Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty

Engaging students in active learning is a predominant theme in today's classrooms. To promote active learning, teachers across the disciplines and in all kinds of colleges are incorporating collaborative learning into their teaching. Collaborative Learning Techniques is a scholarly and well-written handbook that guides teachers through all aspects of group work, providing solid information on what to do, how to do it, and why it is important to student learning. Synthesizing the relevant research and good practice literature, the authors present detailed procedures for thirty collaborative learning techniques (CoLTs) and offer practical suggestions on a wide range of topics, including how to form groups, assign roles, build team spirit, solve problems, and evaluate and grade student participation.

Barkley (music, Foothill College), Cross (emeritus, U. of California, Berkeley) and Major (education, University of Alabama) explain the epistemological underpinnings that differentiate cooperative and collaborative learning, presents the pedagogical rationale for collaboration, and summarizes the research on the effectiveness of collaborative learning. Tailored to the needs of college teachers, the second half of the book provides 30 collaborative learning techniques for encouraging discussion, reciprocal teaching, problem solving, organizing graphical information, and writing. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Elizabeth F. Barkley is professor of music at Foothill College in Los Altos, California. She is also is a national Carnegie Scholar and was named California’s 1998 Higher Education Professor of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

K. Patricia Cross is professor of higher education, emerita, at the University of California, Berkeley. She is author or coauthor of seven Jossey-Bass books, including Accent on Learning, Adults as Learners, Classroom Assessment Techniques, and Classroom Research.

Claire Howell Major is associate professor of higher education administration at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa instead of University of Alabama in Birmingham.