CHAPTER EIGHT PROMOTING COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
Throughout this book, we have been discussing the importance of collaboration in facilitating the development of a learning community and in achieving the desired learning outcomes for the course. The collaborative effort among the learners helps them achieve a deeper level of knowledge generation while moving from independence to interdependence. In their article, "Making Distance Learning Collaborative," Ellen Christiansen and Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld (1995) postulate that the development of collaborative skills requires a means of study and an environment for study that "(a) lets a group of students formulate a shared goal for their learning process, (b) allows the students to use persona motivating problems/interests/experiences as springboards, (c) takes dialogue as the fundamental way of inquiry" (p. 1). In this chapter, we further explore the concept or collaboration by suggesting ways to promote it. The skills necessary to promote collaboration are not necessarily imparted to us during our academic preparation, which takes place for the most part in classrooms promoting independent work. The skills of interdependence must be developed and taught through a process of active learning. Let us now explore the applications of these elements to the distance learning arena. Formulating a Shared Goal for Learning An important element of community, whether it is face to face or in the electronic realm, is the development of shared goals. Clearly, in the electronic classroom, those goals should relate to the learning process. An instructor can use a number of techniques to move students in the direction of embracing a shared goal, beginning with the negotiation of guidelines early in the course and continuing through an end-of-course evaluation of how well those goals were met. The following is a discussion of techniques that can be used, along with specific examples. Negotiating Guidelines We have discussed the importance of engaging the group in discussion of the guidelines posted by the instructor at the beginning of the course. But what form does that negotiation take? What does it look like? The following is an example of what we have been describing as the negotiation of guidelines. This online discussion took place in a graduate-leve1 course in management and organizational behavior. lt related to the discussion folders that had been created for the course and whether to separate our reflections on electronic learning into a separate discussion. One of the authors began the discussion by stating: Maybe what would be a good adjunct to our learning would be to create a separate discussion item to process the learning experience as it happens-not the discussion of the books, but how we're experiencing this electronic component of the course. Is anyone game for this? If so, I'll gladly create the item. But I'll wait to see if people think this is worthwhile.