Collaborative Learning

In class this week we are discussing collaborative learning and creating learning communities, with a specific focus to on-line learning.

When I was in high school, I hated group projects. It seemed like I always ended up doing most of the work. In hindsight, I realize that part of that was because I'm a bit of an overachiever and (especially in high school) tended to go overboard on projects. However, it often seemed like there was one person in the group who's plan was just to skim off the others and that pissed me off.

I did my undergraduate at the University of Chicago and I don't remember any group work what-so-ever. While part of that may be because I was a math major, the U of C requires nearly 2 years of core classes (i.e. general liberal arts curriculum). Many of those classes created fairly good learning communities. Classes were often discussion based, at least for the humanities, social science, and civilization (a.k.a history) requirements. Yet there was never any group work, just reading and writing papers. For some of the hum courses, we'd have an editing partner but that was the extent of it. I eventually became part of a learning community in mathematics, but that tended to take place outside the classroom. The "study groups" really did add a lot to the experience though.

As far as my doctorate is concerned, there was definitely a learning community formed in grad school. It was a good experience to be part of. There was no official group work, but we often worked collaboratively or help each other in the courses. My year studied together for our qualifying exams. We each took one semester of one of the classes and led a review session on it. I think it helped -- ours was the only year to have everyone completely pass their quals on the first try. I find it interesting how people worked together collaboratively and formed a community, yet none of the courses or teachers made it an objective for that to happen. The department encouraged group work and we all had a large office (holding cell) together, but never was any group work assigned.

Working towards my masters in education has been a very different experience. Teacher explicitly try to create learning communities. Collaborative work is often assigned. Yet at the same time, there's not really (to me) any sense of community. Part of this likely stems from on lin courses and being part-time students. I've worked with some really great groups, some groups that didn't feel like a group, and a group where one person contributed nothing (except excuses) and seem to think that was okay. All the attempts at fostering a learning community make it seem more forced and awkward to me.

Hmm... Until I wrote this, I hadn't realized just how great of a community I had when I did my ph.d....