Collaboration

After giving this considerable thought, I do believe humans have a basic instinct to "interact and work as a group," but humans are sometimes persuaded to act differently due to environmental factors (Rheingold, 2008).

For example, two adults may seek each other to spend a lifetime together, working as a team, and collaborating on all decisions. However, cultural values from the environment they grew up in may influence these individual into fulfilling roles that take them away from collaboration. For example, a woman being set in the role of a housewife and making all of the decisions that relate to cooking and cleaning.

Technology can facilitate collaboration among learners based on the constructivist principles through the use of the Internet. Chat rooms can be used to exchange ideas quickly with people who are separated through time and space (California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project, n.d., p. 43). Concept maps provide a visual representation of what someone is trying to explain. They allow people to add their opinions and validate or invalidate what someone else shared (California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project, n.d., p. 44). Technology can also facilitate collaboration by using social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter. Both would allow for ideas to be collected and commented on. Because of features like “undo,” people can work on the computer on a project together and easily make changes.

Rozenszayn and Ben-Zvi (2009) conducted a study to determine if collaborative learning was a meaningful learning tool in a science classroom. Their research found that students were able to learn from one another and teach each other, which proved to be beneficial for learning (p. 124). However, all partners were paired up by their teacher in developmentally appropriate groups. It is hypothesized that if the students were paired with other students who were not around the same intellectual level, not as much progress would be made. Additionally, the students identified five criteria that needed to be present in order for collaborative learning to be successful. The criteria were "interdependence between group members for reaching a mutual goal," "collective responsibility of group members concerning difficulties," "reciprocity between group members in the form of oral explanations... geared to solve problems," "social cooperation skills," and "social processes need to be defined in advance" (p. 125). If these factors could be fulfilled, learning with other students is possible and productive.

This YouTube video, created by the Science Education Initiative at the University of Colorado at Boulder, shows how group work can enhance a lesson. One student explained, "when I am not learning something or I am not getting something, by working in the groups I am able to experience it through a different way. [I do this] by seeing how other people are thinking about it so that I can better understand the concept rather than the single way [the professor] explained it."

Resources

California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project. (n.d.). How does technology facilitate constructivist learing? Retrieved from: http://www.calpro-online.org/eric/docs/brown/brown01_05.pdf

Rheingold, H. (2008, February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

Rozenszayn, R. & Ben-Zvi, O. (2009, December). When collaborative learning meets nature: Collaborative learning as a meaningful learning tool in the ecology inquiry based project. Res Sci Edu, 41, 123-146. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.