Collaboration is where two or more people work together to achieve a common objective. In education, the common objective is usually to learn specific content, skills or competencies within defined areas. Ostensibly, learning is an individual goal, and each student does tend to learn in their own way, using their own favoured approaches and tools. We refer to this as personalised learning (a video explains). However, as we become increasingly connected to each other through technology, and our social ties strengthen, so there is greater scope for students to learn together, sharing their resources and ideas, and approaching their study collaboratively. Collaborative learning does not undermine or contradict personalised learning. It simply amplifies it.

When it comes to learning with others, space is usually required. There is plenty to say about collaborative spaces. I can think of at least three kinds. There are the formal, classroom based collaborative spaces and there are the informal, non classroom spaces where we learn most of what we know in interaction with others. Then there are the virtual, online spaces where many of us are increasingly spending our time collaborating, conversing and sharing with our personal learning networks. I guess I could represent these three kinds of space in a simple Venn diagram below, which would then indicate that there is a lot of crossover, fuzziness, and boundary incursion between the three. You could see where we might place formal learning using a VLE, or where students might meet to chat using Facebook, for example. But it's far from perfect. Ultimately such a diagram serves one purpose - it reveals that where there were once very real boundaries, now they are many false frontiers.

The boundaries are blurring between formal and informal learning. Increasingly, traditional educational spaces are being revised, replacing rigid rows of seats with 'group friendly' clusters or simply enabling all room furniture to be moved and reconfigured in whatever way users see fit. The aim is that reconfigured collaborative spaces allow free flow of all room occupants so that any amount of engagement between individuals is possible during formal learning. Learning can then occur in any part of the space, not just in the area where students are sat. You can read more on collaborative learning space design approaches in this article.

With the increasing popularity of such movements as the Flipped Classroom, and Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), other more radical formal learning space configurations are taking place. Students are increasingly learning through formal activities outside the classroom, usually on the move, using their mobile and handheld devices. They are preparing for in-class sessions by watching videos, discussing ideas online, creating their own content such as blogs and podcasts, and learning much of the stuff outside their classrooms that they would traditionally have learnt inside the classroom. This, according the Flipped Classroom theory, frees up a lot more time for discussion, specialist tutor input and collaborative work around the subject being studied. The Flipped approach ensures that the classroom is no longer the only space where formal learning can take place. There are other spaces to use.

MOOCs take learning even farther away from the classroom. Where the Flipped Classroom still maintains some role for the traditional classroom, MOOCs replace them completely. The general premise of the original MOOC programmes was to assume that all participants mediate their learning through technology, and learn in an open, collaborative and personalised manner. In the loosest sense, the MOOC promoted the community more than the curriculum, and privileged context over content. This kind of space has no boundaries, and every frontier then opens up. Learning is learning. It doesn't matter whether it takes place in a pub or a university lecture hall. What matters now is that each learner finds their own space, is comfortable within it, and uses it to its optimum.

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False frontiers by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.