Topic 3: Reflection for Collaborative Leaning
Everyone you will meet knows something you don't....
Collaborative learning is becoming a common trend nowadays in different universities internationally. Once people heard about this topic, you will expect different reactions that differ on people's perspective and nature in life. For me, I believe that in collaborative learning, we always expect learner’s participation and the factors needed to design effective collaborative learning.
When I was working for topic 3 together with other
participants of the PBL group where I belong, I have started by searching the
definition of Collaborative Learning and the one that catches my attention is
that Collaborative learning requires working together
toward a common goal from Melinda Dooly in her article entitled
"Constructing Knowledge Together". I believe that collaboration
entails the whole process of learning that means that the participants are
responsible for one another's learning as well as their own and thru that
reaching the goal implies that students have helped each other to understand
and learn. I can say that digital collaboration is better than
traditional form in terms of the accessibility and availability. I guess it is
an easy task to think of but hard to do. I can see a lot of challenges
including my personal experience in ONL151 course, honestly, at first I found
it difficult to collaborate because I feel ashamed maybe my ideas are not
appropriate or maybe the other participants will not appreciate my beliefs and
values since I came from different culture that uses different approach.
Sometimes I am hesitant to give comments on the blogs and ask questions during
tweet chat or webinars that made me like a passive member that doesn't actively
contribute to the group.
Hence, we can say that the greatest
challenge in designing collaborative learning is to ensure learner’s
participation in online collaboration. As stated in one of the articles given
in the course entitled "Creating Effective Collaborative Learning Groups
in an Online Environment" by Brindley, Walti and Blaschke L., Online learners who seek flexibility
in their study situations can view participation in group learning as an
impediment to their progress and often hesitate at or at best tolerate
collaborative learning situations imposed by course design. Well we can say
that a good course design will encourage learners to collaborative
effectively and efficiently. However, creating it is not just simple since you
have to consider also the quality. As I read the suggested article in the
ONL151 website entitled "Learner Generated Content: Quality Criteria in
online Collaborative Learning, I just realized that quality criteria in
an Online collaborative learning is also important since the participants are
dealing with vast amount of resources available online but it is hard to
validate its integrity. How can we make sure that they are following the
quality criteria in online learning? Or is there a standard to be followed?
It is a good thing that ONL151 is
properly designed for collaborative learning and the facilitators are also
encouraging that helps me gained my confidence to connect with other people. In
view of this, I was able to learn more and truly understand the goal of the course.
I guess I was able to grasp knowledge more especially when there is interaction
involved and working together with new tools that was introduced in the ONL151
course such as Prezi, Padlet, Coggle etc. I realized that each member of the
group has something unique that he or she can contribute and your ideas are
shaped and strengthened as you hear other sides of the scenario and other
angles of the problem. It may be because we have different experiences in life
and come from different a background which gives us all certain knowledge that
not all people possess. In fact, if one person can get something ready and the
other has something else, it really saves time in achieving the goals.
Collaborative learning therefore,
aids the development of critical thinking thru discussions, clarification and
evaluation of ideas.
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