EDFD459 Article 5: Group, collaborative and cooperative learning spaces

Group, collaborative and cooperative learning spaces

Remote learning has meant that teachers have had to become very tech-savvy, creative and innovative with learning. With these advancements in teaching and learning, teachers have had to adapt the ways that teachers and students work together, how students work with other students and how teachers work with other teachers. Within these group collaborations, there have been changes in the processes as well as collaborative mediums that group work is traditionally facilitated with. Due to these changes many schools have facilitated group work using different applications such a Zoom and Google docs/slides.

Baloche and Brody wrote that group work can enhance the learning for students who complete work in collaboration (2017). To further this, they argued that “social interdependence” uses cooperative procedures that are both equitable and productive, along with appropriate teaching scaffolding (Baloche and Brody, 2017, p. 277).

Teachers can apply different group learning methods both in a physical and virtual classroom:

1. Jigsaw: dividing students into groups and then further into sub-groups (Slavin, 2020).

Figure 1: Forming jigsaw groups (Sanchez-Muñoz et al., 2020).

2. Heterogenous groups: “mixed” ability grouping (Slavin, 2020).

3. Homogenous groups: “like” ability grouping (Slavin, 2020).

Figure 2: Forming Homogeneous and Heterogeneous groups (Sanjay, 2014).

Furthermore, it is important to differentiate the different types of group learning spaces –collaborative, cooperative and group work. This is a visual diagram that I created to show the comparison and contrast of collaborative, cooperative and group spaces:

Figure 3: Comparing and Contrasting Cooperative, Collaborative and Group space

Video that further explores collaborative learning:

Figure 4: Education: Collaboration (OnSide Learning, 2014).

References:

Baloche, L., & Brody, C. M. (2017). Cooperative learning: exploring challenges, crafting innovations. Journal of Education for Teaching : JET, 43(3), 274–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2017.1319513

OnSide Learning. (2014, Feb, 7). Education: Collaboration [Video file]. https://youtu.be/Po40I4c94R0

Sanchez-Muñoz, R., Carrió, M., Rodríguez, G., Pérez, N., & Moyano, E. (2020). A hybrid strategy to develop real-life competences combining flipped classroom, jigsaw method and project-based learning. Journal of Biological Education, 12(25). 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2020.1858928

Sanjay, M. (2014). Forming Groups Homogeneous vs. Heterogeneous. https:// www.slideserve.com/manasa/forming-groups-homogeneous-vs-heterogeneous

Slavin, Robert E. (2010). Co-operative learning: what makes group-work work? In H. Dumont, D. Istance and F. Benavides (eds.), The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice (pp.161-178). OECD Publishing.