Winning the battle for the mind of the students through collaborative learning

Some time back, I had mentioned about collaborative learning to one of my colleagues and he responded without hesitation that yes, we have tried that. We had given tablets to each student and but that didn't work. Well, here lies the problem, I feel. Giving tablets is not collaborative learning. Tablets are individual tools for learning and not for group learning.

I consider the chess game the ultimate capture of the mind. Is it possible for us to engage the students this way in Higher education? Constructivism offers specific solutions to this question and the answer is an affirmative "Yes". The critical building blocks of learning are inputs, process, feedback, challenge, anticipation, the "aha" moment of discovery and a sense of mean "winning".

I recall information given to me by one of my business friends in Singapore about Australian National University (ANU), where they implemented a truly collaborative solution with a class room having tables with six chairs around a 65" touch screen monitor and computer. The students created mindmaps, concept maps and wallowed in their creative discourse which they could see on the screen. Each of the students could express their views in real time and get immediate feedback from others, building a cohesive solution or thought based on inputs given by the faculty member.

Imagine an analysis of a balance sheet of a company analysed in such a collaborative manner. Or a full fledged case analysis. I feel case studies should be analysed in such a collaborative manner, after all. The role of the faculty member is to provide the initial inputs, direct the discussion, escalate the discussion to a higher level, throw challenges for consideration and may be play the devil's advocate.

The point is this would result in a realtime learning experience for the students. I always maintained that " Student Learning Experience" could be designed and this is a professional design exercise as creative and valuable as any other field of business or learning. The design of learning is more akin to an engineering assignment, though some would liken it to an art. However you put it, collaboration is a powerful way of tangible learning.

In a pedagogical scenario, this could take the form of creative brain storming, case analysis, problem solving, collaborative designing, discussion and debate, presentation, concept maps and mind maps,project reviews and walk throughs, academic briefings and many other activities. The power of the method lies in its visualization and real time engagement.Real time collaboration offers the new opportunities for productive teaching and learning.

Compare this with the current way of traditional teaching and learning, which I don't mean to denigrate. It does have its best parts. But it can never be accepted as truly engaging. A good teacher inevitably adopts some of these methods in his/her teaching, even without technology. But for the most part, the traditional teaching always ends up as just a one way traffic. There is no individual feedback, no challenge, no anticipation much less about winning at the end of the session. The advantages of a technology integrated collaboration is that the process could be recorded, analysed, tracked and published. Do we still want to carry on with the same old ways of teaching and learning? The students have the last word!!!