Collaborating and interacting: Walking together towards our learning community

This article presents the findings of a research study which aimed at exploring the collaborative practices of a group of intermediate level students and the way in which students´ interactions contributed to the initial steps towards the establishment of a learning community. Collaboration in this particular study was seen as the actions students took in order to work together towards a common goal. Data revealed that participants went through a three-stage process that moved from individual perspectives to dialogic ex-changes to collective constructions of knowledge that emerged from the community initiated. As students participated in collaborative tasks, they progressively built closer relationships and their sense of belonging to the group progressively increased