list of the ways in which collaborative learning may be used by teachers.Forms of Collaborative LearningMany educators seem to switch collaborative learning with the more than integrated approach of cooperative learning. permit us say that cooperative learning is a type of collaborative learning. The developers of cooperative learning models and strategies have laid out several special components that teachers must control a small, inter-dependent group determined by the teacher, face to face interaction, cautiously structured activity leading to the accomplishment of a predetermined goal, individual accountability of every member of the group and a groups assessment and processing of its own work as a squad.2 new(prenomina l) types of collaborative learning that may be used both(prenominal) inside and out of a classroom structure are discussions,brainstormingsessions, peer- program line groups, workshops, team projects, group field-work, study groups, seminars, simulations, role-plays, case-studies etc.Collaborative learning, thus, can be specific, controlled and structured or it can be spontaneous, experiential and totally open-ended.Collaborative Learning in the traditional school systemOf course, the traditional school system is at odds with the very spirit of collaborative learning. Schools, as they were conceived and as they are still administered, are essentially authoritarian constructs.Lectures are the pet method of teaching and the globe physical, emotional and psychological set-up of the traditional classroom is confrontational. Teachers are still equated with discipline and consequences. They are the transmitters of knowledge and the evaluators of the students grasp of the culture they have given to the students. They are the regulators of the competition that is encouraged between students by the assessments and recognition and rewards for individual achievement.Conversation is discouraged in traditional classrooms where learning is a solitary pursuit of an individual student faced with the knowledge being given to him from the front of a classroom by a teacher who is the expert instructor. There are definitive syllabi for every strung-out with course content to be covered in a set period of time there are lecture plans for every teaching hour and teachers are under pressure to ensure that their students have ingested the carefully planned and delivered information and are capable of regurgitating it as required during formal assessments. Memory is more important than assimilation.In collaborative learning, on the other hand, the process of learning is basically more important than what is learned. Students are taught, by hands-on experience, how to learn and not what to learn. When they learn, assimilation of the material is an absolute demand as a student must take the material, absorb it, make it his own and then present it or teach it to others. Mere memorizing will not help the collaborative learner.Changing paradigms of an evolving systemCollaborative learning, by its very definition, takes the power away from the teacher as guru and distributes that power among the students as self-sustaining, motivated learners who take ownership and responsibility of the entire process of angle in an interactive, talking-to-each-other and engaged manner. The teacher becomes merely a facilitator, an expert occasion of a students intellectual process and a mid-wife of a more sudden learning process.3The traditional us versus them power-structure of the traditional school is obviously not conducive to the mutual trust that is required for purely collaborative learning. It is also relevant to point out here that like teachers, students in like manner have to be prepared to take on the challenges and opportunities offered by collaborative learning. I must emphasize that collaborative learning is a tool, just like other teaching methodologies. It is up to the school and the teacher to use this or another tool depending on the objective, the task, the group and the preparedness of the students. A group-discussion may enhance a lecture it cannot and should not replace it until both teachers and students are ready for the complete shift to another paradigm.As more and more teachers change their classroom strategies and re-orient their relationship to the curriculum from the traditional transmission to transactions that lead to transformations in the personal and social relations of the student to his curriculum,the school system is also slowly evolving and accommodating itself to the more student-centered, process-oriented and non-competitive model that defines collaborative learning.End-Notes1. Smith, BL and MacGregor, JT, W hat is Collaborative Learning? in Goodsell, Maher, Tinto, Smith MacGregorsCollaborative Learning A Sourcebook for Higher Education National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning and Assessment Pennsylvania State University 1992.2. David, Johnson Holubec.Circles of Learning Cooperation in the Classroom. Edina, MN interaction Book Company 19903. Smith and MacGregor op.cit

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