various performance levels 

work together in 

small groups

toward a 

common goal.

It is a 

learner

-

centred approach

derived from social learning theories as well as the socio

-

constructivist perspective on 

learning. Collaborative learning is a relationship amo

ng learners that fosters 

positive 

interdependence, individual accountability, 

and 

interpersonal skills. 

For collaborative 

learning to be effective, teaching must be viewed as a process

of 

developing students’ 

ability to learn.

The 

teacher

’s role is not to transmit information, but to serve as 

a facilitator 

for learning. 

This involves creating and managing meaningful learning experiences and 

stimulating learners’ thinking through 

real

-

world problems

. The task must be 

clearly 

defined

and be

guided by specific objectives.

Sometimes cooperative and collaborative 

learning are used interchangeably but cooperative work usually involves dividing work 

among the team members, whilst collaborative work means 

all

team members tackle the 

problems togeth

er i

n a coordinated effort.

According to

research reviews, 

collaborative learning enhances:

•

Academic achievement

•

Student attitudes (e.g. openness to diversity)

•

Student engagement

•

Student retention

(Prince, P. 2004; 

Davidson & Howell Major 2014

)

Moreover, 

c

ollaborative learning contributes to the development of specific skills

, 

including:

•

Leadership competences

•

Self

-

evaluation

•

Listening skills

•

Presentation skills

•

Skills of persuasion & negotiation

•

Team working skills

(Jacques & Salmon, 2007)

You can access t

hese 

references and 

articles in the resource section of this module.

requires the students predominantly to work alone. 
Code 2: students are

required to work in pairs or groups, they have shared responsibility but they may have not shared responsibility. 
Code 3: they have shared responsibility, but they arent' making substantive 

decisions. 
Code 4: I know students are working in 

groups, they have shared responsibilities but they do not make the substantive decisions. If they do 

make substantive decisions, but their work is not interdependent. 
Code 5: it means students are working in pairs or groups, they have shared 

responsibility, they are making substantive decisions and their work is interdependent. 

Ask, Remake and Show. In the first phase “Dream”, students can brainstorm,

think freely and 

share ideas. In the “Explore” phase, students collect information on a certain topic. In the 

“Map” phase, they structure their thoughts and ideas and seek to understand how they are 

related. In the “Make” phase, students develop or create

a product or practice an activity. 

One possible activity for students in the “Ask” phase is to interview experts and 

stakeholders. In the “Remake” phase students replan or revisit their product, on the basis of 

the feedback or further information they received. In the last phase “Show”, students 

publish and present the results of their work.

small teams, I prefer to set up groups in order to ensure objectivity and

freedom of judgement. 

 I think it is better to pair 

classmates who don't know each other well or to use a

random name picker tool which 

automatically teams them up, like the one you can see here 

Or here:

http://www.miniwebtool. com/random-name picker/
 What to assess: the emphasis should be put 

on assessing the development of team work skills and the results achieved by the group, much more than evaluating individual successes.
How to assess: If

our goal is to provide information to the learners about their progress, we ne

ed instruments to 

collect information that we can display in the shape of scales, trend lines or graphics. Here our choice of instruments include Likert scales, checklists, rubrics and quizzes with detailed feedback. When the purpose of the assessment is to provide further information

to the teacher 

for example, using info

graphics, mind maps, portfolios, blogs or multimedia presentations

can be appropriate options.
Constructing rubrics: To construct a rubric the first step is to decide on

the level of knowledge

that the rubric should 

assess. 

The next step is to

establish assessment criteria and progress 

levels

for each criterion. Usually 

we use 4 levels of progress, assigning 1 as the lowest level furthest away from reaching the 

objectives, and 4 as the highest 

level, closest to reaching the objectives. Each level needs a clear 

descriptor to avoid any doubts.

It’s important to bear in mind two important tips when constructing 

rubrics. The first is that as noted by the researcher Brookhart, the biggest mistake tea

chers make 

when using rubrics is that they focus on the task or product, and not the learning outcome or 

proficiency the task is supposed to get students to demonstrate. Therefore

,

when constructing 

a 

rubric make sure your criteria is based on characterist

ics of the learning outcome, and not of the task 

itself. Another tip is that involving

students in the design of rubrics is really effective. When students 

are involved in defining the criteria and identifying quality descriptors

,

they are much more able t

o 

understand and identify with the assessment objectives.

A detailed step

-

by

-

step process on 

strategies involving students in rubric design is provided in the CO

-

LAB Assessment Guidelines.
 Using checklists: Checklists 

help

us to identify 

flaws of 

attention, memory and accuracy. Before starting to build a checklist, we need to d

efine its purpose and to bear in mind that it should 

be as short as possible. The ideal is to have between five and 

ten

items, 

which is

within the 

limitations of our working memory. 

The wording should

be simple, accurate and belong to the 

common lexicon of

context. The layout 

should 

have a sober typography, with appropriate use of 

case, 

be 

easy to read, 

and ideally occupy

no more than one page. 

Finally, it

should be of quick 

application.

Make sure you check out the example checklists for students to use to 

assess their own 

and their peer’s collaborative skills, provided in the CO

-

LAB Assessment Guidelines available in the 

resource section of this module. 

The specific rubric and checklists referred to in this video were 

designed in relation to the CO

-

LAB sce

nario ‘Collaborative work 

–

Towards a Healthy City’ 

–

available 

in Module 2’s resource section. 

Please note

however

that these tools have been designed to be 

easily adaptable, so 

that you can also use them in re

lation to 

all the

CO

-

LAB Scenarios

as well as any 

new collaborative learning scenario you design yourself. This means that you can tailor the 

assessment 

tools to suit your own specific teaching and learning context.

We hope you find them 

useful

Although it is possible to use any tool to make a diagnostic assessment, it is important to opt for 

simple, clear and fast to use tools and, preferably, tools that can cover the aspects we are planning to use more in the future. For this purpose it seems

appropriate to use a rubric covering the following 

four dimensions:

-factual (facts, events), 

-conceptual (concepts, ideas), 

-procedural (how to do), 

-meta-cognitive (explanations).
Peer assessment:

Asking students to give a public opinion about the work of their peers involves being responsible, and 

complying with the clearly specified criteria and use of qualitative scales or equivalent levels of 

proficiency.

easily 

be transferred to other learning contexts. 
A percentage value can be assigned to these assessment dimensions and descriptors established in 

order to help us to quantify the weight of each of these indicators in the whole assessment. For 

example, we want to pay attention to the assertiveness of their interventions, as well as the quality 

and relevance of their questions and answers. So, we can consider:

-

their ability to negotiate,

-

their ability to persuade others,

-

their ability to integrate

ideas from others, including different or contrary ideas.

We can give value to:

-

their respect of unusual viewpoints or inventive ideas

-

their originality

-

their individual handicaps

Sometimes cooperative and collaborative learning are used interchangeably but cooperative work usually involves dividing work among the team members, whilst collaborative work means all team members tackle the problems together in a coordinated effort.

In a nutshell, this is what we should have in mind when setting up collaborative work in the classroom.

 

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It is essentially diagnostic testing and it can be formal or informal, as students do not necessarily need to receive a grade for the learning activity. The main aim is to provide both student and teacher with valuable feedback. This will enable them to keep track of the student's progress. 

Formative assessment also helps teachers to improve their teaching strategies as it informs them about the efficacy of their teaching and shows whether the students have mastered a concept or they still need to work on it. 

 

2. Self-assessment is a form of Assessment as Learning because it involves students in the assessing and monitoring of their own learning process. It basically focuses on individuals and their commitment, motivation, engagement in teamwork as well as their ability to achieve personal goals. By reflecting on their learning, students become aware of their weaknesses and strengths and can better focus their efforts for improvement. It is important to teach students how to self-assess, as for many it is difficult to assess their own skills and knowledge. 

 

3. ​Summative assessment refers to the Assessment of the Learning. It aims to provide a formal academic record of students’ learning progress and to establish proficiency levels. It measures the levels of knowledge gained by students over a specific period of time and results in a grade. 

 A rubric is a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work and articulates gradations of quality for each criterion, from excellent to poor (Goodrich, 1996). The use of rubrics is a quick and effective way of collecting information on students’ learning and can be used to provide feedback to stakeholders. Rubrics are very useful as they are flexible and effective for both self- and peer assessment. 

 

Teachers can also use them to give formative feedback if the descriptors are sufficiently clear and objective. Goodrich (1996) states that "rubrics can improve student performance, as well as monitor it, by making teachers' expectations clear and by showing students how to meet these expectations".