Abstract
The increasing diversity in students’ enrolment in higher education in Norway offers an opportunity to use collaborative learning and teamwork as a learning vehicle to exploit the synergy in the community to have formal and informal agoras. Theoretical and empirical observation of the value of team processes provides the framework to personify our understanding of learning and present a model for teaching in higher education in Norway. We consider learning as a holistic process and one must appreciate its dynamics and be flexible and responsive to it. Moreover, such a view of the entire process necessitates an active communication with all stakeholders of the system and to make an integrative and coordinated effort to ensure availability of the required institutional resources, equitable distribution of the students’ resources, and a smooth transition from the traditional lecturing to this form of collaborative learning to make higher educational institution a learning organization. We report a positive feedback from the students attending two courses at School of Business at HiOA, indicating that students consider this teaching method adding more value compared to traditional lecturing.
Highlights
Over the last two decades we observe a proliferation of development of alternative teaching methods and their integration with traditional programs (Colvin, 2007)
Such a view of the entire process necessitates an active communication with all stakeholders of the system and to make an integrative and coordinated effort to ensure availability of the required institutional resources, equitable distribution of the students’ resources, and a smooth transition from the traditional lecturing to this form of collaborative learning to make higher educational institution a learning organization
We report a positive feedback from the students attending two courses at School of Business at HiOA, indicating that students consider this teaching method adding more value compared to traditional lecturing
Summary
Over the last two decades we observe a proliferation of development of alternative teaching methods and their integration with traditional programs (Colvin, 2007). Contrary to the orthodox conduit of ‘teacher is the only authority’, collaborative learning bases itself on accepting and granting authority among students (Fougner, Tønnesson, & Utne, 2008; Michaelsen, Knight, & Fink, 2004) This construct weaves teacher, tutor and tutee into a learning community (Fougner, 2011), where dynamics of social interaction help facilitate an inclusive learning environment because we consider teaching and learning as highly social activities from a social-cognitive theoretical perspective (Bandura, 1986; Vygotsky, Cole, John-Steiner, Scribner, & Souberman, 1978).
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have