Resources; Why Collaboration?

We're going to be mad crazy with group work in this class. Often students wonder why we place such an emphasis on collaboration. Well, here are some reasons:

1. It's a real world skill. In just about any career you'd care to think of, you will need to collaborate with others. When we work in groups, then, you're practicing a skill you're really going to need out there beyond the university. You're going to have to learn how to listen, how to express yourself to a group, how to compromise, how to negotiate, how to reach agreement, how to solidify a group, how to lead a group, how to be led in a group, and a whole lot more. Each time you work together, you're preparing yourself whatever it might be you want to do when you're done here.

2. It's a balanced independence as you practice critical thinking skills. This class is all about critical thinking. If you're allowed simply to be submerged within the class, quietly taking notes (or not), then you're not given the chance to practice the skills you really need. At the same time, if everyone were to work individually, then you all could be crippled by that isolation. Working in groups gives everyone a chance to practice critical thinking while also having people around who can help and support you in that practice.

3. Knowledge is never univocal. If you just work alone, you only know what you are able to figure out. if you just sit and listen to me, you only know what I am able to figure out. But that's not how knowledge is constructed in any field. In all fields of knowledge, learning is created collaboratively, on a disciplinary level: theories, counter-theories, experiments, new hypotheses, confirmations, refutations, and on and on.