Group Work: Cooperative vs Collaborative

Coop­er­a­tive and Col­lab­o­ra­tive Learn­ing: These two terms are often used inter­change­ably, but it’s use­ful to main­tain some dis­tinc­tion. Each approach lever­ages the social dimen­sion of learn­ing in a slight­ly dif­fer­ent way.

Cooperative Learning 

Coop­er­a­tive learn­ing focus­es on ask­ing stu­dents to inter­act in high­ly struc­tured ways to process ideas and infor­ma­tion, or prac­tice skills. “Think-Pair-Share” is a clas­sic exam­ple of a coop­er­a­tive learn­ing tech­nique in that it asks stu­dents to coop­er­ate tem­porar­i­ly for a spe­cif­ic learn­ing pur­pose. In coop­er­a­tive learn­ing the inter­ac­tion with peers does not nor­mal­ly fac­tor into the eval­u­a­tion of the student’s indi­vid­ual per­for­mance. The lim­it­ed scope of coop­er­a­tive work in the class­room means that it can be incor­po­rat­ed fair­ly eas­i­ly into just about any course for­mat or con­tent.

Some Com­mon Exam­ples of Coop­er­a­tive Learn­ing include:

• Think/Pair/Share
• Coop­er­a­tive note-tak­ing
• Struc­tured con­tro­ver­sies
• Debates
• Jig­saws

Collaborative Learning

Col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing, on the oth­er hand, asks stu­dents to work col­lec­tive­ly to pro­duce some­thing for which group mem­bers share respon­si­bil­i­ty. For plan­ning pur­pos­es, there­fore, col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing is more con­se­quen­tial for deci­sions made at the lev­el of cur­ricu­lum, course design, and eval­u­a­tion of learn­ing. Of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance, the col­lab­o­ra­tive approach needs to give stu­dents some flex­i­bil­i­ty and free­dom of action, so that groups are able to accom­mo­date the par­tic­u­lar needs of group mem­bers as they learn to work as a unit.

Impor­tant to keep in mind are the logis­ti­cal and time bur­dens put on stu­dents by col­lab­o­ra­tive projects that are designed to take place out­side of class. Coor­di­nat­ing busy sched­ules and track­ing down stu­dent peers takes enor­mous ener­gy that is not direct­ly rel­e­vant to the learn­ing goals of a project. Ensure that stu­dents are giv­en some time in class to orga­nize them­selves and to touch base at key moments in the course of prepar­ing out-of-class projects.