Role of teacher in collaborative learning

    

  Teachers could be said to have an ambivalent status in theories and studies of collaborative learning. On the one hand, a lot of technological innovation in school classrooms has been driven by the aim of transforming teaching and learning from ‘teacher-led’ whole-class instruction to more ‘pupil-centred’ practices which has been based on a new view of pupils who are no longer to be regarded as vessels to be filled with information imparted by the teacher, but instead as active constructors of knowledge. 

Consequently, there have been attempts to transfer authority from teachers to pupils during learning activities on the resulting tensions for the teacher’s role in problem-based learning. 

Yet, on the other hand, it has always been recognized that teachers still play a crucial, albeit new, role during collaborative learning activities. Conceptions of the learning process rooted in notions such as ‘scaffolding’ acknowledge that the teacher, although no longer the ‘sage on the stage’, nevertheless has to act as a ‘coach’, ‘facilitator’, or ‘guide’ for pupils.The teacher’s job begins in earnest when the cooperative learning groups start working. Resist that urge to get a cup of coffee or to grade papers. Teachers observe the interaction among group members to assess students’ academic progress and appropriate use of interpersonal and small-group skills.

Based on these observations, teachers can then intervene to improve students’ academic learning or interpersonal and small-group skills.

Across the literature we find a tension where teachers have been conceptualised in both negative and positive terms: as authority figures that threaten to relieve pupils of self-directed opportunities to learn and as important facilitators that guide and stimulate pupils’ learning activities. 

 Collaborative group work has great potential to promote student learning, and increasing evidence exists about the kinds of interaction among students that are necessary to achieve this potential. Less often studied is the role of the teacher in promoting effective group collaboration.

Of course, there are a variety of exceptions. There is an extensive literature that provides practical advice and guidelines for teachers on how to implement collaborative and cooperating learning activities, for example, how to structure such activities, how to group pupils, how to deal with diversity among pupils, how to give feedback, or how to engender a cooperative learning pedagogy in the classroom.