COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AND TEACHING IN PRACTICE
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AND TEACHING IN PRACTICE

Summary/Abstract: Emphasizing on many other collaborative learning or co-labouring(Latin-based term) and co-teaching approaches nowadays is wellknownas an essential 21st century skill that brings educational andsocial benefits identified on educational research studies. In order toestablish a common approach, we can use the definition of Smith andMacGregor (1992) in which it’s acknowledged that “collaborativelearning“ is an umbrella term for a variety of educationalapproaches involving joint intellectual effort by students, or studentsand teachers together. In most collaborative learning situationsstudents are working in groups of two or more, collaborativelysearching for understanding, solutions, or meanings, or creating aproduct.”(p. 11).The difficulties regarding the implementation ofactivities in collaborative learning are of different nature, butfrequently relate to the inability of the teacher to organizecooperative groups effectively and to transfer the findings of theinvestigation in this area of knowledge and its practical use in theclassroom (Gillies, Ashman, & Terwel, 2008, p. 2). Despite thedifficulty of transferring theory to practice, we can also highlight that“many teachers noted that constraints to moving beyond pedagogyincluded lack of time and the need to cover the curriculum” (Cohen,Brody, & Sapon-Shevin, 2004, p. 63).So the main question remainshow to improve children`s learning quality and teachingeffectiveness. The advantages of collaborative learning on engagingstudents in active learning are obvious when related to traditionalmethods and strategies co-labouring brings to large group activities.The benefits include the importance of sharing ideas, resources,outcomes, peers and blended features, facilitated learning by aflexible, interactive classroom, project-based learning, collective andreflective learning and leadership forming competences.

• Details
• Contents