The Benefits of Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is known to be beneficial for education as it can provide debates on different topics, and help to offer differing perspectives which can lead to shared learning, and an open-mind to new ideas. However, to what extent does collaborative learning promote diversity in the workplace and in education.

Research suggests that having members of a team from a range of diverse backgrounds lays a solid foundation for a project, and promotes the acknowledgement of diversity in the project (Friis, 2014). When analysing a team, if all people come from a similar, or same diverse backgrounds, there may be a lack of range regarding life experiences within the group, therefore, providing less different perspectives at how to approach a task, and what would be beneficial. Furthermore, with a further diverse group of people, they can apply their own needs and viewpoints to a project, and highlight how their needs are, or are not met in certain scenarios. This is especially poignant within medicine as there are a variety of cultural beliefs that prevent certain medical procedures from being undertaken, and having someone in a team that has experienced these differences can help formulate ideas as to how they can help people from these backgrounds within medicine, whilst helping to educate those that they are working with.

Whilst collaborative learning is successful in engaging conversation between people of different backgrounds and needs, within this group there needs to be proactive, as well as reactive attention to all members of the team’s needs, otherwise the ability to promote this diversity within the group would fail (Horman et al, 2020). This implies that all members of the team need to be willing to discuss their needs regarding the topic of work, and attentive enough to understand where they can apply their experiences to help promote the project in a diverse manner that supports them and others. As well as this, promoting a diverse team can help students, or people in the workplace feel more comfortable in their environment, as there is not that sense of “standing out” which means that they may be more efficient in their work, as well as having a higher sense of positivity surrounding the group. Therefore, this shows how there are a multitude of benefits for collaborative learning, and that diversity through teamwork can help members of a team feel more included, as well as help them progress in their studies or work.

References

Friis, S (2014) ‘Including diversity in creative teamwork in design education’, International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation

Horman, A., Gundemir, S., Buengeler, C., van Kleef, G (2020) ‘Leading Diversity: Towards a theory of functional leadership in diverse teams’, Journal of Applied Psychology.