Enhancing Active Learning Pedagogy through Online Collaborative Learning

Introduction

The increased demand for higher education has made online learning more popular and appealing to many stakeholders including working staff and students. Although online learning has gained popularity, it still criticized of being a faceless medium that does little to support social interaction. Social constructivism scholars argue that knowledge is constructed through social activities. Hence, knowledge developed through collaborative learning is more than what can be achieved by an individual alone (Brindley, Blaschke, & Walti, 2009; Moller, 1998).

Researchers have suggested that learning is more effective if peers collaborate and share ideas when solving a task as group rather than as individuals (David W Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Similarly, by introducing online collaborative learning environment, it is possible to have social interaction and learning between peers in an online learning environment. However, social interaction experienced in an online learning environment lacks the face to face interactions typical in a classroom environment. This gives online learning a major disadvantage even though its demand continues to rise.

According to Prince (2004), active learning requires students to be engaged in the learning process. Therefore, collaborative learning through group work among students can enhance active learning by changing the traditional teacher-centered learning environment into leaner-centered where students take charge of the learning process. In addition, active learning can be enhanced through flipped classroom by devoting students in collaborative work during class time through interactive group discussions or projects and students can watch lectures videos at home (Bishop & Verleger, 2013; Tucker, 2012).

In light of these facts, this book chapter provides some literature review on collaborative learning and presents literature on the critical aspects for online collaborative learning. The critical aspects which have been discussed include: how to analyze collaboration, group formation techniques, students’ perceived challenges and intelligent support techniques such as Machine Learning in an online collaborative learning environment. This chapter also discusses how online collaboration tools can be used in a flipped classroom. The authors have suggested on how to improve online collaborative learning in order to enhance active learning and highlighted some areas for future research in the view of improving active learning pedagogy.