Collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of educational approaches that involve joint intellectual effort by students, or by students and teachers together.
Usually, students work in groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding, solutions or meanings, or creating a product. Collaborative learning activities vary widely, but most centre on the students exploration or application of the course material, rather than simply the teacher presentation of it.
Collaborative learning represents a significant shift away from the typical teacher centred or lecture centred setting. In a collaborative setting, the lecturing, listening and note taking process may not disappear entirely, but it lives alongside other processes that are based on student discussion and active work with the course material. Teachers who use collaborative approaches tend to think of themselves less as expert transmitters of knowledge and more as expert designers of intellectual experiences, acting as guides in a more emergent learning process.
Collaborative learning takes a variety of forms and is practised across many disciplines, but the field is tied together by important assumptions about learners and the learning process.
In our courses, learners discuss and engage with their peers to defend their ideas and questions, which supports engagement and understanding. This method is described in more detail on the Learning Model page, and the faculty write about it in the Program Blog.
The summary above draws on the article What Is Collaborative Learning, by Barbara Leigh Smith and Jean T. MacGregor, and the source is available at the Evergreen learning commons.
Authoritative external resources for readers who want to go further into clinical research methods, reporting and education.
