What is Community of Learning

Distress at school is one of the most pressing issues currently facing our school systems. There is, however, very little debate, discussion, research, or information on this matter, notwithstanding the fact that this distress can have a serious impact on the lives of the students affected, leading them to limit or to end their studies. This chapter aims to open up a debate on the social role that schools should play in order to combat the distress of students who live in areas remote from cities, who suffer a range of problems that can be both synchronous (student-student) or complementary (teacher-student). Here the difficulty manifested has been approached through cooperative learning, a methodology designed to activate a system of helping relationships, which result in the full involvement of each student in a number of key areas: collaborative structuring of the activity, assignment of roles, and co-constructive assessment.