Collaboration: The Cornerstone of Science, Learning and Change

This session will explore our current understanding and application of collaborative learning in higher education, working with the premise that knowledge is not a quantifiable mass of information to be transmitted but rather a socially constituted process of making meaning with constantly changing and interacting contexts. Collaboration is the cornerstone of science, health care, and life within our global society. How can we craft a learning environment to facilitate peer collaboration, foster student-faculty interaction and enhance student learning? Four speakers will discuss collaborative learning strategies, the varied applications of this learning model and the challenges of applying this model in varied learning environments. Presentation of these different strategies will extend our understanding of the possibilities and offer guidance to faculty who wish to establish effective collaborative learning classrooms. Schlegel will present a model for incorporating peer team learning into the undergraduate physiology classroom and her research addressing how students learn in groups and what students know and don' t know about working collaboratively. Pelaez provides qualitative data that reveals the importance of providing evidence to support scientific thinking and how collaboration between science professionals and classroom teachers is evolving the necessary models of scientific process and thinking to keep up with science's expanding frontiers. Trueblood engages undergraduate student teams in research projects and in an inquiry-based physiology laboratory, where the emphasis is on student directed discovery of the scientific process and the use of this process for the acquisition of new knowledge. Lastly, Haramati will discuss the small group tutorials and problem-solving workshops he has introduced into the medical physiology curriculum and how these have improved student attitudes and learning as well as fostered greater faculty-student interaction. In addition Haramati will discuss the collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts by faculty to reform the basic science curriculum by engaging students in collaborative and experiential learning of alternative and complementary medicine and how this collaboration is addressing the demand for more patient-centered medical care. Collaborative learning methods provide a supportive and student-centered learning environment. Facilitating the learning of content through collaboration provides students with a model with which to acquire and apply new knowledge long after they leave our classrooms.