Collaborative Learning

Author(s): Kenneth Bruffee

Source: College English, Vol. 43, No. 7 (Nov., 1981), pp. 745-747
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/376907
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Comment & Response 745

ond, her account ignores an elementary

yet fundamental aspect of any evaluative

procedure. Tests that allow for two or

more kinds of responses must be scored
by readers who have been trained to
evaluate the responses as viable solutions
within the parameters of the specific option the writer chooses, as well as within

the context of the whole test. That is why

readers must be familiar not only with the

test they are using but also with the way

students are likely to respond to the test,

given their specific cultural backgrounds.

That is why I argued in my essay that no
piece of writing should be evaluated with-

the focus of collaborative work in an

academic setting. My position is that it

decidedly should not.
The primary aim of collaborative learning in my view is to help students test the

quality and value of what they know by

trying to make sense of it to other people

like themselves-their peers. This is the

point of all such "interactionist" pedagogies (see Elsasser and John-Steiner, "An

Interactionist Approach to Advancing

Literacy," Harvard Educational Review, 47

[1977], and Barry M. Kroll's survey in CE

[March 1980]). Collaborative learning

helps "personalize" knowledge and learnout a careful consideration of the situation

ing so that, as Ronald Schroeder has put
in which it was written.
it, students perceive "the organic relation
While I would encourage all teachers tobetween the mind of the knower and the
try out any test that will be used to judge knowledge itself" ("Writing, Knowledge,
their students, we must be certain to dis-and the Call for Objectivity," CE [Febtinguish between what we can learn fromruary 1979]). Collaborative learning perthose trials-valuable as such information
sonalizes knowledge by socializing it, procan be-and what we can find out from
viding students with a social context of
broader, more controlled experimentalearning peers with whom they are ention. These two kinds of knowledge may
gaged on conceptual issues.
be complementary, but they are not interBy giving students this immediate conchangeable.
text of peers, collaborative learning helps

them perceive (as, on the evidence

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor

Gebhardt provides, William Saroyan had

not yet perceived in 1961) that writing is
not an inherently private act but is a displaced social act we perform in private for

the sake of convenience. In the largest

sense, collaborative learning gives stu-

Collaborative Learning
Richard Gebhardt's article on collabora-

dents a stronger sense that knowledge itself is an inherently social artifact and
learning an inherently social phenomenon:

tive learning (CE, September 1980) takes the sense that, as Karl Jaspers put it,
the position that teachers who create con- "truth is bound up with communication."
ditions in which students can learn col(On the social nature of knowledge see
laboratively in their classes should becomePatricia Bizzell, "Thomas Kuhn, Scientism, and English Studies," CE [March
more aware of the emotional impact and
value of collaborative work. I agree with
1979] and L. S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society
this position, but I also think that Profes-[Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
sor Gebhardt's argument may lead some
Press, 1978], especially chapter 1.)
of our colleagues to believe that the emo- To make collaborative learning work as
tional process involved in group work it
is should, then, we teachers must know
somewhat less complex than I believe it
more than most of us yet do about what is
really is. He and I disagree quite mark-loosely called "group dynamics," the emoedly, furthermore, over whether or not
tional processes and impact of people
emotional development per se should be
working in groups. Professor Gebhardt is

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746 COLLEGE ENGLISH

the social context of peer influence, not

on target in pointing this out and I am
glad he has done so. My own exploration
through the teacher's conscious applicaof "sensitivity training" and group countion of pedagogical or psychological techseling techniques, though, has led meniques.
to
This is why counseling and senconclude that they are not a useful source
sitivity training techniques are largely
of knowledge for teachers. Both are superfluous
dein organizing collaborative
signed to help people overcome social dislearning. Students who are, for whatever
orientation and emotional disorder. With
reason, emotionally unequipped to work
all due respect to the profound human
well with others need help an English
need to treat those problems, to my mind
teacher cannot give. With most un-

we are English teachers primarily comdergraduates, however, establishing rapmitted to knowledge, not counselors
port is seldom the problem once the ice is
primarily committed to emotional health.
broken. The problem is to channel the
The bottom line in our profession is what
mental energy that establishing rapport
releases in each individual, and to do so
our clients know, not how they feel.
without reverting to a traditional teacherObviously, however, how our students
feel about themselves, about their institustudent relationship.

tions, and about their knowledge andTo do this successfully does require a
to be aware of the processes that
learning is also an important aspectteacher
of

typically occur in groups of people workwhat we do. Gebhardt is absolutely right

ing together, to know how to keep the
distortion of the truth to separate thegroup focused on the work at hand, and
to know also how to deal with crises when
emotional aspect of learning from the intellectual.
they (inevitably) occur. Teachers should
The enormous educative power latent be aware too of the special dangers inherin peer influence derives from that emo-ent in group influence, and know how to
avoid them.
tional aspect of learning, tapped through
the relationship, the emotive tie, devel- The most reliable, knowledgeable, and
oped among several students organized torigorously disciplined source of this
work collaboratively. This relationship it-knowledge I have discovered is the trainself changes the emotional conditions ining in group work offered to professional
which students learn, by replacing bothsocial workers. I must say right away that
the traditional one-to-one relationship bethis knowledge too must be winnowed,
tween student and teacher and the tradirevised, and redirected. It must undergo
tional non-relationship among students inthe normal restructuring that occurs
the classroom. Instead, collaborative
whenever one discipline reaches out to
another for ancillary expertise. And I
learning makes the teacher's influence indirect and orients it toward the collectivmust repeat that we are English teachers,
ity; and it gives students-in the class-not social workers. Our goal is learning,
to draw our attention to that fact. It is a

room itself, not merely in the cafeteria or not therapy or social welfare.

the dorm-allies, accessories, other unStill, my own experience and the exdergraduates who understand the basic perience of the Institute Fellows of the

problem: the anxiety and anger which Brooklyn College Summer Institute in

often underlie resistance to learning. It is Training Peer Tutors suggests that the
something like this effect, I think, that discipline of group work can help colThom Hawkins is getting at in his article laborative learning succeed in its primary
in the same issue of COLLEGE ENGLISH
aim. I think we would all agree that the
experience and the conceptual framework
(September 1980).
In short, the value of collaborative
provided in the Institute's seminar on
learning is that it affects the emotional group work (taught by Professor Alex
element in learning contextually, through Gitterman of the Columbia University

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Comment & Response 747

Graduate School of Social Work) gave us

some enormously valuable insights and

when he writes that the two of us "dis-

Those who care to explore group work

as a discipline might begin by reading "A
Theory of Group Development" by War-

be the focus of collaborative work in an

tools.

agree quite markedly . . over whether or

not emotional development per se should

academic setting."
I am skeptical about too much application of sensitivity work in the writing

ren G. Bennis and H. A. Sheppard (Human Relations, 9 [1956], 415-37). I am

class. I tend to agree with Professor Brufbound to point out, though, that without fee that "students who are emotionally
experiencing first hand the process Bennis unequipped to work well with others need

and Sheppard describe and analyze, their help an English teacher cannot give." And
generalizations can be somewhat mislead- I share his insistence that teachers who

ing and difficult to grasp. I suspect it use collaborative approaches are educa-

would not do any of us any harm either to tors, "not counselors primarily committed

reread Dewey's concise little gem, Experi- to emotional health." My experiences

ence and Education.

with collaboration do make me a bit less

I fear, however, that these brief re- optimistic than Bruffee that "with most
marks in response to Professor Gebhardt's undergraduates . . . establishing rapport
thoughtful and well-researched article is seldom the problem once the ice is bromay themselves be misleading. Nothing I ken." So I use simple instruction in group
have said here should be construed as crit- process and a few values-clarification and

icism of what I take to be his main thrust:

that we must become more aware than we
are of the emotional undercurrents in

sensitivity-building exercises to help

groups function more smoothly and more

supportively.
learning, especially now as we move, asBecause I see the "emotional unwe seem to be doing at last, toward engagdercurrents in learning" serving edu
ing our students to learn collaboratively.tional ends-learning to write-rath
than therapeutic ends, I kept my arti
KENNETH BRUFFEE
focused pretty sharply on writing and t
Brooklyn College CUNYwriter. For instance, the paragraph th
straddles the center of page 71 deals n
with how to achieve emotional develo
ment in groups, but with contribution
Richard Gebhardt Responds positive emotional climate can make in
collaborative writing group: "Since st
Kenneth Bruffee is right when he says
dents feel fear and frustration private

that the general thrust of my essay,

they need to be helped to see . . . t
"Teamwork and Feedback: Broadening
they can receive feedback from othe

who themselves are fearful and frustrated

the Base of Collaborative Writing," is that

writing teachers "must become more

and so themselves need help." When, in

aware than we are of the emotional un-

the next paragraph, I mention ways for

dercurrents in learning." And I am glad
teachers "to explore more candidly the
that Professor Bruffee has written about
emotional flow in collaborative writing

this idea as emphatically as he has-forgroups," I first write with deliberate brev-

instance in the fifth and sixth paragraphs ity about "finding ways to blend group
of his comment. I also am happy to see process instruction into writing classes,"
Bruffee's cogent discussion of the lim- and "finding ways to use values-clarificaitations of sensitivity training and counsel- tion and sensitivity-building exercises in
ing techniques in collaborative learning. writing groups." But I immediately

As that last sentence may suggest, suggest that fostering collaboration during
though, I think that he overstates the case the early stages of a writing project as

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