Collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches in education that involve joint intellectual effort by students or students and teachers. Collaborative learning refers to methodologies and environments in which learners engage in a common task in which each individual depends on and is accountable to each other. Groups of students work together in searching for understanding, meaning or solutions or in creating an artifact of their learning such as a product. The approach is closely related to cooperative learning. Collaborative learning activities can include collaborative writing, group projects, and other activities. Collaborative learning has taken on many forms. One form is Collaborative Networked Learning ( is that learning which occurs via electronic dialogue between self-directed co-learners and learners and experts) for the self-directed adult learner. Youth directed collaboration, another form of self-directed organizing and learning, relies on a novel, more radical concept of youth voice.

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has emerged as a new educational paradigm among researchers and practitioners in several fields, including cognitive sciences, sociology, computer engineering. It thus constitutes a new trans-disciplinary field.