Collaborative Learning
Collaborative Learning is the understanding that learning is not just an individual activity the occurs in the mind of one student but learning is in fact a collaborative effort where all the students put their heads together to come up with the best idea. This is beneficial to students because it motivates them to take responsibility for their own learning and also gives them reason to reflect, contrast and compare ideas they have come up with. The strength of this type of learning is that students will develop ideas together that they never would have thought of on their own.
There are many ways a teacher can integrate collaborative learning into their classroom. However, the most common and effective way is through having students work in small groups of about five students. This group size is an optimal number because it gives each student enough time to share their idea as well as time to speak so they can compare and contrast their ideas to come up with the best one.
One effective lesson that teachers can use in their classrooms to incorporate collaborative learning is a Jigsaw Lesson. This is where the teacher uses an information gap activity, each member of the group is given just a portion of the information on a particular topic. Then the students bring their ideas together like puzzle pieces in order to understand and see the full picture by sharing their information and ideas with each other.
In conclusion, collaborative learning has many benefits for students such as the development of higher level thinking skills and interaction. It helps students to develop leadership skills and also helps them build self-management skills. Collaborative learning also allows students to hear different perspectives from their peers which they may not have thought of and so it expands their level of understanding by allowing them to explore more ideas.