ERIC Number: EJ1337709
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 8
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-1383
EISSN: N/A
A Call for Placing Collaborative Learning at the Core of a College Education
Conrad, Clifton; Lundberg, Todd
Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, v54 n2 p22-29 2022
Despite decades of conversations about student engagement, student success is rarely measured in terms of the capabilities of students to learn with, from, and for others--what Clifton Conrad and Todd Lundberg define as collaborative learning. From their perspective, positioning individual learning as the cornerstone of a college education falls short of preparing students to thrive in their personal lives and to contribute in their workplace and public lives. For 5 years, they have been shifting through what they learned about collaborative learning in a 5-year study of 12 minority-serving institutions (MSIs; Conrad & Gasman, 2015). Guided by these findings, they pieced together practices in the MSIs and across the nation's colleges and universities that place "collaborative learning" at the core of the undergraduate experience. Their study led them to believe that college can and should be a place where students, teachers, and their communities learn together through a shared approach to problem solving. In this article, after reflecting on why collaborative learning remains on the margins at most institutions, Conrad and Lundberg advance their argument for redefining college student success as participation in problem solving that prepares students to join together to take up shared problems that face communities, the nation, and the world. They conclude by identifying core practices aligned with their definition of collaborative learning and outlining four pathways to situating collaborative learning throughout the undergraduate experience.
Descriptors: Cooperative Learning, Undergraduate Study, Minority Serving Institutions, Educational Practices, Problem Solving, Definitions, Educational Change, Role of Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A