| The increasing global cooperation between countries has brought collaboration as a fundamental concern to educators around the world. Recent educational issues and research on collaborative learning have shown the power of collaborative education. How to teach college students the inter-societal skills to resolve tensions and conflicts between the races, the genders, and social status is an urgent task for all educators (Schmuck, 1985).With the complexity of an increasingly interactive world culture, there is a need for education to teach people how to make more peace than war. Tolerance, appreciation of differences in perspectives and cultures, creative problem solving, critical thinking, and conflict resolution can be taught in a collaborative learning environment. This method fits the times (Slavin, 1995). This study identified how students in traditional liberal arts and professional education majors in Central China and the University of South Dakota compare and contrast in their knowledge of collaborative learning practices, their university experiences with the method, and their attitudes toward use of the method for their immediate future and for society into the next decades.This study found that older students thought their instructors used more collaborative learning styles than did younger students, and Chinese students perceived that their faculty used more collaborative methods than did American students. Younger students thought their instructors used more teacher-centered learning styles, and American students perceived that their faculty used more teacher-centered methods. Chinese students preferred collaborative learning teaching styles and methods more. Students who described themselves as extroverted preferred collaborative learning teaching styles and methods more, and students majoring in science preferred collaborative learning teaching styles and methods more.Chinese students were more satisfied with collaborative learning teaching styles methods used by their faculty. Students majoring in liberal arts were more satisfied with teacher-centered teaching styles and methods, and students who had GPA&ge3.0 were more satisfied with teacher-centered teaching styles methods used by their faculty. For faculty interested in matching their methods to the interests of students in the future, there is a need for continuing inservice on collaborative methods and on assessment of learning preferences in both China and America. |
