4.1 Working together
Working with others is an important and rewarding part of your studies. Learning is an active process that involves talking, sharing ideas, clarifying thoughts and building your own knowledge.
What collaborative learning is
Collaborative learning is when students work together in groups of 2 or more towards a shared goal. This might be a short idea-sharing discussion or a long-term group project. Whatever the purpose, all group members should participate as equally as possible and be honest about their contributions.
What collaborative learning isn’t
It’s important to recognise the difference between collaborating (working together fairly), copying and colluding.
When you copy, you’re using the work, words or ideas of someone else – whether they know about it or not – and pretending they’re yours.
For example, imagine your teacher puts you into groups to brainstorm before moving on to individual research for a PDHPE assignment. One of your group members did not have any input into the brainstorming and then simply copies all the ideas that your group discussed and submits this, pretending it’s all their own work. They are trying to get credit for other people’s work. This is plagiarism.
Collusion is when you work with another person secretly to intentionally mislead other people, such as your teachers and fellow students. It can be any action you take with another person to mislead others. This is collusion.
Some examples of collusion could include:
- sharing answers or assessments for other people to copy, even if you ask them to change the words to make it look like their own before they hand it in
- agreeing to pretend that another student contributed to a group project when they didn’t
- letting an external tutor complete some or all of your work for you
- working with another student to take unauthorised notes, cheat sheets or devices into a test or assessment environment.