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Collaborative Practices
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ChallengesWhat Are the Potential Challenges of Collaboration? By: Melissa Keith
The benefits of collaborative learning have been well documented for over twenty years now; however, when preparing a basic writing course, one must consider the potential shortcomings of collaboration in order to be best prepared to handle problems if they arise. Collaboration and the Social Nature of Learning Stephen L. Fox, in “Inviting Students to Join the Literacy Conversation: Toward a Collaborative Pedagogy for Academic Literacy,” writes about the need for instructors to invite underprepared (also referred to as “basic” or “remedial”) students to participate in language and literacy together because they are social processes. Even though the social nature of learning has been well accepted, John Trimbur criticizes Bruffee’s social constructionist label because it “causes him to overvalue social practices and thus to deny the primacy of individual consciousness in creating knowledge” (603). Ultimately, it is up to the student to do the learning, to create the knowledge. Suzanne Clark and Lisa Ede also believe that collaborative learning can limit the view of literacy; it can ignore the crucial roles of culture, ideology, and politics, and these theories of collaboration can “contribute to an autonomous model of literacy, one that assumes that the classroom can function as a neutral site of learning…” (278), and the overemphasis on community is naïve because it, too, “ignores powerful cultural, political, and ideological realities” (277). What Do I Need to Know about Cross-Cultural Collaboration? Many theorists (Lunsford and Ede, Schlib) write about the contexts of collaboration, and how it affects women, minorities and other groups that have been socially discriminated against. Hum Sue Yin writes about the effect of the patriarchal education system in her article “Collaboration: Proceed with Caution.” She writes, “Both male and female students have internalized the values of the educational system—creativity, individuality, freedom, and self-reliance. Expecting them to work together successfully and comfortably goes against the grain of these students’ knowledge-making practices” (29). What Role Does Gender Play in Collaboration? However, one may find that encouraging students to explore these differences will help better prepare them for the diverse world of the academy, which is one of the main goals that Fox identifies for any beginning composition course. Collaboration and Oppressive Institutions Thia Wolf argues that advocates of collaboration insist that working in groups will help students gain authority, but the context of the classroom is only one small part of larger institutions—the academic institution, the state that this academic institution serves, and the national and international networks—that work against students gaining authority. These institutions, in fact, can be seen as working towards reproducing oppression (91). Even though one of the pioneering ideas behind collaboration is to rid classrooms of authoritarian instruction, the classroom is a difficult place to make collaboration work because school is a place that promotes social and institutional values (Roskelly 145). Roskelly poses the question, “How can students liberate themselves and indoctrinate themselves at the same time?” (142) Stephen L. Fox seemingly replies to this question with another: “How can we claim to be initiating students into academic discourse—inviting them to act like members of such a community—if they remain dependent on our explicit instruction and evaluation?” (38) He cites several sites of collaboration in the academic community: faculty committee meetings, conferences, and peer review of articles (38). To Fox, collaboration is a necessary learning tool if students are to acclimate themselves into the academic community. Multiple People Can Bring Multiple Problems Students often enjoy the social arena that collaboration produces in the classroom. Romana P. Hillebrand records some positive outcomes from students who collaborated in her classroom in “Control and Cohesion: Collaborative Learning and Writing”:
However, some theorists have argued that problems of conformity arise in groups when students come to consensus too quickly. Trimbur believes that consensus is one of the most misunderstood qualities of collaboration. He acknowledges the criticism that consensus can lead to a totalitarian practice; that it can be dangerous because it suppresses individual voice, creativity and differences, while creating conformity at the same time (602). Trimbur, however, also states the possibilities of consensus:
David Bleich points out that it takes time for collaboration to be successful. Working together, no matter who is in the group, takes time because students need to build trust (44). Trust ultimately becomes one of the main issues that students have working in groups. Students have been taught by the academic institution to depend on themselves. In many cases, students are only motivated by grades in school, and being thrown into a situation where they are then required to depend on others can be uncomfortable—even threatening (Yin 31). Through collaboration, students are no longer only tied to the educational system’s agenda; they are tied to the agendas of their group members (Wolf 93). This becomes problematic for students because they know that grades are often given to the group as a whole, and individual efforts can go unseen. And the Potential Challenges of Collaboration Are:
It’s important to look at these potential issues in hopes of being better prepared for them when they occur. |