The subtitle of this new book is misleading, in an important and refreshing way. One picks up a handbook, particularly one in this format (paperback, 8 1/2 by 11) expecting practical advice-usable suggestions, if one is lucky-but not much more. This volume, by contrast, begins with a generous theoretical introduction called The Case for Collaborative Learning. It provides definitions, devotes some time (but not too much) to the contested question of whether collaborative and cooperative learning are the same or two different activities, and, most importantly, provides research results supporting collaborative learning. This is crucial. The neophyte who is considering collaborative learning approaches wants-quite rightly-to know that there is good reason to believe students will be advantaged by it. The skeptic who suspects collaborative learning as trendy or touchy-feely should be impressed by the evidences supplied here.
These range from interesting discoveries about brain physiology having to do with making connections, to Alexander Astin's findings about the all-important role of peer interaction in college learning, to findings specifically about collaborative small-group learning settings. Some of these conclusions are that students in those settings "demonstrated greater achievement than students in traditional instruction"; that "student persistence was significantly higher in small-group learning classes than in traditional classes"; and that "small-group learning leads to more favorable attitudes toward learning of the material." And the findings on student satisfaction are uniformly positive. Not only do students have more positive attitudes toward the subject matter and a greater desire to learn more; but (and every teacher ought to be interested here) they "like the instructor better and perceive the instructor as more supportive and accepting academically and personally."
The largest section of the book is called Implementing Collaborative Learning. It has five short chapters on Orienting Students; Forming Groups; Structuring the Learning Task; Facilitating Student Collaboration; and Grading and Evaluating Collaborative Learning. Perennial questions such as whether groups are chosen by the teacher or the students themselves, whether mixed-ability groups are best, what to do about a dominant, shy, or shirking student, and how to balance individual assessment and group responsibility, are all addressed here, with good suggestions.
Finally come 170 pages of CoLTS, or Collaborative Learning Techniques. They are in turn divided into
Within each section there are 5 to 7 CoLTS, and for each of those the authors provide a Description and Purpose, Preparation, Procedure, and one or two examples; there follow ideas about Online Implementation, Variations and Extensions, Observations and Advice, and some bibliographical information. The prospective user is even told what size of group works, how long it takes, and whether these are one-session, or more durable, groups.
Beyond observing that this richness of advice is like sharing an office with a vastly experienced and endlessly generous master teacher, I should like to point to two other interesting features.
One is the diversity of examples. Some disciplines seem to embody more acceptance of, and experience in, collaborative learning. Perhaps freshman composition is a good example, or teacher education. But the examples in these chapters seem as likely to be drawn from mathematics, or business, or foreign languages, or music, or radiation oncology, or computer programming, or horticulture. There is a surprising and gratifying number of them from medical education.
The other is that the authors make strenuous efforts to figure out how to extend these CoLTS to online learning. Each technique chapter includes a measure of "Online Transferability," and a later section discussing online collaborativeness. A pretty significant number of chapters begin by acknowledging that online transferability is "LOW," and the advice might be something like this: "The need for synchronous communication between pairs makes this CoLT cumbersome online. However, if modeling and receiving feedback on problem solving is absolutely essential to the course, consider asking students to teleconference."
I respect the efforts Professors Barkley, Cross, and Major have made. But isn't it possible that the possibilities for collaborative learning are simply going to remain one of the ways in which traditional college environments are superior to the online classroom? Synchronous, face-to-face, carbon-based student groups, with all their potential problems and the issues they present, simply have more potential for fruitful collaboration than s "groups" of students who share cyberspace only.
That said-with its implication that faculty most of whose teaching is online will find less to use in this book than those who teach in conventional spaces-this is a rich and rewarding resource. The arguments in favor of collaborative teaching should win over the dubious instructor who asks, "But . . . does it work?" and his counterpart who says, "I'm sure it's all very good but I have no idea how to get started," will have no excuse after reading the rest of the book.
Merritt Moseley
UNC Asheville