Come together!

We've mulled over and chewed well the words cooperation and collaboration (Panitz, 1999) with the objective to extract every gram of 'nutrition' from them. What do they mean exactly in this context? How do they differ from each other? Has my earlier work with students and colleagues been cooperative or collaborative? Reflecting my cooperative or collaborative activities against those presented by Alec Couros (2017) in the ONL171 webinar, I see that I've practically been a lone wolf in the educational trends wilderness. I honestly thought I was being cooperative or collaborative and encouraging students to be so too, but the extent of this group activity of mine—by mine I mean activities undertaken both by me as well as my students—was so, so limited and restricted!

Working on this topic brought back memories from my school days, perhaps around the time when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, in a small school in Goa, India. Our school principal decided that all the classes from grade 5 or so up would work full-time for a month or so on one common project to create an exhibition that would be open for a couple of days to our parents and perhaps the general public. The theme of the project was the nature and wildlife of North America. Our school syllabus, naturally, focused primarily on India, and North America was but a footnote in it. My memory of the experience of doing this project is that we had a ball of a time, the bigger kids and us smaller ones working together, spending hours in the school library devouring the pages of the encyclopedias and other books to gather information about the different landscapes, the rivers and lakes and the fish in them, and then reproducing our collective knowledge as a large cardboard and papier-mâché 'aquarium' depicting a cross-section of the different lake- and riverbeds full of different types of aquatic life among other exhibits. We all made and painted fish, plants, you-name-it using paper, coloured cellophane, wire, and textiles, and some of the bigger boys put electrical lights and added sounds to our aquarium. The exhibition we created was grand, our aquarium so colourful and informative, and we were all so proud of our work. We all learned far more about the geography, climate, and flora and fauna of North America than was described on the pages of our textbooks. And better still, we remembered a lot more of what we learned and for far longer. This, as I far as I can recollect, was my first collaborative experience, and it certainly was a successful endeavour.

Perhaps this positive experience of mine was a factor that has driven me to experiment with getting students to work in groups in different ways: a course to motivate freshmen to study the mandatory circuit analysis courses where they a built a device to connect to their home stereo system and figured out the design formulae from their basic circuit analysis knowledge, a PBL version of the mandatory circuit analysis courses for freshmen (Costa et al, 2007), an advanced course on circuit simulation... The resulting group work was usually more cooperative—with students often dividing and distributing the workload—than collaborative, but there were teams that were highly collaborative too. I am able to distinguish the difference only now, having learned about the difference over the last few weeks, but we did ensure that all students worked with all the details in all the topics and developed all the necessary skills. The students in all the courses enjoyed working together, and in the PBL courses they said they felt they learned more and better the study matter as a result of collaboration. This positive experience manifested itself as slightly better grades than their peers who didn't participate in the PBL course (Costa et al, 2007). I, too, as did my co-author colleagues, enjoyed collaborating as a team on the PBL course—so much less stress due to the shared burden and responsibilities—and we have cooperated closely on other courses.

(Photo credit: Franck Reporter, via gettyimages. Image source: http://www.gettyimages.fi/detail/photo/campfire-of-friends-in-circle-on-the-fire-royalty-free-image/505597633)

Working in groups has its advantages. One can verbalise concepts and explain ideas to others and so reinforce newly learned knowledge, thus improving knowledge retention. Group work allows for diverse viewpoints, which in turn expands the individual's own knowledge horizon, and all ensuing discussions enhance thinking. Collaborating in a group also enhances motivation due to the increased interdependence of the members. All of this can happen if allowed to. However, working in a group requires a degree of discipline and focus on the part of the individuals so as not to get distracted from the task at hand. So, working on one's own is also necessary. My colleagues at Aalto University gathered evidence to back the befits of student collaboration in a trial they carried out (Lehtovuori et al, 2013).

As educators, we are well aware of all of this. When students work in groups, they form personal learning networks (PNLs). All that applies to students applies to their teachers too; that's us. We too benefit from working in a group: getting or testing new ideas, help in the use of technology, time saved due to resources shared, or just getting peer support. Our PNL members can comprise colleagues from within the same four walls of our institution but also from any part of the Earth, as we have experienced during ONL171; technology makes this possible. The rewards of PNLs far too big to to opt out. So, come together, right now...

Don't let the distance stop you,
Hook up to our man in Roma,
Laptop or mobile will do,
Google plus Adobe Connect,
Time and place irrelevant,
Don' 'ave to be an expert it's so easy to use.
Come together, right now, benefit!

(To be sung to the tune of a certain Lennon and McCartney collaboration)


References
Couros, Alec. PNLs, learning networks, and design participatory environments. ONL171 webinar, 22 March 2017. https://play.education.lu.se/media/ONL171+webinar+March+22%2C+2017+-Couros/1_88mn7026
ONL171 Topic 3 page: https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/topic-3-learning-in-communities-networked-collaborative-learning/


Costa, L.R.J, Honkala, M. & Lehtovuori A. "Applying the problem-based learning approach to teach elementary circuit analysis," IEEE Transactions on Education, Volume: 50, Issue: 1, Feb. 2007. DOI: 10.1109/TE.2006.886455

Lehtovuori, A., Honkala, M., Kettunen, H., & Leppävirta, J. Interactive Engagement Methods in Teaching Electrical Engineering Basic Courses. 2013 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Berlin, Germany. March 2013. DOI: 10.1109/EduCon.2013.6530089

Panitz T. (1999). Collaborative versus cooperative learning—A comparison of the two concepts which will help us understand the underlying nature of interactive learning. Retrieved on 26.3.2017 from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED448443.