A History lesson with Europeana by EUN Partnership aisbl

José María, Spain

2018-05-22 16:23:57 UTC

It can happen - and in some places it happens - that the complexity of the classic curriculum prevails at all times in our classrooms and demands an almost total level of compliance. On the other hand, the beginnings of CL require a great deal of imagination and teacher planning, in addition to progressing at a slower pace that conflicts with the demands of the Administration.

Ercan Birbiri Adana/ Türkiye

ercanbirbiri — 2018-05-22 16:41:10 UTC

Collaborative learning is an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem. This can be very useful. Students work together and search for new things.

Stamatia Stamati, Greece

stamatiast — 2018-05-22 17:45:26 UTC

CL= work together and solution of a problem with joint decisions-actions.
But the curriculum sometimes prevents the collaborative learning.

Artur, Portugal

2018-05-22 17:52:08 UTC

essentially, time. the learning outcomes are more solid with this method, and also more fun, but time management of the curriculum will create difficulties. too much to teach, too little time...?

Elena Pezzi, Italy

elenapezzi — 2018-05-22 17:55:19 UTC

In my opinion there are basically two main difficulties: time and "mindset".
As for the first problem, you just have to consider that the benefits of CL are numerous and they last over time ... so that the time "lost" in doing the work recovers in terms of increasing competences.
The second problem is related with the fram of mind of other colleagues or even pupils....If we succeed in convincing them that CL is a way of working that brings evident benefits both at the level of learning and of relational competences, we will have solved the problem!

Maria Rita, Italy

mariarita_pepe — 2018-05-22 18:02:50 UTC

I think that collaborative learning can be successful if the teacher is patient and manages to prepare the students to work in a way which is not always so easy as it may seem. Real collaboration is difficult to achieve. Two main problems are increasing confusion and noise in the class and time management. Both can be dealt with gradually; as soon as the students learn to work effectively together, they should no longer be an issue.

Ana-Maria Ene, Romania

dinka_ana — 2018-05-22 19:27:11 UTC

CL is an important and useful tool. I have used it in different occasions. I didns find any difficulty using it.

Manuel Gutiérrez, Spain.

2018-05-22 19:27:34 UTC

The main problem I find is in the ease of access to information, you can not get the value, stop analyzing in depth and limit yourself to making copies or bad transcriptions of the originals. However, the process well understood seems to me to have many advantages.

Maja Hadzic, Serbia

2018-05-22 20:49:55 UTC

The main difficulty in my school would be mixed-ability students, meaning that the content would have to be adapted to some extent.

Immacolata Italy

immacolatapepe — 2018-05-22 21:22:58 UTC

I am a teacher of primary school and in my opinion CL means working and solving a problem together with joint actions. I will work in collaboration is not always easy because field management and time to use for the project come into play.
Gradually you could get to do a job like this by preparing both colleagues and pupils to work in this way.

Sonsoles López

mlopezgonzalez23 — 2018-05-22 21:28:01 UTC

SPAIN
I always observe the same phenomenon when I use CL. Frequently, we can find someone who let the rest work and hides behind. The solution involves motivating these people to perform. Perhaps , a CL but differentiated purposes, aims...based in real student interests.

Daniela Bunea, Romania

arghir_daniela — 2018-05-23 04:21:12 UTC

The students' different learning styles could be considered a barrier, which can, for a dedicated teacher, become a challenge and be turned into an advantage.

Vincenzo M. Italy

2018-05-23 08:14:42 UTC

The real difficulty of my school is the students because in my school there are various study addresses and various different skills.

Giovanna, Italy

2018-05-23 08:32:00 UTC

Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom can only be of great help, I do not think of difficulties because I consider it useful and with the improvement of the support structures too the teaching will be modified in the best way.

Bosiljko, Croatia

2018-05-23 09:40:17 UTC

Maybe you need more time to prepare yourself for CL, but-this is not a big issue..also, students need some time to adapt to CL, because in my country this type of teaching is not so often.

Isabel, Spain

2018-05-23 10:49:19 UTC

As every approach, resource, methodology... has advantages and disadvantages, weak points or problems to be solved. Well, one of the points is related to the work in groups. It is supposed that we have to share different tasks among the members of the group. The point is that is quite difficult to engage those students without motivation, although the given task is very simple. How to solve it? Maybe looking for a commitment with the student and signing an agreement. Another point is about time. We have to comply the school curriculum and this kind of projects takes a lot of time. Perhaps, Education institutions should be more flexible with it.

emma giurlani Italy

progettocanyouhelpme — 2018-05-23 10:49:33 UTC

in all these years in which I have been working with eTwinning projects experiencing real CL and PBL combined together I found only benefits and even when students have been confronted with difficulties arising from different points o view or from technical issues they have been overcome collaboratively.The students reacted by spontaneously looking for a plan B or by adapting and mediating the solutions to the ideas of everyone, developing a constructive and resilient attitude

Jasna Šojer/Croatia

jasna_sojer — 2018-05-23 11:29:03 UTC

Using PBL and CL in projects was always fun and beneficial for students. Never have any difficulties. Sometimes it take a bit long when they work in international groups using google drive but at the end all went ok.

Anna, Italy

2018-05-23 13:22:23 UTC

CL is great and useful in teaching, the only difficulties are the noises and the confusion because students usually speak up.

Anita, Croatia

anita_simac — 2018-05-23 13:41:32 UTC

CL can be a challenge when dealing with big groups or children that are not used to working in groups. This is why the role of a teacher moderator is important. The benefits of this type of lesson are many-fold. Teamwork, cooperation, problem solving are just a few of the skills the children learn. CL requires organisation, patience and time for preparation.

Alessandra Amideo

2018-05-23 14:23:40 UTC

ITALIA

The benefits of collaborative learning are many and I think they overcome the difficulties that may arise during the use of this method. Surely the EUROPEANA collections are very valuable and stimulating for this type of approach. There could be problems in terms of class schedule. This type of activity needs a longer period of time to be able to be completed. Almost never in a classroom you have more than two hours available.

Elisabetta, Italy

2018-05-23 16:51:53 UTC

I'm sure that CL can be very useful for learning. Sometimes, the students aren't able to respect the others during the lessons and the role of the teacher as moderator is fundamental

a teixeira

2018-05-23 16:52:52 UTC

Collaborative Learning is a good working methodology, but when the classes have a high number of students (28-30) it can cause problems

Palma from Spain

palmagarciahn — 2018-05-23 17:07:24 UTC

When you work Cl you get the students to become more involved in the knowledge and everyone wants to participate. The students change their role thanks to the moderation of the teacher

Grace,Sicily.

grace_garofalo — 2018-05-23 17:16:15 UTC

module 4.5
CL is very useful in class.Class is divided in groups and all groups have to solve a problem.
Sometimes groups are difficult to manage but in my opinion it's important using CL for its main benefit that is the respect for different and divergent opinions.In fact respect and collaboration are the basis of citizenship.Students get used to work together in solving problems.The group is a society in miniature with its rules and tollerance one for another.Everybody is responsable for his/her work and learning as well as the others'

Giuseppina De Giovanni, Italy

2018-05-23 17:22:51 UTC

With Collaborative Learning students work in team on teacher's assignments, and at the same time they develop their social skills. They are involved more actively in the learning process rather than being passive students, and interacting with their peers they find new ways of handling problems.

grace,sicily

2018-05-23 17:36:04 UTC

collaborative learning.

Alina

2018-05-23 17:51:34 UTC

It is great to cooperate but it is important to have the technology

Elena Prieto, Valladolid (Spain)

2018-05-23 18:31:29 UTC

Work together is believed to be the best solution to encourage our students and benefit of collaborative learning as a group. Furthermore, schools should improve ICT tools hi-tech equipment to enhance a proper use of the internet. Therefore, Europeana could help us our project implementation and the student’s creativity. In this sense, teacher support is essential to guide and help our students.

It turns out to be clear that the age of our students and the topic of the project would take into consideration in order to get better results.

Luís Pereira - Lisbon, Portugal

luis_pereira — 2018-05-23 18:43:24 UTC

Collaborative Learning is a very good methodology but it is very important that it became well conducted. That is, the preparation of a Collaborative Learning has to be very well planned or could become a genuine disaster.

To resolve this issue, it is important that the teacher do his / her homework. In other words, plan the activities and groups of students should be well thought. We are working with people, aren´t we?

Emilia, Poland

2018-05-23 19:52:43 UTC

What is the most important, the subject of the lesson must meet with the students abilities and interests. It can't be too difficult, because it can be discouraging, especially for young pupils.

Franck Maas, France

2018-05-23 20:22:18 UTC

How will you ensure that students are productive if they don't know their peers ? I think it's important to spend time in order to allow good links between students at the beginning of the school year. Time is a keyword in this method. It's necessary to schedule class time for group work (and not outside).

Okan, Turkey

2018-05-23 20:46:28 UTC

When we think about the definition point of "the collaborative learning", which is one of the learning processes used within the constructivist training approach, is an approach that prepares the environment for the heterogeneously created participants to work in small groups. The basic problem here can be the creation of the groups which are supposed to interact each one of the members during learning process

nazım kırdaş

2018-05-23 20:52:47 UTC

the problem is that everybody can contribute to the work at the same level. for this reason students should always be observed.

Michela, Italy

2018-05-23 21:34:37 UTC

A possible Collaborative Learning method's negative aspect is that a concept may not be understood as well if a person doesn't have to figure it out for himself.

At times students miss things that they would have learnt by doing the project on their own.

Sometimes peer groups get lazy and just give group members answers to a certain problem without explaining how they arrived at their conclusions. In this way, no real knowledge has been gained.

Angelamaria Galderisi, Italy

soleemare_a — 2018-05-23 22:36:54 UTC

I think that one of the possible problems with Cooperative learning is that some students could work harder than others. To avoid this problem, the teacher should divide all the tasks distributing them to all the students involved in a cyclical way, so that everybody’s work is linked to the other’s.

Lucia Italy

2018-05-24 05:55:02 UTC

Working collaboratively is highly qualifying for pupils .Of course, problems may arise, but I think the figure of the teacherAlways present during the activity can guarantee a good functioning of the project
The boys must be left free but always observed

Roxanthi Nikou, Greece

Roxie — 2018-05-24 09:39:38 UTC

CBL is very useful in academic, but also skills learning, reflecting the profile of the citizens we want for the present and for the future. However, there are some obstacles, especially at the beginning of its use, as students have to acquire so many roles during it. Usually they are face problems in argumentation during CBL. Whatsoever, the method should be seen as a fruitful challenge for students and teachers!

Gaetano, Italy

2018-05-24 10:24:48 UTC

The first difficulty is about the motivation of students: so, our first engagement is to find the right way to show them good reason to learn.

Indalecio, España, Gijón

2018-05-24 11:26:13 UTC

Collaborative work, applied to education, is a teaching method where the teacher actively involves the students in the learning process and has a very important role because it is the person who must implement, guide and coordinate the work in class.
In passing, thanks to collaborative work or learning, a sense of mutual respect among students can be fostered, because each and every one of them has something to say.

Violeta Cumak, Lithuania

violeta_cumak — 2018-05-24 11:45:22 UTC

There is a lot of benefit from collaborative learning, because when students work together, the learning process becomes more interesting and fun. CL involves students in an active learning process, encourages critical thinking and helps in motivating. CL develops social skills, builds more positive relationships among peers or between boys and girls. Students are often faced with difficulties outside the classroom, so CL will get to know each other better and likely expands their activities outside the classroom.
On the other hand, the teacher has to work hard to develop CL material, then wisely to divide the tasks that all members of the team would be actively involved. Probably it can't be described as a problem, just an extra task to the teacher.

Suzana, Croatia

suzanabatinic99 — 2018-05-24 12:27:27 UTC

Students like CL, but... Our curriculum is extensive and massive, so we do not have so much time as we needed. Students can not always access the internet and their research are limited.

Latife Çeri,Turkey

latife_ceri — 2018-05-24 12:52:47 UTC

Yes,there may occur some difficulties because some students are better others are worse but if we combine two diffirent group together,It will be better,but also it must be tiring for teachers.
In my LD,I wanted some help from our history teacher before starting activity.Collaboration with teachers are also effective.

Elena, Spain

2018-05-24 14:41:11 UTC

Students are more engaged if they like the subject they are working on. In the other hand, it's is difficult when we have any disruptive student which is not collaborating and making the process more difficult.

Nektarios Farassopoulos, Greece

nektariosf — 2018-05-24 14:56:42 UTC

Collaborative Learning has benefits teaching in multiple ways. The only difficulty I can spot is the "noise" in the classroom while working in groups. This is a very often phenomenon, especially with younger students. Usually, I try to establish with my students a bunch of group rules in order to communicate without making unnecessary noise.

Christos, Cyprus

p_christos — 2018-05-24 15:29:20 UTC

In CL learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product. Working together is not easy :) Requires mutual respect that students dont have in that age. SO teachers MUST ASSIGN RESPONSIBILITIES and continuously monitor the working process

Angela Quirós, Bruselas.

aquiroscolubi — 2018-05-24 16:17:37 UTC

I don´t find any problem working in groups, it is the opposite, they are a lot of advantages. First, we have to make a rubric, as this the students know they have to work, how they have to work and how they will have evaluated.
In my experience it is better to leave the students choose his group, and it is not important the number of people in each group. I fix a maximum and a minimum of student by a group. . Sometimes we expend a lot of time making the groups, and my experience is that the students work better choosing by himself.
I am a big fan of working in groups.. I love seeing my students together speaking, working, discussing, trying to reach a goal together.
And the noise for me it is as the noise that the bees working!

Cinzia, Italy

2018-05-24 16:36:06 UTC

In my opinion disadvantages of Problem-Based Learning are:

1)Problem-based learning exercises can engage many of your students, but others may feel disengaged as a result of not being ready to handle this type of exercise for a number of reasons.

2)If you choose to give marks, assessing a student’s performance throughout a problem-based learning exercise demands constant monitoring and note-taking.
Monitoring these tasks is required for each student, making it time-consuming to give and justify a mark for everyone.

Maria Antónia Brandão, PT

dolores_brandao — 2018-05-24 17:08:02 UTC

As in all the methods i think of some difficulties that might arise while using Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. Not all the students like to work in group, sometimes we have to develop colaborative skills before use CL. It can also take more time to make the approach to some subjects, beside that in classe we can have more noise because students must talk to each others . If we accept that its an excelent methodology.

Bellow an example of a task that allows to develop Collaborative work marshmallow challenge

Adelina, Poland

a_sagittarius — 2018-05-24 17:22:14 UTC

Using Collaborative Learning (CL) is involving and amaizing for students but it isn't the only one method that is used during the lessons. We have to focus on developing many different skills so we don't have enough time to work with this method so often. What's more we have to realize the curriculum but the rsults of using CL are fantastic.

Esada Čirić-Delić, Bosnia and Herzegovina

esada_ciric — 2018-05-24 19:10:33 UTC

CL is great but in order to have a successful outcome teachers first have to develop CL mind-set. Working in groups is difficult so the group management is crucial as well as clear ideas, responsibilities and outcomes. This requires teacher delicate monitoring of group activities.

Lindita Lohja

lindita_lohja — 2018-05-24 20:04:16 UTC

It is a productive form when we set groups of students to work together and I belive that is more easy becaus the work is divided and not hard.

Erika, Italy

szazie — 2018-05-24 20:30:25 UTC

Working with small groups of children, I often use this method. Considering the disadvantages, I noted that, usually, in every group, there is someone (a few students?) who is (are?) more active than others (less involved in the proposed activities).
To avoid this problem, before creating the groups, I tend to assign specific roles to every member of the group: every member has a specific task to carry out.
I am also aware of the fact that in every group there is always someone who tends to be the leader and to be the person who establishes the standards of the proposed works, judging their acceptability.
In general, these students are the students who have the best results in the classroom, who are the most responsible and meticulous. Even though these features are generally regarded as very important qualities, in a small group of students, they can become elements that limit the others’ actions, expression and creativity or, even, elements that generate unrest and conflicts .
In my opinion, the teacher is the only person who can mediate between different needs, between the value of the efficiency and the value of all the students’ free expression, which might imply imperfection, mistakes.
Another problem concerns the assessment of a group work. It seems difficult and partial.
Having created the groups, the teacher should present to his/ her students which criteria (at least three criteria) he/she intends to use in order to assess the final product.
The teacher should consider/ evaluate the tasks carried out (individually) by every component of the group (different tasks, different roles) and then consider/evaluate the whole work, seen as an outcome of the collaboration between different students. The final mark shoud take both aspects into account.

Jorge Carvalho, Portugal

jorgoak — 2018-05-24 21:26:28 UTC

I think Collaborative Learning is a dynamic and very interesting way of designing and organizing the learning process. It allows a greater involvement of the students in the learning, being an important factor of motivation. From some experiences that I have promoted, I realize that most of the students show a sense of responsibility and gain greater autonomy from these experiences. Collaborative Learning also allows gains in terms of academic results. Nowadays we have at our disposal different digital tools that facilitate the collaborative work and its evaluation. One of the problems of this form of learning has to do precisely with the performance assessment of some students who show less involvement, therefore it is indispensable to follow all moments of the process and develop peer review

While one of the 60 teachers of the User Group of the Europeana DSI-3 project I had the opportunity to experience this Learning Scenario "Napoleon as seen by the opponents".

The scenario was implemented with a group of 16 students (aged 16/17 – 11th grade) who, in the History class, had recently studied the topic about the French Revolution and the Napoleonic invasions on Portugal. In this way, the students had a general framework of the subject that allowed them to analyse the satirical cartoons on Napoleon Bonaparte.

I implemented the scenario during a 90 minutes lesson and the class was, as predicted, divided in 4 groups, analysing, each one, a cartoon.

It was a very positive and stimulating experience. Students showed interest and enthusiasm in the accomplishment of the proposed tasks and made a positive evaluation of the experience.

In my opinion, I would emphasize 4 positive aspects:

- Students value the use of digital tools in the learning process;

- The use of primary historical sources (particularly images) represents an important stimulus for students.

- Students emphasized the quality and size of the images that allowed detailed analysis, which is not possible, for example, in school textbooks.

- The collaborative nature of the experience is very positive;

and some difficulties:

- The fact that the cartoons are in English has caused some difficulties for the students;

- The students revealed some difficulty in interpreting some particular aspects of the cartoons, especially those of greater detail:

- The students revealed some difficulties searching in Europeana;

In summary, it was a very positive experience, a very meaningful learning experience for students (and for me too). It was an excellent opportunity to check the potential of Europeana Collections and I would definitely recommend this learning scenario to other teachers.

Congratulations to Jean-Christophe for the design of this learning scenario, an excellent example of using the Europeana collections.

Daniela, Italy

daniela_camurri — 2018-05-24 22:21:02 UTC

The problem I have with this kind of activity is that some students don't work and all the job is done by few ones more involved. It's difficult for the teacher to manage more than 2 groups at the same time

Snjezana Kovacevic,Croatia

knjiznica_zlata — 2018-05-25 06:17:39 UTC

I think that the problem is that pupils sometimes don't work equally during CL. In group, some of them try harder than others...But, I gude them and actively help them if they need help so they can all participate doing tasks.

Grosu Monica, Romania

corneliaradutodor — 2018-05-25 07:22:29 UTC

Collaborative learning is a method of teaching and learning in which students team together to explore a significant question or create a meaningful project. A group of students discussing a lecture or students from different schools working together over the Internet on a shared assignment are both examples of collaborative learning.

Theoni Dimopoulou , Greece

tetedimo — 2018-05-25 08:09:22 UTC

Although Collaborative Learning is a great tool to use in the classroom, problems do arise. One of the most common ones, from my experience, is that not all pupils are interested in working towards a common goal. There are those who are passionate with everything and who tend to dominate a group, those who just follow someone's lead and of course those who would do almost nothing at all. A solution would be to assign each person a specific role in the group and to monitor each person's contribution to the final outcome.

Murièle, France

muriele_dejaune — 2018-05-25 09:22:59 UTC

I think it is not easy to work in CL with your students if it is the first time that you work with them that way. Because students tend to be passive and school encourage them to be passive especially for students who are not academically succesfull. Because it is easier for them to wait and dream in a classroom than provide an effort.
Working in CL needs from a teacher a very plan lesson. And working in groups can be very tricky for students. To facilitate the relation into the group roles must be given to students so nobody is left aside.

Catalina, Spain

2018-05-25 09:46:00 UTC

All in all, Collaborative Learning in the classroom is challenging, motivating and beneficial for students. However, the teacher must be careful when creating groups and giving roles within the groups. The educator should make sure that every group member gets involved.

Iraklis Karagiannis / Greece

irakliskaragiannis — 2018-05-25 16:05:36 UTC

CL is important to working in open groups learning, using ICT, throught separated roles. It's a challenge for all.

Jasminka, Croatia

japytom — 2018-05-25 16:14:17 UTC

The difficulties that may arise during CL's use are: estimation and unequal distribution of work and effort. The teacher should be a mentor and carefully monitor each task and involve every student during the learning process. Also, each group should evaluate its associates and themselves in several components such as knowledge of the facts, the way the content is disseminated, the way of speaking, the speech of an individual. At the end very important is teacher's and group's feedback.

Edit, Hungary

tothedit0610 — 2018-05-25 17:20:11 UTC

Collaborative learning is important because it prepares learners for future life where they have work in teams with others. Possible problem: overdominant or reserved students: unbalanced work. Solution: Giving out roles and instructions for each members

Katarzyna, Poland

kasiw — 2018-05-25 18:02:15 UTC

Collaborative Learning is definitely beneficial. However, I can also see a problem here: when students work in teams there may be some who are not really willing to contribute equally and instead, they let the others do all the work.

2018-05-25 19:00:23 UTC

Katarzyna, Poland Katarzyna, Poland Collaborative Learning is definitely beneficial. However, I can also see a problem here: when students work in teams there may be some who are not really willing to contribute equally and instead, they let the others do all the work. Edit, Hungary Edit, Hungary Collaborative learning is important because it prepares learners for future life where they have work in teams with others. Possible problem: overdominant or reserved students: unbalanced work. Solution: Giving out roles and instructions for each members Jasminka, Croatia Jasminka, Croatia The difficulties that may arise during CL's use are: estimation and unequal distribution of work and effort. The teacher should be a mentor and carefully monitor each task and involve every student during the learning process. Also, each group should evaluate its associates and themselves in several components such as knowledge of the facts, the way the content is disseminated, the way of speaking, the speech of an individual. At the end very important is teacher's and group's feedback. Iraklis Karagiannis / Greece Iraklis Karagiannis / Greece CL is important to working in open groups learning, using ICT, throught separated roles. It's a challenge for all. Catalina, Spain Catalina, Spain All in all, Collaborative Learning in the classroom is challenging, motivating and beneficial for students. However, the teacher must be careful when creating groups and giving roles within the groups. The educator should make sure that every group member gets involved. Murièle, France Murièle, France I think it is not easy to work in CL with your students if it is the first time that you work with them that way. Because students tend to be passive and school encourage them to be passive especially for students who are not academically succesfull. Because it is easier for them to wait and dream in a classroom than provide an effort. Working in CL needs from a teacher a very plan lesson. And working in groups can be very tricky for students. To facilitate the relation into the group roles must be given to students so nobody is left aside. Theoni Dimopoulou , Greece Theoni Dimopoulou , Greece Although Collaborative Learning is a great tool to use in the classroom, problems do arise. One of the most common ones, from my experience, is that not all pupils are interested in working towards a common goal. There are those who are passionate with everything and who tend to dominate a group, those who just follow someone's lead and of course those who would do almost nothing at all. A solution would be to assign each person a specific role in the group and to monitor each person's contribution to the final outcome. Grosu Monica, Romania Grosu Monica, Romania Collaborative learning is a method of teaching and learning in which students team together to explore a significant question or create a meaningful project. A group of students discussing a lecture or students from different schools working together over the Internet on a shared assignment are both examples of collaborative learning. Snjezana Kovacevic,Croatia Snjezana Kovacevic,Croatia I think that the problem is that pupils sometimes don't work equally during CL. In group, some of them try harder than others...But, I gude them and actively help them if they need help so they can all participate doing tasks. Daniela, Italy Daniela, Italy The problem I have with this kind of activity is that some students don't work and all the job is done by few ones more involved. It's difficult for the teacher to manage more than 2 groups at the same time Jorge Carvalho, Portugal Jorge Carvalho, Portugal I think Collaborative Learning is a dynamic and very interesting way of designing and organizing the learning process. It allows a greater involvement of the students in the learning, being an important factor of motivation. From some experiences that I have promoted, I realize that most of the students show a sense of responsibility and gain greater autonomy from these experiences. Collaborative Learning also allows gains in terms of academic results. Nowadays we have at our disposal different digital tools that facilitate the collaborative work and its evaluation. One of the problems of this form of learning has to do precisely with the performance assessment of some students who show less involvement, therefore it is indispensable to follow all moments of the process and develop peer review While one of the 60 teachers of the User Group of the Europeana DSI-3 project I had the opportunity to experience this Learning Scenario "Napoleon as seen by the opponents". The scenario was implemented with a group of 16 students (aged 16/17 – 11th grade) who, in the History class, had recently studied the topic about the French Revolution and the Napoleonic invasions on Portugal. In this way, the students had a general framework of the subject that allowed them to analyse the satirical cartoons on Napoleon Bonaparte. I implemented the scenario during a 90 minutes lesson and the class was, as predicted, divided in 4 groups, analysing, each one, a cartoon. It was a very positive and stimulating experience. Students showed interest and enthusiasm in the accomplishment of the proposed tasks and made a positive evaluation of the experience. In my opinion, I would emphasize 4 positive aspects: - Students value the use of digital tools in the learning process; - The use of primary historical sources (particularly images) represents an important stimulus for students. - Students emphasized the quality and size of the images that allowed detailed analysis, which is not possible, for example, in school textbooks. - The collaborative nature of the experience is very positive; and some difficulties: - The fact that the cartoons are in English has caused some difficulties for the students; - The students revealed some difficulty in interpreting some particular aspects of the cartoons, especially those of greater detail: - The students revealed some difficulties searching in Europeana; In summary, it was a very positive experience, a very meaningful learning experience for students (and for me too). It was an excellent opportunity to check the potential of Europeana Collections and I would definitely recommend this learning scenario to other teachers. Congratulations to Jean-Christophe for the design of this learning scenario, an excellent example of using the Europeana collections. Erika, Italy Erika, Italy Working with small groups of children, I often use this method. Considering the disadvantages, I noted that, usually, in every group, there is someone (a few students?) who is (are?) more active than others (less involved in the proposed activities). To avoid this problem, before creating the groups, I tend to assign specific roles to every member of the group: every member has a specific task to carry out. I am also aware of the fact that in every group there is always someone who tends to be the leader and to be the person who establishes the standards of the proposed works, judging their acceptability. In general, these students are the students who have the best results in the classroom, who are the most responsible and meticulous. Even though these features are generally regarded as very important qualities, in a small group of students, they can become elements that limit the others’ actions, expression and creativity or, even, elements that generate unrest and conflicts . In my opinion, the teacher is the only person who can mediate between different needs, between the value of the efficiency and the value of all the students’ free expression, which might imply imperfection, mistakes. Another problem concerns the assessment of a group work. It seems difficult and partial. Having created the groups, the teacher should present to his/ her students which criteria (at least three criteria) he/she intends to use in order to assess the final product. The teacher should consider/ evaluate the tasks carried out (individually) by every component of the group (different tasks, different roles) and then consider/evaluate the whole work, seen as an outcome of the collaboration between different students. The final mark shoud take both aspects into account. Lindita Lohja Lindita Lohja It is a productive form when we set groups of students to work together and I belive that is more easy becaus the work is divided and not hard. Esada Čirić-Delić, Bosnia and Herzegovina Esada Čirić-Delić, Bosnia and Herzegovina CL is great but in order to have a successful outcome teachers first have to develop CL mind-set. Working in groups is difficult so the group management is crucial as well as clear ideas, responsibilities and outcomes. This requires teacher delicate monitoring of group activities. Adelina, Poland Adelina, Poland Using Collaborative Learning (CL) is involving and amaizing for students but it isn't the only one method that is used during the lessons. We have to focus on developing many different skills so we don't have enough time to work with this method so often. What's more we have to realize the curriculum but the rsults of using CL are fantastic. Maria Antónia Brandão, PT Maria Antónia Brandão, PT As in all the methods i think of some difficulties that might arise while using Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. Not all the students like to work in group, sometimes we have to develop colaborative skills before use CL. It can also take more time to make the approach to some subjects, beside that in classe we can have more noise because students must talk to each others . If we accept that its an excelent methodology. Bellow an example of a task that allows to develop Collaborative work marshmallow challenge Cinzia, Italy Cinzia, Italy In my opinion disadvantages of Problem-Based Learning are: 1)Problem-based learning exercises can engage many of your students, but others may feel disengaged as a result of not being ready to handle this type of exercise for a number of reasons. 2)If you choose to give marks, assessing a student’s performance throughout a problem-based learning exercise demands constant monitoring and note-taking. Monitoring these tasks is required for each student, making it time-consuming to give and justify a mark for everyone. Angela Quirós, Bruselas. Angela Quirós, Bruselas. I don´t find any problem working in groups, it is the opposite, they are a lot of advantages. First, we have to make a rubric, as this the students know they have to work, how they have to work and how they will have evaluated. In my experience it is better to leave the students choose his group, and it is not important the number of people in each group. I fix a maximum and a minimum of student by a group. . Sometimes we expend a lot of time making the groups, and my experience is that the students work better choosing by himself. I am a big fan of working in groups.. I love seeing my students together speaking, working, discussing, trying to reach a goal together. And the noise for me it is as the noise that the bees working! Christos, Cyprus Christos, Cyprus In CL learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product. Working together is not easy :) Requires mutual respect that students dont have in that age. SO teachers MUST ASSIGN RESPONSIBILITIES and continuously monitor the working process Nektarios Farassopoulos, Greece Nektarios Farassopoulos, Greece Collaborative Learning has benefits teaching in multiple ways. The only difficulty I can spot is the "noise" in the classroom while working in groups. This is a very often phenomenon, especially with younger students. Usually, I try to establish with my students a bunch of group rules in order to communicate without making unnecessary noise. Elena, Spain Elena, Spain Students are more engaged if they like the subject they are working on. In the other hand, it's is difficult when we have any disruptive student which is not collaborating and making the process more difficult. Suzana, Croatia Suzana, Croatia Students like CL, but... Our curriculum is extensive and massive, so we do not have so much time as we needed. Students can not always access the internet and their research are limited. Violeta Cumak, Lithuania Violeta Cumak, Lithuania There is a lot of benefit from collaborative learning, because when students work together, the learning process becomes more interesting and fun. CL involves students in an active learning process, encourages critical thinking and helps in motivating. CL develops social skills, builds more positive relationships among peers or between boys and girls. Students are often faced with difficulties outside the classroom, so CL will get to know each other better and likely expands their activities outside the classroom. On the other hand, the teacher has to work hard to develop CL material, then wisely to divide the tasks that all members of the team would be actively involved. Probably it can't be described as a problem, just an extra task to the teacher. Indalecio, España, Gijón Indalecio, España, Gijón Collaborative work, applied to education, is a teaching method where the teacher actively involves the students in the learning process and has a very important role because it is the person who must implement, guide and coordinate the work in class. In passing, thanks to collaborative work or learning, a sense of mutual respect among students can be fostered, because each and every one of them has something to say. Gaetano, Italy Gaetano, Italy The first difficulty is about the motivation of students: so, our first engagement is to find the right way to show them good reason to learn. Latife Çeri,Turkey Latife Çeri,Turkey Yes,there may occur some difficulties because some students are better others are worse but if we combine two diffirent group together,It will be better,but also it must be tiring for teachers. In my LD,I wanted some help from our history teacher before starting activity.Collaboration with teachers are also effective. Roxanthi Nikou, Greece Roxanthi Nikou, Greece CBL is very useful in academic, but also skills learning, reflecting the profile of the citizens we want for the present and for the future. However, there are some obstacles, especially at the beginning of its use, as students have to acquire so many roles during it. Usually they are face problems in argumentation during CBL. Whatsoever, the method should be seen as a fruitful challenge for students and teachers! Lucia Italy Lucia Italy Working collaboratively is highly qualifying for pupils .Of course, problems may arise, but I think the figure of the teacherAlways present during the activity can guarantee a good functioning of the project The boys must be left free but always observed Angelamaria Galderisi, Italy Angelamaria Galderisi, Italy I think that one of the possible problems with Cooperative learning is that some students could work harder than others. To avoid this problem, the teacher should divide all the tasks distributing them to all the students involved in a cyclical way, so that everybody’s work is linked to the other’s. Michela, Italy Michela, Italy A possible Collaborative Learning method's negative aspect is that a concept may not be understood as well if a person doesn't have to figure it out for himself. At times students miss things that they would have learnt by doing the project on their own. Sometimes peer groups get lazy and just give group members answers to a certain problem without explaining how they arrived at their conclusions. In this way, no real knowledge has been gained. nazım kırdaş nazım kırdaş the problem is that everybody can contribute to the work at the same level. for this reason students should always be observed. Okan, Turkey Okan, Turkey When we think about the definition point of "the collaborative learning", which is one of the learning processes used within the constructivist training approach, is an approach that prepares the environment for the heterogeneously created participants to work in small groups. The basic problem here can be the creation of the groups which are supposed to interact each one of the members during learning process Franck Maas, France Franck Maas, France How will you ensure that students are productive if they don't know their peers ? I think it's important to spend time in order to allow good links between students at the beginning of the school year. Time is a keyword in this method. It's necessary to schedule class time for group work (and not outside). Emilia, Poland Emilia, Poland What is the most important, the subject of the lesson must meet with the students abilities and interests. It can't be too difficult, because it can be discouraging, especially for young pupils. Luís Pereira - Lisbon, Portugal Luís Pereira - Lisbon, Portugal Collaborative Learning is a very good methodology but it is very important that it became well conducted. That is, the preparation of a Collaborative Learning has to be very well planned or could become a genuine disaster. To resolve this issue, it is important that the teacher do his / her homework. In other words, plan the activities and groups of students should be well thought. We are working with people, aren´t we? Elena Prieto, Valladolid (Spain) Elena Prieto, Valladolid (Spain) Work together is believed to be the best solution to encourage our students and benefit of collaborative learning as a group. Furthermore, schools should improve ICT tools hi-tech equipment to enhance a proper use of the internet. Therefore, Europeana could help us our project implementation and the student’s creativity. In this sense, teacher support is essential to guide and help our students. It turns out to be clear that the age of our students and the topic of the project would take into consideration in order to get better results. Alina Alina It is great to cooperate but it is important to have the technology grace,sicily grace,sicily collaborative learning. Giuseppina De Giovanni, Italy Giuseppina De Giovanni, Italy With Collaborative Learning students work in team on teacher's assignments, and at the same time they develop their social skills. They are involved more actively in the learning process rather than being passive students, and interacting with their peers they find new ways of handling problems. Grace,Sicily. Grace,Sicily. module 4.5 CL is very useful in class.Class is divided in groups and all groups have to solve a problem. Sometimes groups are difficult to manage but in my opinion it's important using CL for its main benefit that is the respect for different and divergent opinions.In fact respect and collaboration are the basis of citizenship.Students get used to work together in solving problems.The group is a society in miniature with its rules and tollerance one for another.Everybody is responsable for his/her work and learning as well as the others' Palma from Spain Palma from Spain When you work Cl you get the students to become more involved in the knowledge and everyone wants to participate. The students change their role thanks to the moderation of the teacher a teixeira a teixeira Collaborative Learning is a good working methodology, but when the classes have a high number of students (28-30) it can cause problems Elisabetta, Italy Elisabetta, Italy I'm sure that CL can be very useful for learning. Sometimes, the students aren't able to respect the others during the lessons and the role of the teacher as moderator is fundamental Alessandra Amideo Alessandra Amideo ITALIA The benefits of collaborative learning are many and I think they overcome the difficulties that may arise during the use of this method. Surely the EUROPEANA collections are very valuable and stimulating for this type of approach. There could be problems in terms of class schedule. This type of activity needs a longer period of time to be able to be completed. Almost never in a classroom you have more than two hours available. Anita, Croatia Anita, Croatia CL can be a challenge when dealing with big groups or children that are not used to working in groups. This is why the role of a teacher moderator is important. The benefits of this type of lesson are many-fold. Teamwork, cooperation, problem solving are just a few of the skills the children learn. CL requires organisation, patience and time for preparation. Anna, Italy Anna, Italy CL is great and useful in teaching, the only difficulties are the noises and the confusion because students usually speak up. Jasna Šojer/Croatia Jasna Šojer/Croatia Using PBL and CL in projects was always fun and beneficial for students. Never have any difficulties. Sometimes it take a bit long when they work in international groups using google drive but at the end all went ok. emma giurlani Italy emma giurlani Italy in all these years in which I have been working with eTwinning projects experiencing real CL and PBL combined together I found only benefits and even when students have been confronted with difficulties arising from different points o view or from technical issues they have been overcome collaboratively.The students reacted by spontaneously looking for a plan B or by adapting and mediating the solutions to the ideas of everyone, developing a constructive and resilient attitude Isabel, Spain Isabel, Spain As every approach, resource, methodology... has advantages and disadvantages, weak points or problems to be solved. Well, one of the points is related to the work in groups. It is supposed that we have to share different tasks among the members of the group. The point is that is quite difficult to engage those students without motivation, although the given task is very simple. How to solve it? Maybe looking for a commitment with the student and signing an agreement. Another point is about time. We have to comply the school curriculum and this kind of projects takes a lot of time. Perhaps, Education institutions should be more flexible with it. Bosiljko, Croatia Bosiljko, Croatia Maybe you need more time to prepare yourself for CL, but-this is not a big issue..also, students need some time to adapt to CL, because in my country this type of teaching is not so often. Giovanna, Italy Giovanna, Italy Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom can only be of great help, I do not think of difficulties because I consider it useful and with the improvement of the support structures too the teaching will be modified in the best way. Vincenzo M. Italy Vincenzo M. Italy The real difficulty of my school is the students because in my school there are various study addresses and various different skills. Daniela Bunea, Romania Daniela Bunea, Romania The students' different learning styles could be considered a barrier, which can, for a dedicated teacher, become a challenge and be turned into an advantage. Sonsoles López Sonsoles López SPAIN I always observe the same phenomenon when I use CL. Frequently, we can find someone who let the rest work and hides behind. The solution involves motivating these people to perform. Perhaps , a CL but differentiated purposes, aims...based in real student interests. Immacolata Italy Immacolata Italy I am a teacher of primary school and in my opinion CL means working and solving a problem together with joint actions. I will work in collaboration is not always easy because field management and time to use for the project come into play. Gradually you could get to do a job like this by preparing both colleagues and pupils to work in this way. Maja Hadzic, Serbia Maja Hadzic, Serbia The main difficulty in my school would be mixed-ability students, meaning that the content would have to be adapted to some extent. Manuel Gutiérrez, Spain. Manuel Gutiérrez, Spain. The main problem I find is in the ease of access to information, you can not get the value, stop analyzing in depth and limit yourself to making copies or bad transcriptions of the originals. However, the process well understood seems to me to have many advantages. Ana-Maria Ene, Romania Ana-Maria Ene, Romania CL is an important and useful tool. I have used it in different occasions. I didns find any difficulty using it. Maria Rita, Italy Maria Rita, Italy I think that collaborative learning can be successful if the teacher is patient and manages to prepare the students to work in a way which is not always so easy as it may seem. Real collaboration is difficult to achieve. Two main problems are increasing confusion and noise in the class and time management. Both can be dealt with gradually; as soon as the students learn to work effectively together, they should no longer be an issue. Elena Pezzi, Italy Elena Pezzi, Italy In my opinion there are basically two main difficulties: time and "mindset". As for the first problem, you just have to consider that the benefits of CL are numerous and they lastover time ... so that the time "lost" in doing the work recovers in terms of increasing competences. The second problem is related with the fram of mind of other colleagues or even pupils....If we succeed in convincing them that CL is a way of working that brings evident benefits both at the level of learning and of relational competences, we will have solved the problem! Artur, Portugal Artur, Portugal essentially, time. the learning outcomes are more solid with this method, and also more fun, but time management of the curriculum will create difficulties. too much to teach, too little time...? Stamatia Stamati, Greece Stamatia Stamati, Greece CL= work together and solution of a problem with joint decisions-actions. But the curriculum sometimes prevents the collaborative learning. Ercan Birbiri Adana/ Türkiye Ercan Birbiri Adana/ Türkiye Collaborative learning is an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem. This can be very useful. Students work together and search for new things. José María, Spain José María, Spain It can happen - and in some places it happens - that the complexity of the classic curriculum prevails at all times in our classrooms and demands an almost total level of compliance. On the other hand, the beginnings of CL require a great deal of imagination and teacher planning, in addition to progressing at a slower pace that conflicts with the demands of the Administration.

Araceli, Spai

2018-05-25 19:00:51 UTC

Collaborative learning is very positive, but we need to make sure that all the students are involved. If children are not used to it, they might be a little bit noisy at the beginning. Once they get used, the results are great!

Antonietta, Italy

miaaba — 2018-05-25 19:01:39 UTC

Collaborative learning is great as it involves group work but collaboration also creates some difficulties such as positive relations among students and a team spirit. It’s not simple for teachers to manage groups. So a great organization is required. Each step must be planned accurately.

Carla Sousa, Lagos; PortugalThis is a strategy very grateful when it’s correctly planned with teacher’s good homework. The results are specially high with social, behavior and knowledge skills.

2018-05-25 19:17:34 UTC

Mirela Avdibegović, Bosnia and Herzegovina

mirela_avdibegovic — 2018-05-25 19:39:07 UTC

Collaborative learning has many advantages. First of all the students learn better when sharing ideas in group. This way they are more involved in learning process. Of course teacher should be moderator in a way to make sure all pupils are equally participating.

Monica , Romania

2018-05-26 04:24:49 UTC

Collaborative learning is a wonderful way of work, but you need time to apply it .

Liliana, Italy

lilugiov — 2018-05-26 05:19:31 UTC

Collaborative learning is a wonderful and a positive way of work learning I need time to apply it because in this period we are at the end of the school year to finish our programming and the interrogation is not able to carry out everything in time.
I think in this time it's not simple for teachers to manage groups and each steps must be planned accurately

Vasiliki Psaridou/Greece

psaridou — 2018-05-26 05:53:11 UTC

I use collaborative method in my class and problems might occur. Some students are very shy and do not want to express opinions . Some other are very enthuiastic and want to implement their point of view. The teacher should find a way to combine all the above successfully.

Jana, Germany

roro1 — 2018-05-26 06:58:06 UTC

Collaboration can be very enriching as well as effective, especially when creating a product together, e. g. a video clip. I think it is important to find a good idea to make it plausible for the students to collaborate. Otherwise, they will be inclined to take shortcuts. Also, I have found it very important to give students support, e. g. checklists on how to proceed on how to distribute responsibilities in order to make sure everybody does their fair share. In bigger projects, due dates for progress reports are essential.

Clara Cristino (Portugal)

clara_cristino — 2018-05-26 09:00:00 UTC

Collaborative Learning (CL) should be the main teaching/learning methodology. Schools should be places of collaboration instead of being organised like a factory aimed at producing certificated people. Thus, the only disadvantage I see is that students (parents and the community) might be too used to individual work and being directed towards competitive evaluation goals in a process in which they are mostly being fed (even when they are not hungry) and might not be willing nor see the positive side of gaining autonomy and taking their learning more in their own hands.

Nataša, Croatia

malanana66 — 2018-05-26 10:30:07 UTC

Teacher should know how to create groups to make sure that all students work and contribute. Solutions is Padlet - teacher can see student's name and ideas , does he/she works or not.

Nataša Sajko

2018-05-26 11:28:05 UTC

During the colabrative work is very important to adwise team to slit the task and share responsabillity for the task. Teacher has to support each group with featback during and after the cillaboration, and every student has to have his/her responsabillities during the work and own assesment at the end. I find that kind of work very succesfull.

Ana Madalena, LIsbon PT

anamadalenaf_1972 — 2018-05-26 11:39:41 UTC

In my arts class I often promote collaborative learning. As I already told you, I teach in a multicultural school and my classes have students from many diferent nationalities. I usualy mixed the students in small groups so that can learn from each other, be more engaged in the task, learn to respect and value other's point of vue and help each other through out the learning process. Sometimes some pupils get a bit bored because they are more skilled then others and wich to go faster. But they also learn to respect their peers learning rithm. Sometimes they "fight" because they come from very diferent backgrounds, but they also learn how to respect their colleagues opinion.

Arnaud, France

2018-05-26 11:49:15 UTC

In collaborative work, each group has a particular role that influences others. One problem might be that one group does not provide the necessary needs to others and block the work of the other groups.

Ramona Răducan, Romania

2018-05-26 13:23:31 UTC

Collaboration is good if it is in small groups (ex. three) and if group members have skills and abilities which are complementary to one another. Envy, lack of responsibility, laziness, delegating or simply lack of knowledge and competences can interfere with collaborative purposes and tasks. Very specific, different and complementary tasks (for a small group of 3-4 students) with possibility of checking each contribution can solve such problems... (sometimes)

2018-05-26 13:31:51 UTC

complementary

Anita M., Croatia

2018-05-26 13:46:04 UTC

Collaborative teaching has many advantages, first of all peers make it easier to solve problems when the studens help each other. Experience shows that attention should be paid to the fact that the tasks are precisely defined and that one student is not more burdened than the others, usually those who are more successful in certain activities.

Nikolaos Makris - Greece

nikolaomakri — 2018-05-26 15:02:30 UTC

The most crucial thing for collaborative learning is to know exactly the skills and the level of each students and manage each group’s dynamic sp as all the members would have the opportunity to gain from the process.

Diana, Romania

2018-05-26 17:38:05 UTC

Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom is something I like to engage my students at least once per semester. It is quite time consuming, but the benefits are great.

viki dogani, greece

2018-05-26 17:40:07 UTC

collaborative learning has only benefits, creates empathy for students for lesson

Adriana Laze Albania

adrianalaze — 2018-05-26 20:37:19 UTC

Collaborative learning had been and is yet , one of the main factors that helps me so much in my work . Such in my earlier years of work I used and understood that it was the key of success in my teaching process . CL is a method with multiple values . The only difficulty is when I use it on the first times and students use the time of collaboration for discussing to each other not for the lesson . But when I ask the results of the collaboration they understand that they need really to collaborate . Also it very lovely for students because they feel free .

Alexandra, Pt

2018-05-26 21:49:49 UTC

Students sometimes scatter in conversations parallel to the subject, not using the time to work. I usually solve these questions by giving them tasks in a phased way and by making an assessment of their time management. In this way they feel responsible and try to correspond by concentrating on the task.

PATRICIA F.L., Spain

2018-05-27 06:39:30 UTC

From my experience, sometimes, in groups of mixed ability students, instead of benefiting from each other, what happens is that weaker students become passive and do not work at all. To be honest, I haven't found a solution to that problem yet. I just try to motivate them by letting them choose a topic they like, for example, to see if that works.

Inmaculada/spain

2018-05-27 06:43:47 UTC

In my opinion collaborative learning raise achievement of students.

Build positive relationships among students - important for creating a learning community that values diversity.
Provide experiences that develop both good learning skills and social skills.

Gabriela, SLOVAKIA

gabrielakrizovs — 2018-05-27 08:23:45 UTC

CL has also some disadvantages as other methods of teaching. There cannot be a genral metod to reach 100% success. What sometimes might happen is that students might skip to converstion what is not in plan or some students might be drawback if they are not good at the topic.

Lourdes, Spain

2018-05-27 10:27:20 UTC

Collaborative Learning can be very useful to promote social skills and prepare the students for the real life. However, it can might havesome difficulties:
- Some students can delegate their task in the rest of the members. Solution: mix students with different skills and give all of them a role in the group.
- They can lost the time speaking of other topics. It is not posible in individual learning. Solution: the topic must be interesting for the students and we can give them some work goals with a limited time to get it.

Josefa Martín, Spain

fefimg — 2018-05-27 10:35:23 UTC

Students may not have collaborated before so the main difficulties may come from this.
PROBLEM How to make balanced groups to collaborate?
What is better? Allowing students choose who they work with or is the teacher in charge of the task?
Solution: Work with students and let them know about the importance of a balanced team, inclusion and mixed ability, then let them choose and experiment!
And do not keep saame groups over the year.
PROBLEM
Students don't focus on their task or find it difficult to progress
SOLUTION
Provide them with useful and clear charts, rubrics and visual aids to make them feel they are achieving their goals.

Nadia - Italy

lagana044 — 2018-05-27 11:47:33 UTC

Before using Collaborative Learning it is necessary to create a right envirnoment, to promote social skills with specific activities so that students manage conflicts and learn to communicate in a correct way. We should lead students to take on roles based on their strengths and their pre-eminent skills, mixing weak and capable (tutoring), preparing samples of collaborative activities connected to engaging extracurricular activities.

Anna Maria Indiati – Italy- Rome - It coul be difficult implanting CL in a class most of all on the first time because of conflicts that can arise among students for the role some of them have to play (ex. Tutor). This can easily be overcome by alternating the roles within the group

laprofindiati — 2018-05-27 15:06:47 UTC

Miguel Angel, Burgos (Spain)

2018-05-27 15:26:41 UTC

My experience in this sense is that, by organizing the activity well, distributing the rols among the students, explaining the evaluation rubric (evaluating not only the result but also how it is done), I believe that everything is going well.

María Pellón, Spain

2018-05-27 16:02:53 UTC

As I said in the previous padlet, my problem is time. We are too focused on the syllabus and in the curriculum and I think it is very difficult to find a whole week or maybe two to dedicate to these fantastic activities. It is great because kids learn doing research and normally things are easily learnt this way than not listening to the teacher and doing homework. So this is the only problem I find and maybe the fact that in not all the Spanish high-schools it is easy to have good computer classrooms

Andrada,Romania

2018-05-27 16:14:48 UTC

Collaborative lerning is very useful and widely used in language teaching. It provides studens with more confidence and creativity and collaborative skills. When you have 25 to 31 students in a class, with mixed abilities, working in groups is sometimes the only way for a good communication lesson.

Oya YELİM,Turkey

yakari_14021980 — 2018-05-27 16:21:00 UTC

CL is great for language learning because the students are more creative and productive and they improve critical thinking skills but every student has to work equally in the group. Usually one or two work more than the rest. and because of the hard and full curriculum sometimes it is very difficult to find enough time for CL.

Christothea Papadaki, Greece

c_papadaki287 — 2018-05-27 16:28:31 UTC

CL is undoubtedly beneficial and indispensable as it helps students develop social skills, engage actively, become autonomous. However, from my experience, it is something we need to train both teachers and students on. First of all, teachers should engage ss in several games/activities aiming to reinforce the bonds within the team. Secondly, both teachers and students have to create the etiquette rules (behaviour, respect) Thirdly, teachers should work with students on discourse skills (such as turn taking, negotiating, etc.) Fourth, teacher should assign roles and monitor the process to ensure that everyone works.Last but not least, assessment is really crucial.I think that implementing CL in the classrooms is really challenging but it is worth using it!

Sylwia, Poland

2018-05-27 16:45:07 UTC

of course CL the best way of learning, students become lively, learn from each other, share opinions, discuss. The problem can be related with full curriculum.

Mustafa Oğuz ÇEVLİK,Turkey

yakari_14021980 — 2018-05-27 17:08:13 UTC

CL is great for primary students' learning because the students are more creative and productive and they improve critical thinking skills but every student has to work equally in the group. Usually one or two work more than the rest. and because of the hard and full curriculum sometimes it is very difficult to find enough time for CL.

Ferro Filippa, Italy

2018-05-27 17:43:21 UTC

Narciso José López, Spain

njlopezg — 2018-05-27 18:30:09 UTC

I try to use collaborative learning, however, it is very difficult. I only have one class per course per week and my time is very limited.

Niki Petsi - Greece

2018-05-27 19:30:40 UTC

Collaborative Learning is at the center of new pedagogical techniques that should be used in a classroom as it helps students acquire skills that they will need in the future. However, it takes some time to teach students to work collaboratively and effectively.

Yasemin Turkey

2018-05-27 21:00:41 UTC

Yes, I use project-based learning in my classroom. Project-based learning is needed to deepen my students ' experiences and achievements in life.

Eva Polláková, Slovakia

pollakova — 2018-05-27 21:02:34 UTC

Collaborative learning has many advantages but it is also a challenge for a teacher. First of all, each teacher has to teach his / her students how to collaborate, what are the rules. The teacher has to help the students from the beginning and give them a space later on. But what is great, the students are improving from lesson to lesson. The teacher has to also pay attention to good group distribution, time management, clear objectives and also right instructions.

Ioanna Giannopoulou, Gree

ioangiannop — 2018-05-27 21:10:46 UTC

Collaborative learning is one of the methods that I incorporate in my lessons. In primary schools, you can use it in almost all classes (from 3rd to 6th grade). When the students are very young, they like working together on condition that they have very clear guidelines to follow and that the project requires some kind of art too. As far as the 6th graders are concerned, one problem that the teacher has to overcome is the laziness of the weakest students who prefer to hide behind the others rather than work themselves. This year I decided to bring a couple of laptops in class and ask the kids work in three teams (two on the laptops and one on the class computer) and the majority found it very interesting. They really enjoyed when they were assigned to prepare online games with tools like educaplay and learningapps.

Hasime, Macedonia

hasime — 2018-05-27 22:06:25 UTC

I use Collaborative teaching and learning in my classrooms. Sometime I have difficulties with students who brake the roles. they did not collaborate with other members of the groups. I often use effective question to find the reason why they did not collaborate. Also, the curriculum did not left the free space to use often CL.

Sandra Santos, Portugal

2018-05-28 07:30:35 UTC

The collaborative work in the classroom allows a greater involvement of the students in the approach of a new theme and has quite effective results. However, it is difficult to avoid parallel conversations as well as to ensure that all members of the group cooperate to the same extent. In my opinion, it is necessary to stage the work in small tasks in order to avoid great dispersions.

Dumitra Ducan, Romania

zdd_myx — 2018-05-28 14:29:24 UTC

I use CL quite often in my classes. It has been shown to have a positive effect on student learning when compared to individual or competitive conditions. Interpersonal and collaboration skills can be learned in a cooperative learning activity. However, in groups of mixed ability, low-achieving students become passive and do not focus on the task. Lower ability students may feel perpetually in need of help rather than experiencing the role of leader or expert relative to the others in their group.

Domenico, Italy

2018-05-28 14:54:16 UTC

Collaborative Learning is a methodology that I use with a certain frequency. In my opinion, it has the advantage of stimulating the commitment of all the students: the best students who want to stand out and play the role of the teacher; less good students who prefer to confront and get help from peers ashamed to ask the teacher.
However, in my opinion, this methodology sometimes does not work because of the heterogeneity of the groups and it can happen that the less good are defilino putting themselves on the sidelines, failing the commitment and mutual help.

Marija, Croatia

damjanov_ma — 2018-05-28 16:23:26 UTC

Collaborative Learning is an excellent teaching method, but it is not always suitable. For example, it is great when you have a topic that can be divided into sub-topics that are equally challenging to work with and when your students want to collaborate. Sometimes, students do not involve on the same level in a group work - some work harder and "take matters into their own hands", while others just copy the answers or present the final result, without participating in the work.

Olga M. - Italy

olga_mosca — 2018-05-28 18:19:34 UTC

CL is an operative method that I have adopted often with important advantages for the development of the interaction between students and their ability to think. I often have come across difficulties about the criteria to form the groups and to establish assign their duties. Once I overcome these difficulties , the groups have reached good results.

Aksoy, TURKEY

2018-05-28 18:57:01 UTC

Students with low confidence may have difficulty in belonging to the group. This may lead to the inability to obtain the desired efficiency from the Collaborative Learning (CL) method.Group work should be motivated and supported.

Naďa, SLOVAKIA

ndrobnakova — 2018-05-28 19:32:41 UTC

I find the method excellent, yet it requires perfect manager - a teacher with the knowledge in the field and the group of eager students that are interested in the topic and are willing to cooperate and to be a contribution for the rest of the group. Last but not the least everything must be very well planned from the beginning to the final outcomes of the classwork.

Suzie, Finland

suzieelizabeth — 2018-05-28 20:42:41 UTC

The sheer amount of resource on Europeana could be overwhelming if clear enough criteria and guidance isn't given. So teachers must make sure to research the resource properly before implementing a classroom activity.

Anaely, Mexico.

anaelypb — 2018-05-29 00:00:34 UTC

I think one difficulty is to have a well balanced team, so all of the team members work and engage, but also enrich each other with their abilities. I think that one way to overcome this difficulty is to develop very carefully the activity, but also to mix every now and then the members so they can work with almos every classmates so they can learn to really collaborate.

Theodora Zakou - Ioannidou, Cyprus

t_zakou — 2018-05-29 05:47:20 UTC

Collaborative learning is an excellent learning approach, especially when the students in a class are used to working with this method. They can work together in a group and produce outcomes of high quality and standards. The collaborative method is perfect for big groups of students, which in my case is not applicable because i am currently at a small school with a small group of students where each student works individually most of the time. The major difficulty is in my opinion to train students and teach them how to work productively in a collaborative learning activity

Anca Santimbrean, Romania

2018-05-29 07:27:14 UTC

There are challenges associated with collaborative learning environments, specifically with creating and embracing a new environment and the methodology for learning/instruction. Challenges aside, arming the students with resources and skills to remain productive outside the classroom is the keystone of education. Collaborative learning has proven to encourage the improvement and maturation of a variety of skills necessary for future success in the work place. Supporting this progress helps to ensure that today’s students will be productive, effective and influential members of the future workforce.

2018-05-29 08:55:34 UTC

Erika, Italy Working with small groups of children, I often use this method. Considering the disadvantages, I noted that, usually, in every group, there is someone (a few students?) who is (are?) more active than others (less involved in the proposed activities). To avoid this problem, before creating the groups, I tend to assign specific roles to every member of the group: every member has a specific task to carry out. I am also aware of the fact that in every group there is always someone who tends to be the leader and to be the person who establishes the standards of the proposed works, judging their acceptability. In general, these students are the students who have the best results in the classroom, who are the most responsible and meticulous. Even though these features are generally regarded as very important qualities, in a small group of students, they can become elements that limit the others’ actions, expression and creativity or, even, elements that generate unrest and conflicts . In my opinion, the teacher is the only person who can mediate between different needs, between the value of the efficiency and the value of all the students’ free expression, which might imply imperfection, mistakes. Another problem concerns the assessment of a group work. It seems difficult and partial. Having created the groups, the teacher should present to his/ her students which criteria (at least three criteria) he/she intends to use in order to assess the final product. The teacher should consider/ evaluate the tasks carried out (individually) by every component of the group (different tasks, different roles) and then consider/evaluate the whole work, seen as an outcome of the collaboration between different students. The final mark shoud take both aspects into account. Lindita Lohja Lindita Lohja It is a productive form when we set groups of students to work together and I belive that is more easy becaus the work is divided and not hard. Esada Čirić-Delić, Bosnia and Herzegovina Esada Čirić-Delić, Bosnia and Herzegovina CL is great but in order to have a successful outcome teachers first have to develop CL mind-set. Working in groups is difficult so the group management is crucial as well as clear ideas, responsibilities and outcomes. This requires teacher delicate monitoring of group activities. Adelina, Poland Adelina, Poland Using Collaborative Learning (CL) is involving and amaizing for students but it isn't the only one method that is used during the lessons. We have to focus on developing many different skills so we don't have enough time to work with this method so often. What's more we have to realize the curriculum but the rsults of using CL are fantastic. Maria Antónia Brandão, PT Maria Antónia Brandão, PT As in all the methods i think of some difficulties that might arise while using Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. Not all the students like to work in group, sometimes we have to develop colaborative skills before use CL. It can also take more time to make the approach to some subjects, beside that in classe we can have more noise because students must talk to each others . If we accept that its an excelent methodology. Bellow an example of a task that allows to develop Collaborative work marshmallow challenge

ToniaC-Italy

2018-05-29 09:03:04 UTC

I often use CL with my students of the first class of Liceo Scientifico, as this method gives them the possibility to express themselves without any fear to be evaluated individually. But I think that it is the main teacher's task to create well balanced group so that each students - expecially at the beginning - can be monitored and can work at his own pace

Paweł/ Krakow

2018-05-29 09:30:57 UTC

I am very familiar with the Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. For me the main difficulty is keeping the right tempo of students activities. They mustn't cross the frame of working-time and be constructive. Sometime it is difficult. Solution is a good plan of activity and keeping a strong attention by teacher.

Mariola /Spain

2018-05-29 14:35:54 UTC

I like collaborative learning because it helps to engage children , but the problem is when there are different levels of interest and of knwoledge. The solutio is to give diffenrent roles to each member of the considering their capacities an interest. That way you could improve the quality of work and help every student to get involved .

Christos T., Greece

xrtsapan — 2018-05-29 18:42:50 UTC

When the students are used to working with Collaborative Learning, this methodologic approach produces excellent learning outcome. Sometimes difficulties arise during using this method:
Firstly, some students are very shy and they don't want to express their opinion. Secondly, others are not interesting working in groups towards a common goal. A teacher could specify the task of every student into the group and then evaluate the whole work.

Rosa Spain

odinluz — 2018-05-29 20:04:55 UTC

I also like collaborative learning and work group. There is more active learning this way although some students are too shy or a bit lazy and hide among others who stand out and lead the groups.
It is good to have group work, pair work and individual work to please everybody and find variety.

Marcela, SLovakia

marcelkajahnova — 2018-05-29 21:11:06 UTC

Collaborative learning is a good way in a peer-learning where students can learn from eachother. I sometimes find it negative when only "strong students" speak and lead the group.

Georgia, Cyprus Collaborative learning is very good. Students have to work together, helping each other out to learn. The students have to have their own role on the project , so that their grade will not depend only on teamwork, but they also have to aid the weaker ones to have a better team grade. The teachers must explain the rules and assign the role to each student from the beginning, so there is no confusion.

gtheopha — 2018-05-30 05:58:49 UTC

Emiliana Rufo, Italy

emiliana_rufo — 2018-05-30 07:14:44 UTC

I think collaborative learning is the best method to develop social competences and it must be related to learning-by-doing. So students have to face real world tasks. I usually use this approach in my teaching and my students love learning this way. I think the problem is in organizing time and activities. My students complain because some of them do not want to collaborate, they are not used to.

LUis, Palencia

2018-05-30 10:48:23 UTC

I think the main problem is how to organize the groups and the work to do, in order to be effective.
working in groups is great but the coordination must be so sotrong, otherwise it is a lot of information without any structure

Silvia, Italy

2018-05-30 13:43:39 UTC

I think the most difficult thing in collaborative learning is the organization of the groups. Some students can 't manage to play their sole and they are not able to share and exchange ideas with their school mates. I think that the assessment is really difficult too

Rosanna, Italia

2018-05-30 14:32:17 UTC

Collaborative learning is a great way to improve individual learning, through the added value of collaboration. Since the class is a small community, group work allows the development of interpersonal intelligence, namely the ability to relate and get along with others, being able to understand their emotions and motivations, to be able to answer them in appropriate way and put yourself in their shoes. Emphasizing the group means, finally, giving the possibility of integration to all the students, allowing the recovery of those problematic and not very motivated. The success or failure of this experience also depends on the methodology used and the organization of the structure in which the group works. In my opinion, there are two principal problems: time and class management. It is not always easy to have the boys work together, but we must insist for the undoubted advantages that the Collaborative learning offers.

Mar-España

2018-05-30 15:22:25 UTC

I ussually works with Collaborative .The difficulty that arise is because some of the student didn´t colaborate the enough , so the other students don' t want they in their group. So I pay special attention to the personal work on each group and at any time they can tell me if a student is not collaborating enough.

Amalia, Italy

Amaliam — 2018-05-30 17:38:42 UTC

I often teach with the collaborative learning method. I think that this methos is really good because students work together, by developping their social skills. In this method students interact each other and share their personal experience in order to fulfill their task. In addition to these positive aspects, I think that this method has also any difficulties. For example shy students cut themselves off from the other and have a passive attitude towards the task. In this way the teacher play an important role because the teacher knows in advance his students and could create more balanced group. I uselly give to my shy stuydents an important role. For example they become the group representative. In this way they can overcome their shyness

Dragana , Macedonia

dragananikolova3 — 2018-05-30 21:50:17 UTC

The use of this method requires primarily working conditions (internet, computer, teaching tools ...) and well organized. Collaborative learning is most interesting for students, they explore, develop their creativity, they are solidarity, they cooperate with each other. In addition to acquiring knowledge, they acquire skills. The knowledge and skills acquired through this method are durable.

Rohita, India

2018-05-31 09:54:23 UTC

TO make the collaborative work easy it is very important to remind the students that ultimately the teacher is the leader of the class. Once that is made clear collaborative learning is the best way to develop the students interest and creativity in the subject. They gain confidence as they acquire knowledge through exchange of ideas, because of team work they can also learn how to handle their team members in a professional manner and thus it helps in developing personal relationships too.

Catarina, PT

canrodrigues — 2018-05-31 10:18:24 UTC

Collaborative Learning has lots of advantages. However, students must be familiar with that from the early years. In my school (primary) we are beginning to introduce it in our daily practice.

Rafael Climent, Spain

rclimentmarti — 2018-05-31 10:21:09 UTC

In my field, Business Administration in a VET school, we are always using collaborative learning because we should imitate the world of work. One of the main problem is lack of collaboration of some student. It could be a good solution peer assessment in order to evaluate them. You will be surprised by the marks given by their own colleagues to the less collaborative members.

Marina A., Croatia

marina_antolkovic — 2018-05-31 12:17:51 UTC

In order for the method to be successful, I think my students should be introduced to CL activities gradually. One way to do that is to start with simpler topics before giving them more advanced material. This way, we can avoid wasting time: for students, it's only relevant to introduce them with the assignments and not the procedure.

Anna Gry, Italy

annagrignetti — 2018-05-31 13:47:47 UTC

The difficulties of cooperative learning partly depend on the lack of adequate technologies in the classroom. The greatest difficulty is the fact that only a few teachers use this method and therefore the students are not used to working collaboratively.

Maria DC, Italy

mariadecarlo — 2018-05-31 13:47:54 UTC

The difficulties are related to the lack of technological equipment in the classroom that prevents a more complete research and investigation. The greatest difficulty is the fact that in my school we are only two teachers to work with this method and this involves a difficulty on the part of the students because they are not accustomed and live the hour of activity more as a game than a serious commitment.

Monica, Romania

monicatoderita — 2018-05-31 14:17:34 UTC

I work with primary scool pupils so problems that may arise at the first are collaborative difficulties, acceptance of the other's opinion. These issue are gradually being resolved. when working in a team, often the results are better, but it does happen that not all students get involved as much.

Tanja, Croatia

2018-05-31 15:01:29 UTC

Some pupils don't like to work in groups, lack of technology... a teacher can always make copys, many students have their own smartphones wich could be used... Students can work sometimes also alone, but they have to do the whole product with the team... My students are used to work in team, so I have there no problems...Many teachers in our school do this method

Ferro Filippa, Italy

2018-05-31 15:56:21 UTC

I teach Italian and I have tried to realize the Collaborative Learning in my classroom. In fact the students have worked together in small groups on a specific activity, in order to improve their learning. They have tried to work as a team, developing their skills. Moreover they have defined the goals to achieve and the students have been enngaged in different activities in order to improve their learning. However they have not been able to be responsible for their peers'work and sometimes only some students do most of the work in the group.

Mégane, England

2018-05-31 19:11:48 UTC

I do not really use any large group work as kids tend not to be so confident when they have to speak a foreign language in front of others. However, I make them work by pairs which I carefully selected in order to make them want to work and improve together, thanks to the use of both positive and constructive feedback, with always a massive input on the positivity.

Nurcan Değerli, Turkey

ndegerli — 2018-05-31 21:56:11 UTC

I use collaborative work in my teaching.The students learn from each other. But sometimes some difficulties may arise related to the groups the students work in. Some students can't work in large groups. They want to work in a small group or alone. If some of the students are unwilling to work the others have to work more. That's a problem too. Another thing if the collaborative working group is large, there may be too much noise inb the classroom. If we form the working groups well we can solve these problems and our students have fun with the activites.

Vittoria Volterrani - Italy

user_1412801285 — 2018-06-01 05:32:50 UTC

Collaborative learning is at the base of all my instructional startegies. To develop a structured and a usual collaborative learning you should also work daily on Social and emotional competencies, otherwise you might esperience problems about time, noise, rules respect, efficacy. You can't start CL without having already start a SEL classroom path

Maro Constantinou, Cyprus

mconstantinou1 — 2018-06-01 07:05:20 UTC

CL is important in delivering effectively the educational goals. Collaborative learning strategies, which require relatively small classes or groups actively mentored by an instructor, are necessary in order for World Wide Web-based courses to be as effective as traditional classroom courses (Hiltz, 1998).

The curriculum in each subject is enormous; it is hard to cover all the teaching goals in such a short time. Reduction of subjects in curriculum is essential.

The chemistry of the students forming the group is important, therefore the teacher must know well all the students and form groups with good chemistry, so they can communicate, interact and produce better results.

Lorena Olaru, RO

leoatomix — 2018-06-01 14:01:02 UTC

The assessement is challenging when we use CL in the classroom.
Student group work can result in the production of wikis, reports of case studies, in-class or video presentations, posters etc.

Some ways to provide feedback on group productivity throughout the process as well as on the group product are:

Evaluate students on both their contributions to group processes as well as the final product.
Create a detailed explanation of what your expectations are.
Provide scores for individuals as well as groups.
Use rubrics. Consider asking students for feedback and including some of their ideas to the rubric.
Incorporate peer and self-assessment at various milestones to check in on the assignment progress as well as the group dynamics.
Communicate clearly to students at the beginning how you will calculate their grades.

Daniela Bonomo, Italy

2018-06-01 15:35:28 UTC

I think that collaborative learning could be very productive but roles inside groups should be clear since the beginning.
Teachers should choose carefully pupils for each group, trying to balance them according to their talents and/ or limits.
Regarding roles inside groups teacher should give a responsability to each student, in order to involve all of them actively; one should report researches, one should handle materials/documents, one should present results; these roles of course will turn for each project in order to experience all of them.
Working in team and sharing ideas is part of learning and it should be definetely more practised at school in order to develop team working and communication skills.

Damla Güder, Turkey

dml — 2018-06-01 22:31:27 UTC

CL is a good way of teaching and learning, but of course it wasn't easy, it must be well structured, and I still don't know its using in crowded classes, for example in my 50 students' classes.

Adriana Barcean, Romania

2018-06-02 08:24:02 UTC

When talking about CL it is important to be prepared for difficulties regarding the interaction in the group: different personalities of students that do not work well together, also too many ideas and lack of structure and strategies to get to a final form of the project.

Marta, Poland

2018-06-02 09:28:22 UTC

There's no doubt collaborative learning is an essential skill in current education systems, formal or informal. Using it I often face difficulties as it is a way of learning that must be taught. So for example my students often say - 'I did most of the work, other haven't made much input' etc.. I think it is essential to assign each student with a task in a group so everyone is responsible for something, and they must know they are responsible not only for themselves as individauls but also for the group.

Natalie, Malta

2018-06-02 14:11:30 UTC

Learning using collaborative learning is the way forward in education. Nowadays, even jobs require that people collaborate together to come up with innovative and interactive products. One drawback that I usually encounter with CL is making sure that everybody gives his utmost during the collaborative time. At times children need to be directed into this or modelled how collaborative learning is held. A good solution I found was to appoint a person from each group in charge to delegate and list down the different roles that each student will take part in - like that there will be more control as to who did what and that everybody participated

Colette, Spain

colettejohns — 2018-06-02 15:09:11 UTC

Particularly with younger, primary-aged children, CL can be difficult to implement at first. In an educational system which is quite competitive, it can be difficult to make students understand the benefits of CL. Personally, despite the problems which sometimes arise when trying to implement CL in the classroom when I will then be obliged to give individual assessment of my pupils each term, I believe the benefits outweigh these problems.
It is, of course, important to group pupils together so as to give each member of a team or group an important role and an equal opportunity for participation.

Özlem Senan, Türkiye

ozlemsenan — 2018-06-03 00:04:34 UTC

If you are not careful about group formation, you may be students outside the group. Certain criteria can be set when creating groups. In each study, if the groups in which the different students come together are created, the students become social.

lilugiov — 2018-06-03 05:36:00 UTC

Collaborative learning is a wonderful

Manuela Iacob, Romania

manuela_iacob12 — 2018-06-03 07:56:25 UTC

Collaborative learning obviously has many advantages, even if the teacher needs to be very careful when using this method to form balanced groups. He does not have to let the students be passive or do something else. All students have to contribute in order to learn something useful and to progress

Rosa (Spain

rfuente — 2018-06-03 10:01:52 UTC

I think that CL is an excellent methodology for students. They deal with different parthers and have to discuss with arguments their ideas and opinions.
I think that a good idea is the teacher designs roles for each member of the group in order to get each pupil can carry out his own learningship.
On the contrary, some students could be apart from the work.

Elena FP, Italy

2018-06-04 08:30:21 UTC

I have implemented CL activities during CLIL modules, mainly. Actually, I have done something similar to Jean-Christophe's project this year (political cartoons and the Wall Street Crash)! My students are above 18 (5th grade) so they managed to design their roles themselves and carry on the activities with me just supervising.

Emine ERTAS,Turkey

emilourdes — 2018-06-04 08:52:05 UTC

emilourdes — 2018-06-04 08:53:38 UTC

You are now familiar with the advantages of Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. Can you think of any difficulties that might arise while using this method? Please also share your solutions to the problems in this Padle

Sari Halavaara, Finland

2018-06-04 11:15:02 UTC

I use collaborative learning and problem-solving method regularly in my class. Time management is the main difficulty, it demands a lot of time.

Roberta, Italy My students usually like CL especially if done in small groups; however, some problems may arise occasionally, due to the fact that weaker students tend to rely on more confident students and relax, unless they are constantly urged to participate. Also, time is always an issue at school, of course: as an English teacher I only have 3 hours a week available (and large classes), so I am often forced to ask my students to do part of the work at home, using technology to keep in touch and carry on with their work (eg shared documents, whatsapp groups etc). Finally, some students find it really difficult to plan their work, so they require constant feedback or guidance from the teacher, but I guess this is part of the ‘game’: learning to become more independent.

roberta_cini — 2018-06-04 13:17:13 UTC

Manuela,Brussels

2018-06-04 14:05:43 UTC

Working in groups could be hard especially if you propose to pupils to choose with who they are going to work with.Most of the time they choose friends because it is easier to interact with.
I propose to them other collaboration which could be more balance.

ssylka31 — 2018-06-04 17:26:05 UTC

Ester, Italy

estergas89 — 2018-06-04 21:19:36 UTC

In order to be effective, collaborative learning must be carefully planned. In particular :

we have to pay attention to the groups formation : eterogeneus groups are better for the general economy of the whole work;

we must assign a role to each member of the group, so that everyone is responsible for his/her part;

for the younger students, we must scaffold and monitor their work.

Milijana, Serbia

petrovic_milijana3 — 2018-06-04 21:19:45 UTC

I practice practicing project teaching with students. I respect peer learning, I nourish critical thinking. Lately, I've included parents in projects.

Mihaela Hendres, Romania

2018-06-05 05:00:03 UTC

Some difficulties that might arise whie using CL are:
-Problems with group formation, omogenity and managing conflicts that might arise
-Problems with time management
-Problems with students that want to work alone

Monica Grosu, Romania

corneliaradutodor — 2018-06-05 07:30:12 UTC

Ive used the group activity where the students with the strongest verbal skills or personalities end up taking over the conversation, crowding the rest of the students out. Teaching your students how to have meaningful conversations by introducing the rules of collaborative conversation and giving them specific language to articulate their ideas is a valuable investment.

Holli Iulia, Romania

2018-06-05 17:10:49 UTC

Problems: non-cooperative students, group formation, conflicts.
Solutions: carefully planning ahead, assigning roles, give clear explanations

Maria V, Greece

mbasilopoulou — 2018-06-05 19:45:16 UTC

I believe that the main problem in collaborative learning is that all students may not work as there are always the ones who evade contribution and the others who undertake many roles. The solution is all group members to have a role and possibly decide on a collaboration netiquette from the very beginning. Needless to say teachers should check whether this netiquette is respected and all group members work on their part.

Ourania Lampou, Greece

ranialampou — 2018-06-05 21:03:12 UTC

I have used both collaborative-learning and active-learning techniques s and have encountered a number of significant problems, including the following: 1) many students strongly prefer to work alone and actively dislike dealing with the problems created by having to work in groups; 2) some students are simply irresponsible, fail to do their share of the assigned work, and leave the rest of the group to deal with the irresponsibility; 3) groups tend to have dominant members who often do the work, monopolize the group discussion, and carry less assertive members along with them; 4) superior students often resent having to carry weak or lazy students and worry that their grades will be lowered by having to work with such students;

Krunoslav, Croatia

prof_stefanek — 2018-06-06 04:46:05 UTC

1. not all student do the same amount of work
2. some students do not like the group assignments
3. they still don't have well defined organization skills (primary school) so they tend to lose much time

Kristina, Croatia

klucic5 — 2018-06-06 07:44:01 UTC

I like CL and think it has many more pros then cons. Difficulties that might arise are that group is not coherent, and if not supervised many students take time off.

Ipermahia Christodoulou, Greece

2018-06-06 07:46:00 UTC

I think that students like working in teams and collaborating. Their favourite activity is to present their work to their classmates. Problems such as the organization of the group, can be overcome by allowing students to choose and create their working groups or individually(some of them) if they they want to, at their pace.

Annica, Sweden

FrkenAnnica — 2018-06-06 12:49:19 UTC

I have just finished CL in three of my classes, with different outcomes. Some groups (3 - 4 students in each group) worked very well. Those that did not work well had problems with different levels of ambitions, students absent different lessons, some students are mainly introverts and prefer to work on their own. I had to spend some time explaining that students and humans are different, and that we have to learn to do assignments together with people different from ourselves. That's also valuable knowledge for teens.

Riccardo Lopes, Italy

2018-06-06 20:01:53 UTC

I know the benefits of Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. A critical issue of CL is the individual assessment of students. To solve this critical issue, I consider the development of individual products incardinated in the group project, so as to recognize the individual contribution of each student.

I also consider carefully the self-assessment (generally I find a great honesty in the self-assessment of my students) and peer evaluation

Milena, Serbia

2018-06-07 16:51:22 UTC

Collaborative Learning is the classroom has so many advantages. One of the difficulties that might arise is uneven participation due to introverts, shy students, overly ambitious students, dominant students...

Karim Tunisia

2018-06-08 01:26:38 UTC

I use collaborative learning and problem-solving method regularly in my class. Team management and timeline of project is the main difficulty, it demands a lot of time.

Lavinia, Romania

laviniamuresan4 — 2018-06-08 11:42:58 UTC

Collaborative learning in the class is very useful and has a lot of advantages. However, from the beginning, one big problem is organizing and selecting the groups.

Mariella Brunazzi, Italy

2018-06-08 14:37:34 UTC

I often use collaborative learning and the difficulties that may arise are:
- not every members in a group collaborate
- responsibility is not equally shared
- one or two students may prevaricate
- lack of communication
- difficulty organising work and finishing on time.
Peer assessment and self-assessment activities to make the students reflect on what they are on they are not doing may be useful.

Vanesa,Spain.

2018-06-08 18:34:56 UTC

I always use collaborative learning with my pupils in order to achieve tasks quickly and make sure that they assimilate different contents. As well as some pupils need to do the tasks in group. I love the contests where they really work in group in order to gain points.

Hakan TATLI

2018-06-08 19:32:14 UTC

Kayseri
I love CL'yi. I think that these studies are fruitful in the downsides and downs.

Sonia, Spain

sonia_marlo — 2018-06-08 20:06:45 UTC

I think collaborative Learning is a great tool to use in class. But, with small children it has to be very guided, for you have to ensure that they really collaborate, and not that one does all the work and let the others do nothing.
For this you have to give them tasks personally.

Jasna, Serbia

ets_racunari — 2018-06-08 20:40:40 UTC

It is difficult to find right portion of collaboration - students have different level of knowledge, different skills, different personalities - and teacher should prepare scenario where every student can use that potential in order to help as much as he/she can. It is difficult to set that kind of scenario.

Paloma, Spain

2018-06-08 21:31:01 UTC

Collaborative learning is a very fruitful way to teach and learn but it is sometimes difficult to carry out in the first years of Primary Education.

Elvisa, Croatia

elvisa_halkic — 2018-06-09 13:22:55 UTC

There are great benefits of Collaborative Learning in teaching, especially in project teaching. The biggest problem in organizing such classes is the high quality of inclusion of students with learning difficulties and lack of computer equipment. Disabled students need more time, better preparation, and help with task execution. Teacher of such teaching presents a challenge.

vita, Italia

2018-06-09 20:52:31 UTC

the advantages of collaborative learning are many, I as a teacher had only one problem: that of transforming an evaluation made through a column into decimal grades

Sara Viotti, Italy

adagobettigenova — 2018-06-09 21:37:04 UTC

In order of assess the collaborative work of the students, I think that sharing with them rubrics it is a good way to do it.

Konstantina, Greece

konstantinakokmotou — 2018-06-10 17:50:27 UTC

Maybe it seems difficult to younger students. Small groups may be a solution.

Samet Yavuz TERZİ , TURKEY

2018-06-11 12:57:55 UTC

Grouping students with regular planning, organizing preliminary studies, optimizing input - product process

Dhurata, Albania

2018-06-11 17:14:43 UTC

I often develop projects in small groups, even though we do not have computers at school. Teachers are taught by traditional teaching and often the leaders do not allow us to get out of the strict rules of instruction.
Pupils are more creative when they work on different themes of projects.

Nilüfer Güreşçi

nil35b — 2018-06-11 21:07:16 UTC

I can use collaborative works of the students

İbrahim Turk, TÜRKEY

ogr_ibrahimturk — 2018-06-12 11:37:53 UTC

it is beneficial for the students to apply the methods of peer assessment, which I think will be beneficial for them.

Marta,Croatia

marta_perak — 2018-06-12 19:30:41 UTC

The benefits of collaborative learning are great for the development of 21st century student competencies. The problem is in assessing each student.

Lilian Villafuerte, Spain

2018-06-13 06:18:17 UTC

One of the difficulties could be placing disturbing students in a group. The solution to this problem will be to apply Zone of proximal development of Vygotsky. In this way, the most skillful and self-regulated students may support the less one.

Belén, Spain

mbgomezr — 2018-06-14 11:01:18 UTC

There are more benefits than difficulties of Collaborative learning.
To make the groups I think that we should give them roles to organiza the work and even, if they are in Primary Education it would be a help for them.
To assess Collaborative Learning I would use rubrics.

Carmen Rafecas, Spain

crafecasc — 2018-06-14 17:25:31 UTC

Yes, some difficulties might arise. Problems of network connection, different levels of knowledge in the use of new technologies, lack of time in class, lack of computers. Therefore, complement the Europeana materials and use them together with other materials and other simple techniques to enhance group creativity, such as brainstorming with cards and post-it. Or explain the contents learned in a group by performing a play.

Željka, Croatia

sikiczeljka — 2018-06-14 19:26:07 UTC

Collaborative learning has many benefits for students. Difficulties can show up if the pupils are too much different or they have a problem in comunication. Also problem can be in level of inclusion of every student in project and in collaborative work. The solution of problems can be in carefully putting together the groups or in putting the exact rules of the group.

Juha-Pekka Lehtonen

2018-06-14 19:50:21 UTC

Have been using CL in the class room with my colleague Ms. Halavaara fot last deacade and more the biggest difficulty is always the timetable the school can give us to make this scenario to realize in its full potential. Only in courses which are optional for the students and where we can rely on they previous competencies, it is possible.

Sevi Özışık- Istanbul

sozisik — 2018-06-15 11:01:09 UTC

CL is very useful. ut it is very important to encourage the students and make a group.

İsmail ERDOĞAN, Çanakkale, Turkey

aseka — 2018-06-15 13:46:51 UTC

CL term is a new word for Europe. In my country, this concept has been used for centuries, thus it is not difficult to adapt.

Alina Balan, Romania

allapryl_me — 2018-06-15 19:07:43 UTC

Inequal work...the solution could be autoevaluation during the learning process and peer evaluation as well.

Gabriella, Italy

2018-09-19 19:45:03 UTC

CL is a very functional approach, but the result is very deeply connected with the quality of the group work, if some components do not contribute or are not agreeable, the workload can prove quite a bit to manage, but having a working phase to design roles and tasks could help.

Lucia,Crotone

luciasalatino25 — 2018-09-24 21:03:42 UTC

I personally think that Collaborative learning is so important for students but it can be a very dramatic method if there are no rules inside the class and students are very talkative

Şerife/Turkey

serife_aybek — 2018-11-30 06:30:55 UTC

technological problems

2018-12-28 20:46:45 UTC

technological problems

Adeviye Alcıl Turkey

deyados — 2019-01-26 21:52:44 UTC

Problems may arise due to internet connection.

Željka, Croatia

zeljkastar — 2019-02-02 09:53:54 UTC

Collaborative learning is realy useful and it gives so many benefits to students . The problem is in choosing the proper groups of students, who will know how to distribute the tasks among themselves. "Weaker" students tend to avoid participating in the tasks and they leave all the work to "stronger" students. The solution could be in experimenting with the groups, until we put the right studente work together.

ALEYNA/DÜZCE PROBLEMS MAY ARİSE DUE TO İNTERNET CONNECTİON

aleyna_nuray — 2019-03-11 20:51:56 UTC

m.sahin

2019-05-14 07:04:39 UTC

Cooperative learning is useful for students. Students are very different or difficulties may arise if they have a problem with comunication.These difficulties provide positive interaction for students the solution of problems is easily achieved by bringing groups together carefully.

MALAKISMENA

2021-01-20 15:05:51 UTC