Collaborative Learning In Classroom Research Articles

The Interaction Effect of Group Formation and Individual Preparation on Computer Support Collaborative Engineering Design: An Exploratory Study

Collaboration, as one of the most essential skill sets for engineering students, remains challenging for both engineering educators and student engineers. This study explores the role of pedagogical support individual preparation before collaboration on engineering students’ collaborative learning outcome as well as the process. A total of 36 dyads engineering students from a university engineering class participated in the study, divided into 2 group formations: homogeneous group (two similarly experienced student engineers) and heterogeneous group (one experienced student engineer and one less experienced student engineer). All dyads completed two engineering design tasks in two conditions: immediate collaboration (control condition) and individual preparation before collaboration (experimental condition) in a face-to-face (F2F) computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) context. The results indicated the interaction effect of individual preparation and group formation on students’ collaborative knowledge co-construction. The homogeneous group formation produced higher quality knowledge co-construction and design solutions when there was an individual preparation before collaboration than immediate collaboration. Meanwhile, the heterogeneous group formation produced lower quality knowledge co-construction and design solutions when there was an individual preparation before collaboration than immediate collaboration. These findings expand the current understanding of individual preparation before collaboration and provide insights for the design of computer-supported collaborative learning in classrooms.

영한 순차통역 수업의 교수자 수정 피드백에 대한 담화분석적 연구

Drawing on the theoretical framework of corrective feedback in second language education, this discourse anlaytic study examined corrective feedback in four consecutive interpreting classes taught by two interpreter trainers. The analysis demonstrates that trainers facilitated collaborative learning in classroom: Engaging the whole class of trainees in dynamic feedback interactions, the trainers offered corrective feedback to both trainees’ interpreting and peer feedback. The findings suggest that peer feedback, which is a hallmark of collaborative learning in interpreting classes, provided opportunities for trainers to assess trainees’ understanding of the source language speech and target language skills, and teach interpreting skills either by confirming or correcting peer feedback. The findings indicates that reformulation was prevalent in trainees’ corrective feedback whereas trainers’ corrective feedback was predominantly prompts that led trainees to identify and analyze interpreting problems and to offer solutions for performance enhancement. This paper, which is a first attempt of its kind to investigate the discourse of interpreting classes, calls for further research that could throw some light on interpreting pedagogy demonstrated in feedback interactions in interpreting classes and broaden our understanding about how interpreting can be taught effectively through corrective feedback.

The Effect of Flipped Classroom Instruction on Developing Saudi EFL Learners’ Comprehension of Conversational Implicatures

While pragmatic instruction has received considerable attention from researchers of interlanguage pragmatics over the last three decades, its effective implementation in the EFL classroom remains an unresolved question. The flipped classroom model is a recently developed teaching method that constitutes a role change for teachers and learners, inverting the front-of-class instruction paradigm in favor of active and collaborative classroom learning. To potentially take advantage of this promising trend, the present study seeks to explore the effectiveness of the flipped classroom for developing Saudi EFL undergraduates’ pragmatic competence and language proficiency by focusing on the comprehension of conversational implicatures during one academic semester. A total of 100 students, assigned to flipped teaching group (n=50) and traditional teaching group (n=50), participated in the study. To elicit the required data, the Oxford Placement Test, a discourse completion test, and reflective e-portfolios were used. A post-test revealed that pragmatic competence significantly increased in the case of the flipped group. The mean score of the flipped group (M=18.48) was considerably higher than that of the traditional group (M=14.68). In following the flipped model of instruction, this progress was influenced by effective out-of-class preparation and appropriate manipulation of in-class time.

Implementing collaborative learning in classrooms: science teachers' perspectives

Research indicates that collaborative learning can lead to increased learning, interest and persistence in science fields. To inform future professional development and teachers' preparatory programs, it is important to examine teachers' conceptions of, and experiences with collaborative learning. This study explores middle and high school science teachers' conceptions of, and experiences with, collaborative learning in addition to the barriers that prevent the implementation of collaborative learning in the classroom. Survey data collected from 66 science teachers indicated that they viewed collaborative learning as a process that has a specific purpose. They reported having positive experiences when implementing collaborative learning. They were concerned about student-related barriers for not using collaborative learning. These findings provide insights about the content of professional development that can be designed to support these science teachers when implementing collaborative learning in their classrooms.

Implementing collaborative learning in classrooms: science teachers' perspectives

Implementing collaborative learning in classrooms: science teachers' perspectives

Group work during visual art activities to reduce indecisiveness

Background: The Foundation Phase in education provides the primary building blocks for children’s foundation and development. From personal experiences as educators, we observed that young learners who work together in small groups during art activities gain self-confidence faster than indecisive learners who work alone. Indecisive learners become hesitant and lack confidence when they are allowed own choices during art activities. In line with Vygotsky’s social constructivism, this article assumed that social interaction fosters learning and development in learners. Aim: The aim of this study was to observe whether group work promotes decisive behaviour and self-confidence in learners. Setting: A group of five Grade R learners in a privately owned pre-primary school in Pretoria was targeted for the purpose of this investigation. Methods: This article followed a qualitative approach in the form of a multiple case study that focused on four young learners who showed indecisive behaviour and one learner who showed decisive behaviour during a visual art activity. Learners’ conversations and participation were observed and recorded as they used photographs and artefacts in the group art activity. Results: Over time, the four indecisive learners had improved and gained confidence towards decisiveness. These results support Vygotsky’s theory that skilled learners can scaffold the unskilled ones to reach their full potential. Conclusion: The results in this article point to the importance of collaborative learning in classrooms to improve confidence and decision-making. It is, therefore, recommended that teachers use a group work strategy to improve learning and decisiveness in classrooms.

Learning linkages: Integrating data streams of multiple modalities and timescales

AbstractIncreasingly, student work is being conducted on computers and online, producing vast amounts of learning‐related data. The educational analytics fields have produced many insights about learning based solely on tutoring systems' automatically logged data, or “log data.” But log data leave out important contextual information about the learning experience. For example, a student working at a computer might be working independently with few outside influences. Alternatively, he or she might be in a lively classroom, with other students around, talking and offering suggestions. Tools that capture these other experiences have potential to augment and complement log data. However, the collection of rich, multimodal data streams and the increased complexity and heterogeneity in the resulting data pose many challenges to researchers. Here, we present two empirical studies that take advantage of multimodal data sources to enrich our understanding of student learning. We leverage and extend quantitative models of student learning to incorporate insights derived jointly from data collected in multiple modalities (log data, video, and high‐fidelity audio) and contexts (individual vs. collaborative classroom learning). We discuss the unique benefits of multimodal data and present methods that take advantage of such benefits while easing the burden on researchers' time and effort.

Young Language Learners’ Collaborative Learning and Social Interaction as a Motivational Aspect of the iPad

Second language (L2) motivation is of great importance for young foreign language learners, as it can both attract their interest towards learning the target language and improve their L2 achievements. Supporting students’ need for relatedness (along with a need for competence and autonomy) is claimed to enhance behaviors that are self-motivated and self-determined. The purpose of this study is to explore the affordances of tablet technologies, such as Apple iPads, for satisfying young language learners’ need for relatedness, both in classroom collaborative learning and social interactions beyond the school settings. The key findings of this qualitative study suggest the iPad’s potentiality for promoting L2 motivation through exploiting its affordances to enhance collaborative learning and social development.

Roles and Groups Dynamic as a Systematic Approach to Improve Collaborative Learning in Classroom

University degrees currently have aspects in their curriculum such as the need to develop the students’ abilities regarding teamwork, interpersonal skills and problems solving. For this reason, when making educational programming, the use of methodologies that include activities that encourage active student participation, can be of a great help. The proposal of Groups and Roles that is showed is based on the principles of active methodologies, in which the student takes an active role in their learning process, promoting a model that encourages him/her to reflect, analyze, draw conclusions, etc., seeking his/her involvement and commitment to make this process more formative. This work shows the results obtained after the application of this methodology in the lectures of the subjects from 1st, 2nd and 3rd Degree in Industrial Design and Product Development Engineering at the University of Zaragoza. With the development of these activities, the following aims have been achieved: detecting the mayor learning difficulties for the students; implementing the link between the contribution of contents of the subject, under study, and the further professional development of the students; developing students’ creativity; encouraging the awareness towards quality within work; developing skills in interpersonal relations and increasing motivation at work. This dynamics even though it has required an important degree of involvement, both by students and teachers, has been a positive and enriching experience.

Using a Dialogical Approach to Examine Peer Feedback During Chemistry Investigative Task Discussion

Peer feedback is an inherent feature of classroom collaborative learning. Students invariably turn to their peers for feedback when carrying out an investigative task, and this feedback is usually implicit, unstructured and may positively or negatively influence students’ learning when they work on a task. This study explored the characteristics of verbal peer feedback during a collaborative investigative chemistry task involving New Zealand Year 13 students. During the planning stage of the students’ investigation, the discussions of five pairs of students were recorded and then transcribed. Analysis of transcribed verbal data focused on interactions that involved peer feedback along two dimensions, interactive/non-interactive and dialogic/authoritative (Mortimer and Scott, 2003). The findings indicated that although students adopted a predominantly interactive/authoritative communicative approach, with peer feedback as confirmation or evaluation, they are also capable of a more interactive/dialogic exchange, characterised by elaborative peer feedback. We discuss how this dialogic perspective on peer feedback provides an alternative approach to the analysis and study of student–student interactions during science investigations. The findings should be interpreted in light of the limitations in terms of sample size, grouping and specificity of the coding scheme. Implications for teacher practice are discussed in relation to facilitating peer feedback discourse in the science classroom.

How to improve collaborative learning with video tools in the classroom? Social vs. cognitive guidance for student teams

Digital video technologies offer a variety of functions for supporting collaborative learning in classrooms. Yet, for novice learners, such as school students, positive learning outcomes also depend centrally on effective social interactions. We present empirical evidence for the positive effects of instructive guidance on performance and on learning of students who use web-based video tools during a short collaborative-design task in their history lesson. In an experiment with 16-year old learners (N = 148) working on a history topic, we compared two contrasting types of guidance for student teams’ collaboration processes (social-interaction-related vs. cognitive-task-related guidance). We also compared two types of advanced video tools. Both types of guidance and tools were aimed at supporting students’ active, meaningful learning and critical analysis of a historical newsreel. Results indicated that social-interaction-related guidance was more effective in terms of learning outcomes (e.g., the students’ history skills) than cognitive-task-related guidance. The different tools did not yield consistent results. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Research as pedagogy: building learning communities and religious understanding in RE

Debates on teacher accountability are informed by research generating, for example, evidence‐based policy and practice. Debates on pedagogy, too, are informed by research, albeit with only a limited amount of empirical research being currently available on religious education (RE) pedagogy. In this article, research is conceived as not simply informing such debates, but as providing a framework for both accountability (through action research) and pedagogy (through enabling creative collaborative learning in classrooms). Empirical research is reported on patterns of classification and framing expected in RE by pupils, teachers and educationalists outside schools. Evidence is provided of possibilities for the collaborative involvement of teachers and pupils within RE, and for collaboration with teaching and learning in other school subjects. Research is itself put forward tentatively as the most appropriate pedagogy in RE. This is not conceived in terms of its ‘effectiveness’ as a pedagogy, but in terms of its ability to develop itself, critically, within the classroom and school as a learning community.