Written by: H.O.D. Noura Al-Bedaiwi

Ministry of Education - AL-ADAILEYA PRIMARY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

Collaborative Learning and Cooperative Learning

2016

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Developing students’ language proficiency skill is not the main aspect in the

new KNCS. The new curriculum integrates cognitive and social skills with

the language proficiency skill to construct an individual capable of providing

his/her own needs and find their own voice leading to an independent

community led by morals and sound judgements taking into consideration

the differences of communities and cultures within Kuwait and within other

countries.

As educators, our mission is to move from pedagogy to andragogy, from

instructing to facilitating and to shift from only using teaching center

approach to using learner center approach; the two approaches should be

used and designed according to competences development through the

curriculum; whether to use cooperative or collaborative learning depends

on what competence to be developed, learners’ needs and the purpose of

the task provided.

Cooperative and collaborative learning help students build confidence and

self-esteem as well as their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills.

They guide students’ interaction and help them to practice the language

they know in communicative situations. They help students to be

autonomous learners using lower and higher order thinking skills integrated

with feasible social behaviors; such learning direct learners to find suitable

strategies to cooperate and collaborate with their peers demonstrating

proper social behaviors.

Ted Panitz defines cooperative learning approach as “a structure of

interaction designed to facilitate the accomplishment of a specific end

product or goal through people working together in groups.”1 It is content

specific applied through instructional strategies to achieve the teacher’s

objective; the answers to the questions/tasks are provided by the teacher.

In other words, the teacher controls group distribution of members and

roles, sets the answers for the tasks and is the main source of information.

The teacher provides knowledge of the topic and then measures through

cooperative group work the content students learned.

Cooperative learning approach is argued to be more suitable for young

learners as it develops their social skills and language proficiency using

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specified instructions suitable for their age. Its focus is on the result of a

task not the process of performing the task; such an approach develops

lower cognitive skills. Instructional strategies, like think-pair-share and

multiple choice questions2 engage students in controlled discussions to find

a determined answer. It is usually constructed in small groups, which makes

it easier to observe and to complete the task in time.

Collaborative learning (CL) approach is “a method of teaching and learning

in which students team together to explore a significant question or create

a meaningful project.”3 Learners choose their groups, which can be of a

large scale, their roles and extend on more than one possible answer

supporting it with reasons. It emphasizes on the process of completing the

task not the result.

CL utilize higher order cognitive skills. It encourages students to investigate,

question and provide their own assumptions using different metacognitive

and cognitive skills contrasting their own opinions and ideas to their

classmates. Such an approach can be suitable for young learners once it is

designed to be age appropriate. Open ended questions, such as what do

you think of the story? Why did you like it? What is the most interesting

character? encourages young learners to express their own opinion. The

teacher can set certain pictures agreed upon to present the previous

questions for students to use while working in groups; the task can be of

oral and written nature. Young learners can speak with their groups and

draw their own character and what they found interesting colouring their

choices and writing one word or a short sentence expressing their own

opinion.

The teacher needs to remember grammar and spelling are not the main

concern in collaborative learning. It aims to support their interdependent

learning; the teacher can offer guidance to young learners but not control

the product.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are important to have learners interact

with each other. Rewards (extrinsic) or enjoying the learning process

(intrinsic) can encourage students to work together and engage in short

conversations. It is the teacher’s mission to facilitate and motivate learning

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for young learners regarding students’ needs and interests. Young learners

may not be motivated intrinsically; the satisfaction of learning does not

motivate young learners. Praise and other extrinsic motives effect young

learners and motivates them to learn. Therefore, choosing cooperative or

collaborative learning relies on what competences to be developed and

how far learners have advanced in contrast to the curriculum standards.

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Terminologies

1. KNCS: Kuwait National Curriculum and Standards

2. Cognitive: the cognitive domain of blooms’ taxonomy addresses thinking

skills starting from remembering as the lowest thinking skill to creating as

the highest thinking skill.

3. Pedagogy: addresses teacher’s needs and plans in a competitive climate

for students.

4. Andragogy: encourages self-assessment, mutual planning of a task in a

collaborative non-competitive atmosphere.

5. autonomous: independent learner where is held responsible for his/her

own learning.

6. instructional strategies: activities designed by teachers.

7. metacognitive: thinking about thinking; a learner uses thinking processes

and data to find results, then examines and evaluates his/her own thinking

processes and data again to measure the accurateness of the results.

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References

1. Collaborative Versus Cooperative Learning – A Comparison of the Two

Concepts; Ted Panitz; U.S. Department of Education - Office of Educational

Research and Improvement: Educational Resources Information Center

(ERIC); 2011.

2. Strategies for Cooperative and Collaborative Learning in Large Lecture

Groups; ACU: Australian Catholic University; SKC LTC resources 2012.

3. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/coopcollab/index_sub5.html