Our task for Module 5 was to analyze collaborativism. We were allowed to develop our own ideas and questions. Our goal was to be both argumentative and informed. Additionally, we were directed to create a strong thesis and elaborate on the text.
We were given the following questions to use as a guide:
- What do you think the weaknesses of collaborativist theory are?
- What are the strengths?
- Do you think that the strengths balance those weaknesses?
- How does collaborativist learning theory change the nature of knowledge, the role of theory to practice, the role of the teacher, and the learning of the student?
- What is useful about those changes and what can be problematic?
- How does collaborativism affect social change?
- How does collaborativism promote interaction between diverse points of view and communities?
We were allowed to develop our own ideas and questions. Our goal was to be both argumentative and informed. We needed to create a strong thesis and elaborate on the text.
3-4 double-spaced pages, excluding title page, abstract, and references.
Interrogating Collaborativism
Frank Jamison
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
EP600 The Psychology of Learning
Dr. Jessica Evans
February 12, 2023
Abstract
This paper starts by reviewing the Collaborativist Theory, the strengths and weaknesses found therein, and a discussion of whether said strengths balance out the weaknesses. Discussion then begins on the changes wrought on online learning by Collaborativism and the roles of teacher and student in the pedagogy of Online Learning Theory. The final section outlines the social changes to the online classroom through the discourse of diverse ideas found in Collaborativism.
Keywords: collaborativism, collaborativist theory. online collaborative learning
Interrogating Collaborativism
Collaborativism is a learning theory developed by Dr. Linda Harasim to frame pedagogical developments, clarify the roles of the teacher and the learner, and identify evaluation rubrics and methods that would support research into online teaching and learning (Harasim, 2017). It is defined by a series of processes advancing thinking from divergent to convergent.
In a comparative analysis of the strengths and limitations of Collaborativism, the strengths far outweigh the limitations. These limitations of scalability and poor accommodation to epistemological positions of faculty and instructors in science, computer science, and engineering are mostly overcome through the average class size of university sections and in combination with a problem- or inquiry-based approach for STEM courses.
The shift of the role of discussion forums from secondary afterthoughts to primary requirements in which students create most of the course content was a major paradigm shift in online education. The role of teachers, having gone from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” has now been relegated to “rep on the step,” in which they step back and fill the role of representative and gateway to the knowledge community.
Online collaborative learning represents a profound shift in the social structure of the online classroom. Where once students contributed to group projects cooperatively by contributing their independent pieces to the puzzle, online collaborative learning requires them to work together through individual brainstorming, disagreements, or debates, exhibiting intellectual divergence that eventually leads to considering new ideas and exploring the merits of different perspectives.
Collaborativist Theory, Its Weaknesses, and Its Strengths
In her book Learning Theories and Online Technologies, Harasim (2017) posits that Collaborative Learning Theory provides a learning model where students work together to create knowledge and further describes learning as Intellectual Convergence. Key to the creation, sharing, dissemination, application, and critique of knowledge is the role played by discourse, the written or spoken discussion and conversation, in Collaborativism.
Harasim (2017) describes collaborativist learning as a process that advances thinking through three stages, from divergent to convergent. These stages are Idea Generating, brainstorming to collect divergent thinking within a group; Idea Organizing, the comparison, analysis, and categorization of the ideas previously generated through discussion and argument; and Intellectual Convergence, in which a level of intellectual synthesis, understanding, and consensus (including agreeing to disagree) is reached, usually through some knowledge product or solution, such as an essay or assignment.
In his book Teaching in a Digital Age, Bates (2019) points to two limitations of the Collaborative Learning Theory. The first limitation is that of scalability. Collaborativism requires highly knowledgeable and skilled instructors that can serve only a limited number of students. Harasim (2017) points out that Virtual-U, one of the first online environments using a pedagogical framework, found that the ideal number of participants was twenty since any more than that diminished the quality and ease of discussion in any class.
The second limitation Bates (2019) found with the Collaborative Learning Theory is that it is more likely to accommodate the epistemological positions of faculty and instructors in humanities, social sciences, education, and some areas of business studies and health than it is to those in science, computer science, and engineering. This may be due to STEM subjects tending toward conclusions that fall into the range of right and wrong rather than ideas that are open to discussion and argument.
In addition to the above limitations, Bates (2019) describes two of the main strengths of the collaborative model. The first being the ability of Collaborativism to lead to deep transformative learning that meets or exceeds that which can be found in campus-based classrooms. The second is the ability of Collaborativism to directly lead to the development of high-level intellectual skills, such as critical and analytical thinking, synthesis, and evaluation. Some other attributes of Collaborativist environments, particularly discussion forums, are place independence, time independence, many-to-many discourse (as well as one-to-one and one-to-many communication), text-based discourse with multimedia, and internet-mediated discourse.
Given the herein-specified accounting of the strengths and limitations of Online Collaborative Learning, the strengths far outweigh the limitations. The scalability issue is rendered virtually mute, given that the average university class size is 24.9 students (Public University Honors, 2019). This figure drops to 17.54 students per class if we consider honors-only sections. And if Online Collaborative Learning is “combined with a problem-based or inquiry-based approach, it might have acceptance even in some of the STEM subject domains” (Bates, 2019).
Changes Wrought by the Collaborative Learning Theory
According to Harasim (2017), many online courses today employ discussion forums as a supplement to the curriculum. In these cases, the forum is often considered a chore by faculty and students and found to be boring and irrelevant. In Collaborativism, however, discussion forums and other collaborative activities are considered central to the course, and student discussions are considered and graded as core content. Readings, videos, or textbooks are chosen to support student discussions and to lead students toward an intellectual convergence.
In Online Collaborative Learning, the teacher plays the role of neither “guide on the side” nor “sage on the stage,” but the key and essential role of “representative and gateway to the knowledge community within a particular discipline” (Harasim, 2017). A “rep on the step,” if you will. The role of the student is to progress through the three stages of collaborative discourse to learn the analytical language of their field and apply that language to solving knowledge problems through analysis and collaboration.
How Collaborativism Affects Social Change and Promotes Interaction Between Diverse Points of View and Communities
The introduction of Collaborativism is upending the social structure of the online classroom. Online Collaborative Learning requires group members within a knowledge community to discuss and work together throughout the process to achieve an outcome or reach a convergent conclusion. As previously found in cooperative learning, each group member no longer contributes an independent piece to the puzzle. Through individual brainstorming, disagreements, or debates, a group exhibits intellectual divergence that eventually leads to considering new ideas and exploring the merits of different perspectives.
Discussion, debate, and acquiring new sources of information and analytical concepts lead to a more considered analysis of various perspectives. Common ideas are linked, and weaker ones are filtered out as the group gains a deeper understanding of content areas and the process of knowledge building.
References
Bates, A. (2019). Chapter 4: Methods of teaching with an online focus. In Teaching in a digital age(2nd ed.). BCcampus. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/
Estimated class sizes: More than 90 national universities. (2019, September 15). Public University Honors. https://publicuniversityhonors.com/2015/10/20/estimated-class-sizes-more-than-90-national-universities/
Harasim, L. (2017). Chapter 7: Collaborativist (aka online collaborative learning) theory. In Learning theory and online technologies (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Assignment Grade: 39/40
