Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge

Bruffee PhD, Professor Kenneth A.

ISBN 10: 0801846420 / ISBN 13: 9780801846427

Edité par The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993

A propos de cet article

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N° de réf. du vendeur MERV.0801846420.A

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge
• Éditeur: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Date de parution: 1993
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0801846420
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780801846427
• Reliure: Couverture rigide
• État de l'article: acceptable

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Knowledge has traditionally been understood as cognitive - we gain it by examining the world and taking in the facts. Kenneth Bruffee offers a different model that accounts for new ways of thinking about how we learn and do research, proposing that knowledge is "constructed through negotiation with others" in communities of knowledgeable peers. He argues that this new understanding of learning as an interdependent, collaborative enterprise is a central issue for college and university education today. "Collaborative Learning" discusses fundamental change. Bruffee's premise - that learning occurs among persons, not between persons and things - "overturns traditional notions about the authority of knowledge, the authority of teachers and the very nature of colleges and universities. Bruffee begins by discussing the place of collaborative learning in higher education, explaining what it is, how it works and why. He then examines the implications of the "Kuhnian" understanding of knowledge on which collaborative learning is based, explaining how "nonfoundational social constructionist thought" changes our understanding of education in general. Bruffee argues that changing college and university education depends first on changing how teachers think about knowlege, teaching and learning. He describes the practical value of the activities encouraged by a collaborative approach - students working in consensus groups and research teams, tutoring peers and helping each other with editing and revision. He concludes that this organized practice in working together on intellectual tasks is the best possible preparation for the real world, as students look beyond the authority of teachers, practice the craft of interdependence and construct knowledge in ways that academic disciplines and the professions actually do.

Présentation de l'éditeur

In COLLABORATIVE LEARNING, Kenneth Bruffee advocates a far-reaching change in the relations we assume between college and university professors and their students, between the learned and the learning. He argues that the nature and source of the authority of college and university professors is the central issue in college and university education in our time, and that if college and university professors continue to teach exclusively in the stand-up-and-tell-'em way, their students will miss the opportunity to learn mature, effective interdependence-and this, Bruffee maintains, is the most important lesson we should expect students to learn. The book makes three related points. First, we should begin thinking about colleges and universities, and they should begin thinking about themselves, not as stores of information but as institutions of reacculturation. Second, we should think of college and university professors not as purveyors of information but as agents of cultural change who foster reacculturation by marshaling interdependence among student pers. And third, colleges and universities should revise longstanding assumptions about the nature and authority of knowledge and about classroom authority. To accomplish this, the author maintains, both college students and their professors must learn collaboratively. Describing the practical value of the activities encouraged by a collaborative approach-students working in consensus groups and research teams, tutoring peers, and helping each other with editing and revision-Bruffee concludes that, in the short run, collaborative learning helps students learn better-more thoroughly, more deeply, more efficiently-than learning alone. In the long run, collaborative learning is the best possible preparation for the real world, as students look beyond the authority of teachers, practice the craft of interdependence, and construct knowledge in the very way that academic discip