As I reflect on Topic 3, I start of by asking what is a learning community? – Learning communities provide a platform/space where people can link up to discuss and brainstrom a shared goal. Learning communities connect people and enable participants to share results and learn from each other, thereby improving their ability to achieve rapid yet significant progress. Learning community has been called “a key feature of 21st century schools” (Watkins, 2005) and a “powerful educational practice” (Zhao and Kuh, 2004). Lichtenstein (2005) documented positive outcomes of student participation in learning communities such as higher retention rates, higher grade point averages, lower risk of academic withdrawal, increased cognitive skills and abilities, and improved ability to adjust to college.

Read more: https://lidtfoundations.pressbooks.com/chapter/learning-communities/

What is collaborative learning?

As stated by Laal and Ghodsi (2012), collaborative learning (CL) is an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups of learners who work together to solve a problem or complete a task. It’s important to remember that effective collaborative learning does not necessarily come easy. Making a move to a new kind of learning experience is not a quick fix and may necessitate a change of mindset for everyone involved. You should see the transition to collaborative approaches as a journey, which you and your team embark on together. As you get further into your journey, you’ll continually assess and refine approaches to ultimately gain a view of how collaboration works most effectively in your team.

Benefits of CL

CL has many benefits in that as groups work together over a period of time – they get to know each other and sometimes develop friendships that would have probably never started had they not collaborated. In the case of students, they contact each other for help on perhaps on how to answer a question or work through an assignment. Tinto (1997) mentions that CL helps to cultivate learning communities within classes and institutions. When collaborating it is critical to respect each other, their abilities and contributions. 

Collaborative learning: What can it do for your students?

‘Collaborative learning activities vary widely, but most centre on the learner’s exploration of the curriculum, not the teacher’s presentation of it”

Read more: https://resourced.prometheanworld.com/collaborative-learning-students/

Reflection of my Journey in Collaborating with my ONL 01 Team

Over the years as I collaborated with groups, I found that some individuals contribute to the success of the group, whilst others obstruct the success of the group by not providing information that is required of them to complete a task.  Therefore, it is important for the right mix of individuals to collaborate to ensure the success of the project. I am in PBL Group 01 and I must say that I am privileged to have been put into a group that has that right mix of like-minded individuals who are always willing to ensure that our project for each topic is a success. From the time we started – I see our collaboration getting stronger and we seem to perfectly understand each other even though we are spread all over the world – how awesome is this!

References

Laal, M. and Ghodsi, S.M.  2012. Benefits of collaborative learning. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences Volume 31: 486-490.

Lichtenstein, M. (2005). The importance of classroom environments in the assessment of learning community outcomes. Journal of College Student Development, 46(4): 341–356.

Tinto, V. (1997). Enhancing learning via community. Journal of Thought and Action, 6: 53-54.

Watkins, C. (2005). Classrooms as learning communities: A review of research. London Review of Education, 3: 47–64.

West, R. E. and Williams, G. (2018). I don’t think that word means what you think it means: A proposed framework for defining learning communities. Educational Technology Research and Development. Available online at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-017-9535-0 (Accessed 20 November 2019).

Zhao, C.-M., and Kuh, G. D. (2004). Adding value: Learning communities and student engagement. Research in Higher Education, 45(2): 115–138. doi:10.1023/B:RIHE.0000015692.88534.de.