The Role of Collaborative Learning in the Online Education
Hwangji Lu, Robert Smiles
Abstract
Collaboration or teamwork is indispensable in today’s workplace. The continual and increasingly rapid change in the external environment requires professionals equipped with unique skill sets to work together and solve problems collaboratively. It is the higher education institution’s responsibility to prepare students for the necessary skills expected by the employers. Collaborative learning is an active learning approach that two or more students team up toward common goals. The knowledge and product are created through the active, social, and engaging process. Students develop communication, interpersonal, metacognitive thinking, and problemsolving skills, as well as their understanding of the diverse perspectives for real-world profession-related situations. Furthermore, working in a team could reduce student’s feelings of isolation in the online learning environment. As such more and more online programs incorporate collaborative learning into their curricula. In this paper, the benefits, challenges, and solutions to challenges in collaborative learning are presented and discussed.