Hi world!
During the sessions, devoted to Topic 3, we have been discussing fostering collaborative learning among students. As a result of our fruitful discussions, a lot of fascinating aspects, relating to this topic, were revealed. At the end of Topic 3 I began to puzzle myself over a question “What are the key ingredients for ensuring a successful collaboration amongst students?”. Here are my reflections on this question and it would be great to get to know yours!
Firstly, it is essential to convey to the students a message about the benefits of a genuine collaboration. One of our participants (kudos to Kash!) has beautifully described it as a working mode that allows one to produce a better result than the one one could achieve working on one’s own. I thought that it was a refreshing idea that could be pitched to our extremely ambitious and highly individualistic law students. It could probably take way some pressure from our individualistic approach to learning in higher education as well. Secondly, it is imperative that a safe learning environment is created. I consider it to be a key to a successful collaboration, but I also find it to be the most difficult component to put into practice. In order to create a safe learning environment, one needs to build trust among the participants and that takes time. To be honest, I do not think that one can establish this trust-based environment within the timeline that our 2-month courses provide. A solution to that would be creating such an environment throughout the whole Bachelor or Master program as their respective 3 and 2 year length would allow for that. That, however, would also require all the teaching staff at the programs to be on board. Moreover, building trust requires active involvement of teachers in arranging team-building, extra curriculum activities, that might be problematic in the context of our tight schedule and high workload, so this aspect needs to be investigated thoroughly. And lastly, it is vital to ensure inclusiveness of students by engaging them in different types of activities, so that both the students, that prefer active participation in learning, and so-called ‘silent learners’ would find the learning process comfortable and accommodating. Our discussion on the concept of ‘silent learners’ was a real eye opener for me as I realised that I unconsciously expect the students to actively engage in the learning activities as this is the mode of learning that I have endorsed myself. I hope that from now on though I will incorporate more learning activities that would suit ‘silent students’ better:)
So, what are the key ingredients for ensuring a successful collaboration amongst students in your opinion? Will be happy to read your comments!
Alastair Creelman
You mention a very important aspect to this, namely collaboration between teachers through a degree programme. Teachers responsible for each course seldom coordinate activities and each course is formed by the responsible teacher. If the whole programme could be fully coordinated so that collaboration is fostered and developed all the way then we could create something really interesting!
Anna Zemskova
Thank you, Alastair! I am going to raise this point at our next teachers’ meeting:)
Lars Harrysson
Thank you,
I am not sure we should rule out the possibility of fostering trust short term. A classic one is fulfilling promises to the group project. For individual high-achievers I guess it is important that we show at the table in time and well prepared in a workgroup. So how to make that happen? Well, that is the issue, focus on the process” as it is a step towards open for further collaboration. Just an idea! Good or bad, in my experience it works quite well.
/Lars
Anna Zemskova
Hi Lars,
Thank you for your comment!
I am not sure that I have understood your comment correctly so please correct me if I am wrong:)
Do you mean that taking responsibility for the elements in the group work paves a way for establishing trust between the students? Because I think that undertaking a task and delivering it to the highest standards says more about the personal traits of a particular student (whether this particular person is reliable when it comes to work), rather than establishes a safe trust-based environment between the students, where they can collaborate, but not just participate in the group work. I had my own experiences in mind – the fact that I or other classmates always came prepared to the classes, including group activities, did not create a trust-based learning environment, we just knew that we are highly ambitious individuals that would always make sure that we would do our work to the best of our abilities. It was only one course where I felt that we had reached the point where we were actually collaborating with each other, but it was a 7-month course that involved participation in a prestigious moot court competition.