What is Collaborative Learning

Refers to small group activity in the classroom. Although AC is more than just teamwork by students, the idea behind it is simple: students form "small teams" after receiving instructions from the teacher. Within each team, students exchange information and work on a task until all its members have understood and finished it, learning through collaboration.

Collaborative learning is the small group didactic use in which the students work together to obtain the best learning results both individually and in others.

Collaborative learning is not only a set of steps to work in an orderly manner in a group, much more than that it is a philosophy of life, in which the participants are clear that the whole of the group is more than the sum of its parts.

This way of working in the classroom represents an opportunity for teachers, through the design of their activities, to promote in their students the development of skills, attitudes and values. For example: capacity for analysis and synthesis, communication skills, collaborative attitude, willingness to listen, tolerance, respect and order, among others.

Currently the use of collaborative activities is a widespread practice at all educational levels. It is particularly recommended for the secondary, preparatory and first semesters of professional level.

Differences between Cooperation and Collaboration

In the educational field there has been debate regarding the use of the terms cooperation and collaboration. This distinction has been made based on the degree of structuring of the interaction process of the students, that is, the more structured and guided the activity is, it will be cooperative and to the extent that the students manage to carry out their activities with greater autonomy, it will be collaborative.I recomment this youtube video

https://www.edutopia.org/topic/collaborative-learning