Collaborative Learning Design within Open Source E-Learning Systems - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 226

5.1. Brainstorming to encourage the other members of team in order

to achieve the mutual goal.
Goals : 1) to motivate students to encourage and
help each other, 2) to accelerate student achieve-
ment, 3) to facilitate gains in self esteem, liking
of class, 4) to improve behaviour.
Process : 1) Personal assessment, 2) Assign-
ment presentations, 3) Team collaboration, 4)
Collaborative writing of reports, 5) Team assess-
ment, 6) Praise for best reports.
A diagrammatic representation of this method
-as a design pattern within LAMS- is presented
in Figure 3.

Brainstorming (Osborn, 1963) is a group manage-
ment technique designed to promote the genera-
tion of a large number of ideas for the solution of
a problem. The main goal of the technique is to
encourage group members to adopt a more liberal
approach in the expression of personal opinions.
Goals : 1) to facilitate quick generation of ideas,
2) to encourage creativity and indirect thinking,
3 ) to get all the team involved, 4) to underline the
importance of collaborative study.
Process : 1) Generation of ideas and writing up,
2) Commenting on ideas, 3) Asking for criteria
for idea categorisation and 4) Presentation of the
main ideas.
A diagrammatic representation of this method
-as a design pattern within LAMS- is presented
in Figure 2.

5.3. Jigsaw

The Jigsaw method (Aronson, E., Blaney, N.,
Sikes, J., Stephan, G., & Snapp, M. 1978) is a
cooperative learning strategy which enhances
the process of listening; commitment to the team;
interdependence and team work. Each member of
the team has to excel in a well defined subpart of
the educational material undertaking the role of
expert. The experts form a different group discuss-
ing the nuances of the subject and later they return
to their teams to teach their colleagues. The ideal
size of teams is 4 to 6 members.
Goals : 1) to build interpersonal and interac-
tive skills, 2) to ensure that learning revolves
around interaction with peers, 3) to hold students
accountable among their peers, 4) to encourage
active student participation in the learning process.

5.2. Student - Teams - Achievement
- Divisions (STAD)

STAD (Slavin, 1978) is considered to be one of
the basic approaches to introduce learners to
cooperative learning. The use of this method is
thought of as an effective and efficient way to
teach well defined educational subjects. The teams
are heterogeneous, made up of learners of diverse
academic achievement, race, and nationality. The
reward of the best teams motivates better students

Figure 2. Implementation of Brainstorming as a design pattern within LAMS