Brevard's Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP):
Collaborative Learning
Brevard College defines collaborative learning as pairing students in groups of two or more and intentionally inviting them to pursue inquiry jointly. Students are active participants, and they work together in pairs or in teams to solve a problem, complete a task, generate new knowledge, or create a product.
Five Elements of Collaborative Learning:
- Positive Interdependence - Individuals perceive that they depend on others and others depend on them to be successful.
- Individual Accountability - Sense of personal responsibility understood as needed to work towards group goals/outcomes.
- Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction - Support and encouragement offered to facilitate one another's efforts toward completion of goals/outcomes.
- Interpersonal and Small Group Social Skills - Skills to provide effective leadership (decision making, trust building, communication, and conflict management).
- Group Processing - Reflection on group work to analyze functionality and plan to improve work processes and social skills
Below is a brief summary of some of the benefits of collaborative learning:
- You will learn from very important life skills: working well with others.
- You will develop better depth of understanding as we collaborate together for learning.
- You will have an opportunity to refine skills essential to civil discourse and human connectivity.
- Collaborative learning gives you the opportunity to learn tools to work collaboratively in an effective and collaborative way that connects to the real world.
- Collaborative learning builds trust and familiarity among you and your peers as well as developing an awareness of social skills as an important part of career readiness
- With collaborative learning, you are held accountable for learning material and strategies in group projects with peers. They will be able to further learn from others experiences and diversity to bring different perspectives to problem solving.
