Enseñanza & Teaching (Jan 2013)
Indicators of analysis of collaborative learning processes in university virtual environments
Abstract
Collaborative learning is characterized for the fact that pupils work together to help itself in the resolution of problems, the exchange of information, the production of knowledge and the improvement of the social interaction. The challenge of the collaborative learning mediated for virtual environments consists of finding ways of organizing the tasks and of forming the resources that his point of view leads the participants to modifying by means of the development of skills and competitions in order to reach commitments and to obtain the shared aims (Crook, 1998; Gros, 2005; Johnson, Johnson and Holubec, 1999; Monereo, 2005). The aim of this article is to present the results of a research that tried to obtain the indicators of collaborative virtual learning processes at the university. We studied the answers to a questionnaire of 56 students of degree of the Open University of Catalonia, organized in 15 groups of collaborative learning. The results obtained state the presence of a few organizational phases in the collaborative learning process and of a few indicators for every phase, which, in addition, they relate significantly to a better academic result of the group. We would emphasize, in this respect, the related indicators of a priority way with the process of formation of the workgroups that is realized during the phase of beginning; the agreements taken inside the group during the phase of planning; the aspects of communication and of attitudes that have to be given during the phase of development; the positive valuation of the results of the collaborative learning during the phase of closing; and, finally, the utilization of a technological resource. We can affirm that the collaborative learning is possible in a social environment and of relation that prioritizes the communication and the exchange, and it is in this context that ICT facilitates some characteristics of learning environment.
