Self- Directed Learning and Collaborative Learning

Okay the takeaway of this lesson was that I FINALLY am able to tell the difference between Cooperative Learning and Collaborative Learning.


For a long time, this question has been haunting me. I suspect it has not been drawn a fine (and OBVIOUS) line/parameters for it. I roughly remember my teachers would just ask us to do group work without telling us what is the purpose of grouping us together for the work/presentation. They also never explain at the end of the whole collaboration effort, the purpose and objectives/takeaway we should be (or supposed to be) able to understand from those efforts.

So much so that my generation started to get very confused about their roles in groupwork. They do not know how to blend and gel well with each other for the benefit of the end product. Most of the time, they will be very fast to point fingers and blame the "leader" should anything screws up. This is when Collaborative Learning get lost amidst the disarray of ill-purpose driven goals to finish, and it becomes Cooperative Learning with finger-pointing. I may even think that the eventual efforts unknowingly became Self-Directed Learning. A blessing in disguise or what?


Now that I have my doubts cleared for groupwork and the definition of how Collaborative Learning should be, I am slightly more confident of how to ensure my group projects can be essentially what it is meant to be and not something it can turn into (like Cooperative Learning)