Collaboration vs. Cooperation & Games in Education

In class today, we discussed the differences between collaboration and cooperation. Through our actitivies today, I thought it was interesting to observe the differences between working in groups online and working in groups in person. It was obvious that working in groups in-person was more efficient than working in groups online, because decisions could be made in a shorter amount of time, instead of having to wait for everyones' responses. However, working together in person had its own challenges. Some people dominated the conversations, leaving others with little opportunity to assist in the activity. Recently I read something that said that the level of effort someone puts in to a group activity depends on how significant he or she perceives his or her part is to the group as a whole. I believe this is true, and in order to allow everyone the opportunity to work together, as in collaboration, and not just give ideas to others, as in communication, individuals must have a better perception of the importance and significance of thier role in the group. Thus roles are a good way to help motivate group members to participate.

As a method used in many situations, collaboration permeates many different fields. In the recent AEA Conference, Dr. Liliana Rodriguez-Campos discussed principles of collaborative evaluation. In her six-part model, she illustrates the complexities of working in groups and suggests ways to facilitate collaboration. These ways include ideas for conflict resolution, establishing early a desirable reward for everyone to work towards, and working to ensure careful listening. One example she gave is that in her efforts to eliminate back-biting, she had every person write on a piece of paper the thing they didn't like that other people were doing and the correction of that flaw in positive terms, such as "Stick to the point," or "Be punctual," and she placed these somewhere prominently in the room so that everyone would know what was important to the other members of the group and thereby have more unity in the collaboration process.

Another issue we discussed today was games. As a presenter, I had a lot of fun. I felt like everyone else was having fun too. However, as I watched people playing games, I remembered how much I disliked playing games in class, because I always had such a difficult time understanding the rules and I never felt like I was good at any of the games we played. I was interested by the comment that these emotions of losing can be very distracting to the learning process. If just one student does not understand the rules, or becomes lost, the game will not be able to help that person understand the desired points of that game.