Collaborative learning and the solitary learner

While reading through the blog feeds in my Digg Reader, I came across two blog posts which got me thinking about learning styles. These two blogs which inspired me to write this post were: "Shhhhhh..." by Paul Bogush and "Monkey see, monkey hear, monkey do" by Cameron Godfrey.

I'm going to be brave and admit something to all of you. I'm a solitary learner. From as early as I can remember I have primarily been a solitary learner, I've always commented that I rarely learn anything from attending my lectures, and I've always struggled with group work. Somehow this seems to be becoming a shameful thing. Being a solitary learner, of all the learning styles, is the only one which I think many people would see as a character flaw. Yet it shouldn't be. Being a solitary learner doesn't mean you're anti-social, any more than scoring low on the auditory learner scale makes you a bad listener, it just means that you don't necessarily learn as effectively by listening as you do by visual stimuli.

Working collaboratively doesn't necessarily mean that you must be sitting with your group members at all times! Mathematicians and scientists rarely publish papers as single authors, commonly they now have a list of authors (for example, this one has a list of 31 authors!), however that doesn't mean that they spent the majority of their time huddled together working out the problem. A lot of that work is done alone, thinking, scribbling stuff on paper, writing code, working quietly (but not necessarily silently) in the lab, etcetera and then sending emails to and fro, maybe small group meetings to discuss other issues that have arisen. They're not doing the majority of their learning in noisy, chaotic rooms, they're thinking in more quiet spaces; at home, in the office, at a cafe, under a tree, in the lab.

There is a lot of talk amongst educators at the moment about collaborative learning classrooms, and in some ways this scares me a little. Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong supporter of problem and project based learning. The times when I have had classes which allowed me to learn through experimentation and projects are among the classes that I have performed best in. However, when it comes to group work, I struggle. It isn't that I can't work with people, it is just that I find that particular setting a difficult place to learn. There is a subtle difference. I think we all agree that it is an important skill to be able to work with groups, but working in groups is not the same as learning in groups.

I'm all for classroom change. I hate seeing those silent 'drill and kill' maths classrooms too. However I get a little worried when people talk so much about the importance of group or collaborative learning. Personally I'd like to see a little more flexibility in allowing students to try what works best for them. If they want to work on a project alone then allow them to do so. Rather than saying "My classroom is a collaborative classroom" I know I'd much rather hear "My classroom is a flexible learning styles classroom".

Related Links:
Learning Styles Overview
The Solitary Learning Style