Introduction: Collaborative Active Learning—Strategies, Assessment and Feedback

There are many challenges impeding the implementation of collaborative active learning (CAL) ranging from the different definitions itself to social interactions among students where the effect of social presence is paramount. Having a socio-constructivist theoretical framework, CAL primarily deals with the process of student learning thereby the focus is on the nature of the educational transactions such as assessment and feedback for learning. It is important to gain insights into some educational technologies to grasp a full conceptual understanding of CAL whose effectiveness has been examined from different perspectives ranging from learning and teaching strategies to eventually assessment and feedback approaches. There remains, however, certain degree of concerns regarding the challenges of CAL strategies and how best to utilise the strengths and opportunities of these strategies in both the online and offline environments. Since CAL is already—and will continue to be—used by the students, lecturers should adopt these strategies as a pedagogical basis. To achieve effective results, the author provides some general guidelines in the design and implementation of CAL lessons in this chapter.