Collaborative learning is not a new teaching and learning approach; it has been around since the 1970s and is an evidence-based practice that has been proven to be effective time after time. Therefore, instead of reinventing the wheel or only relying on best practices or anecdotal evidence of what works and what doesn’t, especially when designing Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) environments, educators might find it useful to make use of existing collaborative learning instructional design elements. These elements have been scientifically proven to be effective and can be applied in both the physical and online international classroom.
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Pierre Dillenbourg has proved by many articles and speeches to be a hands-on expert on the subject of collaborative learning. He started in 1976 as an Elementary school teacher; he graduated in 1996 in educational and psychological sciences and became PhD in artificial intelligence. At the moment Pierre Dillenbourg is working at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, partly as a member of the board of directors. I happened to meet him for an interview at the Surf Education Days which were held on the 15th and 16th November in 2005.
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Learning teams in higher education executing a collaborative assignment are not always effective. To remedy this, there is a need to determine and understand the variables that influence team effectiveness. This study aimed at developing a conceptual framework, based on research in various contexts on team effectiveness and specifically team and task awareness. Core aspects of the framework were tested to establish its value for future experiments on influencing team effectiveness. Results confirmed the importance of shared mental models, and to some extent mutual performance monitoring for learning teams to become effective, but also of interpersonal trust as being conditional for building adequate shared mental models. Apart from the importance of team and task awareness for team effectiveness it showed that learning teams in higher education tend to be pragmatic by focusing primarily on task aspects of performance and not team aspects. Further steps have to be taken to validate this conceptual framework on team effectiveness.
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Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is often framed as an example of a broader practice known as Virtual Exchange (VE). The term Virtual Exchange has increasingly been used as an attempt to unify a fragmented field of Higher Education practice and is often used interchangeably with the term COIL. However, the design of COIL, with its strong focus on collaborative and intercultural learning, is often very different to other VE initiatives. Labelling all VE initiatives, including COIL, generally as VE, can lead to both educators and researchers having difficulty identifying and distinguishing COIL. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of VE and define COIL and its key characteristics. This article also describes how theory can inform practice and explains why continued interchangeable use of the term COIL with the umbrella term Virtual Exchange is unhelpful for future research and practice.
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There is a wealth of research on computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) that is neglected in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research. CSCW research is concerned with contextual factors, however, that may strongly influence collaborative learning processes as well, such as task characteristics, team formation, team members’ abilities and characteristics, and role assignment within a team. Building on a critical analysis of the degree to which research on CSCW translates to CSCL, this article discusses the mediating variables of teamwork processes and the dynamics of learning-teams. Based on work-team effectiveness models, it presents a framework with key variables mediating learning-team effectiveness in either face-to-face or online settings within the perspective of learning-team development.
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Collaborative learning in a culturally diverse secondary vocational education. By K. Tielman (Fontys), P. den Brok (ESoE), S. Bolhuis (Fontys) and R. van de Sande (Fontys) This contribution discusses a descriptive study on the experiences of students and teachers in secondary vocational education regarding collaborative learning (CL) in a culturally diverse context. The study bridges two domains of research: research on culturally diverse learning environments - which has mostly concerned primary and general secondary education (e.g. de Haan (2005), Hajer (1996), Radstake (2007) and studies on CL. The present study adds to the existing literature not only by integrating these two domains, but also by its specific focus on Dutch secondary vocational education and by focusing on multiple sources of evidence (both cognitions and actions; both student and teacher perspectives). The study analyzes current practices and perceptions of teachers and students with CL in a culturally diverse, competence-based learning environment. The sample consisted of 27 students (with 12 different cultural backgrounds) and two of their teachers (a mentor and a coach/tutor). Teachers and students were followed while working on a project-based series of lessons. Data collection consisted of two steps. In the first step, small groups of students and their teachers were observed and videotaped (allowing for simultaneous analysis of both verbal and non-verbal behaviors) during collaborative learning tasks. Based on these observations, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 groups of 3 students and the two teachers, focusing on topics of collaboration, communication, participation, coaching and conflicts, all of which derived from CL characteristics mentioned by Johnson & Johnson (1994). In the second step, video-stimulated (recall) interviews were conducted with both teachers. The interviews were based on a-priori defined moments selected by the teachers themselves and/or the researcher. The data was qualitatively analyzed in an interactive process between theory and data using the computer program Atlas-Ti. Codes were partially based on CL characteristics from the literature (Johnson & Johnson, 1994) and partially on focal points emerging from the observations/interviews. To establish reliability of the coding process, parts of the data were coded by a second researcher, leading to an inter-rater reliability (Cohen's kappa) of 0.87, and a percentage of agreement between both researchers of 81.5 on 54 valid fragments. The findings suggest three major themes behind the data: 1) individual accountability of the students; 2) the importance of the teacher/coach role; and 3) the aspect of (absence of) cultural consciousness. The results of the study suggest that on the one hand students are mostly focused on their individual performance and that there is poor collaboration among classmates while working on collaborative learning tasks, while on the other hand teachers seem unaware of their own role in affecting students' behavior and the influence of cultural backgrounds of students in the CL process. Despite the limitations of this study (a small number of participants, one single school and only one sector of secondary vocational education), the results of the study suggests that teachers of culturally diverse classrooms of the secondary vocational education must become more aware of their own roles as adaptive coaches and models and of the influence of multiculturality on CL. The full paper discusses the results and suggestions in detail.
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Abstract This research presents a descriptive study regarding collaborative learning in a multicultural classroom at a vocational education school in The Netherlands. The study bridges two domains of research: research on culturally diverse learning environments - which has mostly concerned primary and general secondary education - and studies on collaborative learning. It analyzes current practices and perceptions of both teachers and students applying collaborative learning in a culturally diverse, competence-based learning environment. The results suggest that in a multicultural classroom, students, on the one hand, are mostly focused on their individual performance, resulting in poor collaboration among classmates. On the other hand, teachers seem unaware of their own role in affecting students' behavior and the influence of the cultural backgrounds of students on collaborative learning processes.
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This paper describes how an urban commons is established on the Amsterdam market square Plein ’40-’45, to explain how an experimental learning environment can be a living lab for improving collaborative governance arrangements. We detail how this improvement is facilitated by an experimental learning environment that engages stakeholders in a process where practical solutions are developed and systemic obstacles are addressed and redesigned simultaneously. Our study is guided by the research question: How can an experimental learning environment develop practical solutions as a means to address systemic obstacles and improve collaborative governance arrangements?
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In this study it was hypothesized that collaborative learning in international higher education contributes to the development of intercultural competence. Two hundred and fifty-two students of an international business and management study programme of a Dutch university participated in two surveys on collaboration in a group learning activity and one survey on their development of intercultural competence. Additionally, three groups of four to six students took part in focus group interviews. The results indicated that when students perceive that the group process improves, the quality of the collaboration in terms of verbal interaction and equal contribution will also improve. Furthermore, the results revealed that a higher perceived quality of the collaboration relates to an increasing development of intercultural competence. The findings are discussed and related to implications for the use of group learning activities in international higher education. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319826226
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We investigate a computer supported approach in which pairs co-con-struct a qualitative representation of the dynamics of the industrial revolution in a shared workspace. A key feature of this approach concerns the use of a meta-vocabulary for representing cause-and-effect relationships that facilitates the use of a predefined norm-representation to automatically steer the collaborative learning process. In particular, it provides focus on the set of ingredients that the learners should use. Additionally, the workspace offers each learner pair information about progress and content-related support. An evaluation study was executed in a real classroom. A workbook provided information for constructing the representation and gave advise on how to approach this task together. How-ever, most pairs took an alternative approach and divided their actions in the shared workspace in an unbalanced way. Three types of task division occurred that showed differences in the number of errors and the number of requests for support. From this result, we formulate future directions for the development of a pedagogical approach that stimulates collaborative learning with qualitative representations and the support offered by the software.
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