This document discusses collaborative learning, which involves students working together in small groups on a common task or project. The key aspects of collaborative learning covered include: - Students work together to explore a question or create a project, and are responsible for their own and each other's learning. - It promotes active, shared learning over passive receipt of information from a teacher. - Advantages include developing higher-order thinking skills, understanding different perspectives, building community, and enhancing achievement through motivation. - Potential impediments include preference for teacher-centered learning and objections to group work. - Effective design involves phases of engagement, exploration, transformation, presentation, and reflection.

1. COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
Introduction
Learning
The activity or processes of gaining knowledge or skills by study practising
being thought or experiencing something.
Knowledge or Skill gained from learning
Correct way of learning always enhances learning effective. Learning promotes
good memory of the corresponding material. The types of material help to
decide methods of learning. One effective method of learning is collaborative
approach.
Collaborative approach is a method of teaching in which students’ team
together to explore a significant question or create a meaningful project. The
term collaborative learning refers to an instruction method in which students of
various performances level work together in small groups towards a common
goal. The students are responsible for one another learning as well as their own.
Thus the success of one student helps other students to be successful.
Major Assumptions
 Learning in an active mode is more effective than passively receiving
information
 The teacher is a facilitator coach or a mid wife rather than a ‘sage on the
stage’
 Teaching and learning are shared experiences between teacher students
 Balancing lecture and small group activities is an important part of a
teachers role
 Participating small group activities develops higher order thinking skills
and enhances individual abilities to use knowledge
 Accepting responsibilities for learning as an individual and as a member
of group enhances intellectual development

2.  Articulating once idea in a small group setting enhances a students ability
to reflect on his or her own assumptions and thought processes
 Developing social and team skills through give and take consensus-
building is a fundamental part of liberal education
 Belonging to a small and supporting academic community increases
student success and retention
 Appreciating(or at least acknowledge the value of) diversity is essential
for the survival of a multicultural democracy
Advantage of collaborative approach
Promotes greater educational value than can be achieved by individuals
work alone
Leads to understanding different perspectives and gaining a broader and
deeper understanding with resulting higher quality outputs
Promotes simultaneous learning of both academic and team work skills
Simultaneously affects outcomes such as individual achievements and
positive relationships among students
Build a learning community and assist in retaining students until
graduation
Builds positive relationships among diverse students
Promote psychological health, allows students to construct and extent their
understanding through group work and exposure to a rich learning
environment
Offers individual feedbacks on developing skill and knowledge
Promotes individual accountability through group expectations
Promotes enhanced achievement through greater intrinsic motivation to
learn, greater use of processes such as recoceptualisation, higher level
reasoning, metacognition, cognitive elaboration, networking and longer
maintenance of skills learned
Impediments to collaborative approach
Preference for ‘teacher expert ‘delivered content
Expectation that they would work alone

3. Objection to negotiating with others
Belief that collaborative work would not meet their individual standards
Previous ‘bad experiences’ with collaborative approach
Objection to ‘freeloaders’ believed to be in inevitable in group learning
and objection to open-ended conceptual learning without right answers
Educators objected to engaging in collaborative learning because
it.
Required more time to structure, monitor and evaluate than other methods
Required use of unfamiliar teaching and learning strategies.
Differed from their view of teaching and learning.
Produced negative student feedback including instances of student
“mutiny” and “petitions” to cease collaborative learning strategies.
Lacked a reward system for implementing a new approach.
Appeared to be a ‘soft option’ or the ‘blind leading the blind’ and failed to
prepare students for the real world of competition by promoting co-
operations
Design of Collaborative Learning
Reid Forrestal and cook (1989) outline five phases of instructional design
in their collaborative learning model.
1. The engagement phase- Involves students acquiring information and
engaging in a shared experience that provides the foundation for their
ensuring project. The educator provides a structured overview links new
material with old encourages interaction and sets directions.
2. The exploration phase :- Features students exploring ideas and
information in an unstructured environment with line and space for
engagement. The educator facilitates monitors, responds and reflects
3. The transformation phase :- Involves students in activities to reshape the
information by reorganising, classifying, elaborating and practising or
using information in a purposeful way. The educators monitors,
facilitates and provides information
4. The presentation phase :-Involves students in presenting their findings to
an interested and critical audience. The audience should be authentic and

4. provide feedback. The educator facilitates presentations and checks that
goals are being met.
5. The final phase:- Reflection involves students reflecting on what they
have learned and the process, and offering constructive ideas on
improving their learning .The educator reviews learning outcome,
processes and students responses, then reflects on these for future
planning.
Similarities between co-operative and collaborative approaches
Co-operative approach and collaborative approach as several similarities they
are the following
 Emphasis the values of sharing
 Group activities enhances learning
 Group participation develops higher order thinking skills.
 It increases students success and information retention
 Learner is active
 Sharing of responsibility between teacher and learner.
Conclusion
Collaborative approach is an approach to teaching and learning that involves
groups of learners working together to solve a problem complete a task to create
a product.
At their best collaborative class rooms stimulate both students and
teachers in the most authentic of ways the collaborative approach process
models what it means to question learn and understand in concert with others.
Learning collaboratively demands, responsibility, persistence and sensitively
but the result can be a community of learners in which everyone in welcome to
join , participate and grow.

5. REFERENCE
Social studies in the classroom; trends and methods, P. K. Sudheesh Kumar, P.
P. Noushad
Teaching of social studies: a practical approach, J. C. Aggarwal
Checked by
Daphin Rose