Being in a group is important to develop certain traits and skills which could be useful later on in the real working world such as cooperation, leadership, harmony, shared vision and others. The purpose of collaboration and shared thinking is three-fold: to encourage group efforts to succeed, develop relationships among participants and psychosocial adjustment.
Mary M. Kitagawa (1994) article “Its About Time to Talk” is a study about taking time to listen to students. It says that allowing students to bond together and collaborate is critical to exploration of ideas without interruption. This will enable the students to fully explore ideas and interpretations of literature.
The advantages of collaboration and shared thinking are: attaining higher-level of reasoning, more ideas and solutions, greater transfer of learning. Collaboration and shared thinking requires five essential elements: positive interdependence, individual responsibility, group processing, social skills and face-to-face interaction. There should be at least 3 members in a group for better collaboration. Groups are required to have specific goals, performance criteria and a system of reward. In order for groups to succeed, the teacher must teach them cooperative skills and uses group-self-assessment.
Elizabeth Close (1992) in her book “Literature Discussion: A Classroom Environment for Thinking and Sharing” writes that “scaffolding became the glue that connected [her] lessons”. Close asks the students to join in literature discussions by sharing their thoughts, asking questions about the literature and listen to others' interpretations. By considering “a wide variety of interpretations” students could generate a number of benefits.
Collaboration and shared thinking could generate more ideas about a certain project than being done alone. This is good method of encouraging critical thinking and cooperation among students.
