COLLABORATIVE LEARNING IN A MODEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Nowadays collaborative learning is seen as a response to the current educational needs that go beyond teamwork; the aim is to provide a complete formation to people in the personal and social areas. Collaborative learning model has been studied during the last five decades from different views. According to Webb (1989) educational methods based on collaborative learning have been applied and spread all over the world. This type of model enhances students' participation; it leads students become leaders and make decisions (Petit, 2006). Collaborative learning is characterized by social situations where people have common aims and reach them with each other's help; thus, a person achieves his goal when the rest of the group does it too. Members of the group work effectively, they look for the development of their knowledge in class, are responsible and help to develop their classmates' skills and at the same time they obtain benefits by building concepts all together (Deutsch, 1949; Kelley & Thibaut, 1969; Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1999; Peralta, Roselly & Borgobello, 2012). Then, the characteristics of collaborative learning are observed in the number of members of the group (small), in the common objective they have, and in the interest everybody has not only in individual learning but group learning. Various studies have been conducted on collaborative learning for teaching English as a foreign language or as part of teacher training worldwide: Malaysia, Chile, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina among others. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods were used in these studies. The instruments used vary from participative observations, collaborative homework, interviews, video and audio recording, questionnaire to pre-test and post-test. The results from these research demonstrate the importance of collaborative learning model, because this type of learning encourages peer exchange, discussion, scaffolding on meaningful learning, problem solving, teachers' professional development, students' responsibility, socialization, communication in the target language, among other benefits. The educational model of the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon (UANL) focuses on student learning with an emphasis on meaningful learning and it encourages new ways of thinking. It is intended to include activities, strategies, assignments and assessments in educational plans to implement competency-based education. Collaborative learning is considered as a methodology that enables competency-based, as an active methodology, it intensifies greater students' participation (De Miguel Diaz, 2006). Therefore, a quantitative descriptive study was held with the objective of characterizing the way teachers involved in a training program for foreign language teachers at higher education apply the collaborative learning model in the classroom. The random sample consisted of 20 teachers and 44 students who answered a survey as a tool for data collection.