Designing collaborative learning places: Psychological foundations and new frontiers

Abstract

As an alternative to lecture, imagine engaging your students in a collaborative activity during your next class meeting. You divide the class into five small groups and ask each group to solve a problem and present a solution. Anyone who has attempted such a feat can attest to the inadequacy of most college classrooms for supporting group work and the importance of the physical environment in determining the success of collaborative learning. What would the ideal collaborative learning place look like? Brufee (1999) describes it in these terms: "A level floor, movable seats, chalkboards on three or four walls, controlled acoustics (acoustical-tiled ceilings and carpeted floors), and no central seminar table (or one that can be pushed well out of the way without threatening an attack of lumbago). An alternative is six to ten movable four-or five-sided tables of roughly card-table size" (p. 259).Although common sense should guide the design of collaborative learning places, the notion that meaningful and efficient collaboration can occur anywhere ignores the important role of the physical environment in shaping human social interaction. This chapter explores the issue from a psychological perspective, drawing on literature from environmental and social psychology. It begins with a discussion of the predicted shift from expository lectures to collaborative activities as the primary function of fixed-site classrooms. Next, three environmental issues are explored: attitudes and place attachment, lighting and temperature, and density and noise. The chapter closes with two specific examples of effective collaborative learning environments, a physical classroom called the Studio and an online collaborative application called Lotus QuickPlace.

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