Designing collaborative learning

The key element of collaborative learning is for students to take responsibility for their learning. This requires strategies which give students both immediate and long-term reasons to prepare for their classes and engage with the subject and their peers. In many cases this is done through checks and rewards for preparation as well as a structure which allows in-class collaboration between students. In Team-Basad Learning these are achieved through readiness tests as a way of encouraging preparation and valuing team activity through structured team exercises and assignments.

Grouping weekly topics creates a manageable number of different aspects of the checks/rewards (Readiness Tests) and in-class team work (Team exercises/assignments) in a semester as both staff and students will be exhausted if these are run every week. It also allows students to see how what they are studying can form a coherent whole.