Wednesday 13 March 2019

How Do Digital Classrooms Help Create a Collaborative Learning Environment?




We are living in an era of digital transformation where the information society is transforming towards a knowledge society. Feeding society with adequate information is the key to promoting education for building a strong nation. To do so, what we exactly need is a digital infrastructure.

Access to technology and proper implementation of it to promote education and provide adequate information for the same can render a civil society. Digital infrastructure for the dissemination of information can facilitate and empower the educators to acquire knowledge and advanced skills for critical thinking, solving various problems, promoting collaboration, and creating an environment of teamwork among several others. At the same time, it creates a collaborative learning environment, promoting participatory education through development communication.

What is collaborative learning? 

Collaborative learning is an advanced educational approach to teaching and learning. It involves groups of students brainstorming and working together in solving a particular problem, completing a task, or creating a product.

As the name suggests, collaborative learning is based on the idea of collaboration among the participants where they talk among themselves to learn, think and discover something for bringing positive social changes. 

Collaborative learning process can include the following

Advanced learners or the students get and assimilate the information and relate new information to new knowledge based on a framework of prior knowledge.

The collaborative learning process needs the challenge to open the door for the learners to actively engage his/her groups or peers to process and synthesize information rather than simply studying, memorizing and regurgitating it.

Learners get opportunities to develop their knowledge and skill exposed to diverse viewpoints from the people of varied backgrounds.

In a collaborative learning environment, the learners face both social and emotional challenges when they listen to different perspectives. They need to study, brainstorm and innovate something to articulate and defend their ideas coming from the people of varied backgrounds. To do so, the learners start creating their own unique conceptual frameworks and platforms to converse with peers in order to accept, defend and develop ideas. They get an opportunity to exchange diverse beliefs and question others in conceptual frameworks. Thus, they keep them engaged in the process of collaborative learning.

Learning gets flourished in a social environment where the conversation between the learners takes place.

What are collaborative classrooms?

A collaborative classroom is an advanced classroom engaging both students and teachers in group learning. Unlike the traditional classrooms filled with rows of desks, collaborative classrooms include tables and chairs so that both students and teachers can sit and work together in small groups. It must include ready to access internet connections, multimedia displays and collaboration software. The group tables, various internet access points, shared tabletop displays, and wall displays with unrestricted lines of view will encourage in sharing and exchanging information and knowledge through a participatory model.

It needs an instructor station, quiet HVAC, simple remote control of the technology, modern tabletop displays, and configurable audio/video.

How digital classrooms help create a collaborative learning environment

Digital classrooms help learners to participate and exchange knowledge through various access points and digital channels. They can create various social media groups, online chat systems and other digital channels available in digital classrooms to get in touch with others and share knowledge between them. They can post problems and new challenges coming to their area of study and find answers through a participatory and collaborative approach. Thus, they have a chance to access concrete information, develop their knowledge, boost skills to solve various problems coming to their specialized domains and enhance the power to face upcoming challenges.

In other words, they can form a development communication model to bring about positive social changes.    

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