My thoughts about collaborative learning and work in groups

In today's class we have learnt about collaborative learning and all the different roles that are in it. This type of learning seems to work in paper as it gives less pressure to those students who have less knowledge and serves as interaction between different students. The main idea behind this is that all team members are able to work together in order to achieve a common goal.

Theoretically speaking, by dividing the class into different groups, those who know less will be helped out by those who have a higher knowledge about the activity in hand and everything will work out perfectly. Moreover, this will be good for all team members as they will be able to hear different opinions and beneficiate from it. Another important fact wourld be that students would be more receptive and it would be easier for them to learn about a subject when working with classmates and explaining it to each to each other.

Whether it may be true that there will be groups where everything will run smoothly , there will also be other groups in which one or two of their participants won't be working or will be doing the bare minimum. This will affect in a negative way into their teamwork and therefore, their final mark will be resented. Some of the participants will try their best to avoid their group getting a bad grade and, in doing this, the group will end up getting an average grade. Even though this grade will sufice for those who didn't work at all whereas it will be considered insufficient for the rest. Another negative point will be the level of stress that some of the students will undergo in the process as the teacher will evaluate them as a whole team and not as individuals, not appreciating their personal efforts.

To sum up, I believe that in order to guarantee that this methodology actually works and to be able to profit from its advantages, it is imperative that the teacher takes regular control of the progress of his students. For instance, the teacher will be able to detect if there is any problem within the group as well as redirect the implementation of the methodology if there is any deviation from its original course.