HOW COULD COLLABORATIVE LEARNING POTENTIALLY IMPACT PRIMARY EDUCATION? Beth Gibbs

Blog 3! During this blog I am going to explore collaborative learning and discuss benefits and negatives of this approach.

Collaborative learning has become popular in recent years as we have steered away from didactic teaching and embraced group projects. The National Institute for Science Education (NISE, 1991) suggests that collaborative learning is an approach to teaching and learning where that involves groups of individuals will work together to complete a task or share ideas. However, according to Richardson (1999), just because children work in groups, does not mean they work as a group. Collaborative learning is not restricted to just students but it has shown to be beneficial for teachers and students to collaborate as well.

Student voice is an effective learning approach that utilises collaboration between teachers and students. This is students can discuss ideas about their learning or if they are experiencing a challenging time then it is a good opportunity for students and teachers to work together to solve any problems or issues.

A possible barrier to collaborative learning may be when there are shy students that do not feel confident expressing their ideas in front of a group. A way to combat this is to possibly use technology, more specifically ‘Google Docs’ because it allows students to communicate their thoughts and ideas within their groups without feeling under pressure but still enabling collaborative learning.

Another way that technology can enable us to collaborate in the classroom is through Skype. Before Christmas, within lectures we have been Skyping a school in Nairobi. They told us about what their school and culture was like. However, this school does not have the resources or learning tools that we take for granted in our own school settings so each of our seminar groups collaborated on ideas to raise money for them. In the end there was a cake sale, a guess the name of the bear game and a sponsored cycle within the lobby of Cardiff Met.  In the end, nearly £300 was raised for the school in Nairobi. This is a good example how collaboration could be used in primary education. To provide larger collaboration opportunities you could involve the parent/carers and even the wider community.

At my placement settings at a local primary school I have observed collaboration at this scale, the year 6 children were raising money for their Christmas/winter fate. They collaborated with local businesses to donate food or furniture anything that could be sold and to volunteer on the stalls. The children of year 6 organised the whole event, even deciding on the prices. Their teacher said that every year after this type of project they have twice as much confidence, which is important to prepare them for secondary school.

Donaldson (2015), incorporated collaborative learning within his review of the Welsh curriculum, as he believed it provided both short-term and long-term benefits not just to students but also teacher’s pedagogy. He believed that through collaborative learning approaches, teachers are able to tailor education to individuals and therefore provide a more effective learning outcome. Students are able to practice teamwork skills and build confidence through problem solving and achievement.

According to Cummins (2001), it is the teacher’s role to engage with all students so they can develop confidence through collaboration with each other. This is to ‘empower’ students to gain autonomy over their own learning. Teachers can inspire and create collaborative opportunities and encourage critical thinking for their students through both adult-led and child centred play (Wingrave, 2014). We are no longer putting emphasis on independent learning, the focus has shifted to collaboration. Collaboration is at the heart of the working world so by giving children the opportunities to practice now, teachers are preparing them for the future. Through collaboration and large group work we develop our language and social skills as we practice how we convey ideas to others and the key to successful collaboration is communication. This will improve with practice. Another benefit of collaboration is that teachers will have a better knowledge of what their abilities are, making it possible to change their learning to suit their individual needs.

According to Johnson et al. (1994), co-operative learning is used in conjunction with collaboration and arguably they both essentially mean the same thing, to work in partnership and share ideas to solve problems.

Reference List:

Cummins, J. (2001) ‘Empowering Minority Students: Framework for Intervention’, Harvard Educational Review, 71(4), 649-75.

Donaldson, G. (2015) Successful Futures: Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in Wales. London: Crown Copyright.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. and Holubec, E. (1994) Cooperative Learning in the Classroom. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

NISE (1991) What is Collaborative Learning. Available at:  http://archive.wceruw.org/cl1/CL/moreinfo/MI2A.htm  (Accessed: 09.01.18)

Wingrave, M. (2014) Teaching and Learning in Primary Education. London: SAGE