Paradigms of shared knowledge

Collaborative learning is all about sharing knowledge. Without a shared base of knowledge (common ground), discourse itself is impossible, let alone collaborative interaction. Collaborators must share a means of communication (language), a joint focus (object-orientation), and a compatible orientation (perspective). In addition to being dependent upon the presence of existing shared knowledge, successful collaboration or collaborative learning involves the construction of new knowledge, created jointly and thereby shared by the participants. Knowledge can take many forms, not necessarily rational, propositional, explicit, factual knowledge. There is tacit and explicit knowledge, focal and background, propositional and procedural, personal and institutional, individual and group.