Students Work In Groups Research Articles

Exploring Group Work in ESL Classroom Using Tuckman’s Model

Interaction among students especially in ESL classrooms is highly valued, and group work is one of the ways to encourage interaction among students. In addition, group work offers many advantages and according to the Tuckman Model, during group work, participants will go through four stages; forming, storming, norming, and performing. This study aims to investigate the influence that all these four stages have on group work, as well as the relationship that exist between the stages. The quantitative approach was adopted. Purposive sampling method was selected. A questionnaire consisting of 29 items was distributed online to 200 undergraduate students of Universiti Teknologi Mara, Shah Alam, Malaysia. The questionnaire contains four sections, and these sections aim to elicit respondents’ experience while going through the four stages in Tuckman Model. This study found that all stages do influence students group work experience positively. Additionally, it is also found that there is moderate positive relationship between the stages forming and norming as well as between forming and performing. Hence, educators should observe these stages as students go through them when performing group work and offer guidance to students to enhance the effectiveness of group work in ESL classrooms.

The impact of an online physics lab on university students' self-efficacy and understanding of thermal concepts during COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has caused widespread disruption, necessitating tough decisions for global economy and services, including one of the central social pillars, education. As in the rest of the world, Greek universities transformed and adapted their educational services to continue to operate during the pandemic. This article presents how a series of a physics laboratory work for thermal concepts was conducted to evaluate its effectiveness on students’ understanding and its impact on their self-efficacy beliefs. The results showed that the post-test performance on students’ understanding of thermal concepts and their self-efficacy beliefs levels toward physics teaching were higher than pre-test performance but still moderate. A critical challenge was to maintain the experiential consistency with the in-person laboratory classes of all the previous academic years and the promotion of group work of students.

Learning English as a Second Language through Cooperative Learning

Cooperative Learning is widely recognized at the global level as one of the recently developed theories of Learning. This study aims to investigate what strategies within Cooperative Learning teachers use in the English Classroom. An additional aim is to investigate how teachers believe Cooperative Learning contributes to interaction among students. The study focuses on the perspective of the teachers. Cooperative Learning is a pedagogical method with roots in the sociocultural perspective. Furthermore, it is described by Kagan and Stenlev (2006) as a method where students work in groups and cooperate in order to achieve the mutual goal. The findings indicate that the Cooperative Learning method is more effective than the traditional methods.

Collaborative learning as constructivist practice: An exploratory qualitative descriptive study of faculty approaches to student group work

Collaborative learning is a common teaching technique, posited to align with a constructivist approach to teaching and learning. This qualitative descriptive study explores how, if at all, faculty implementation and discussion of collaborative learning shows evidence of it as a constructivist practice. Nineteen faculty at a large public mid-Atlantic university in the United States, representing a variety of academic disciplines, were interviewed about the ways in which they use collaborative learning in their courses. Driscoll’s five constructivist conditions for learning guided qualitative analysis: complex and relevant learning environments, social negotiation, multiple perspectives and modes of learning, ownership in learning, and self-awareness of knowledge construction. Faculty descriptions of collaborative learning provided a rich picture of its use and revealed ample alignment with these conditions. Faculty most often highlighted the ways in which collaborative learning supported the creation of complex and relevant learning environments and allowed for students’ ownership in learning. They least often discussed the ways in which collaborative learning supported self-awareness of knowledge construction and occasionally expressed challenges with social negotiation.

Case-Based Learning: An Analysis of Student Groupwork and Instructional Design that Promotes Collaborative Discussion.

The use of small-group collaborative case-based learning methodologies has been growing both in interest and implementation across veterinary college curriculums in recent years. The ability of this pedagogical approach to solidify and deepen learning outcomes is well-established in the broader education literature. However, to achieve this positive impact, students must interact in productive discussions that expand the scope of their understanding. The present study focused on analyzing the ways in which professional veterinary students interact as they work collaboratively through clinical cases, in the context of a Team-Based Learning-intensive curriculum. This data was used to draw connections between the questions posed in the clinical case activities and the resulting intragroup collaborative outcomes, which can assist veterinary educators in sparking more robust student discussions through facilitation and instructional design. Fourteen participants formed two student groups that worked on 49 case questions across five sessions, providing 98 episodes of collaboration for analysis. The findings of this study revealed how professional veterinary students negotiated perspectives to come to consensus on in-class case-based learning tasks, including eight primary types of statements they made and seven overall patterns of group collaboration. This study highlighted specific elements of instructional design that influenced student collaboration including: allowing for multiple perspectives, sparking disagreement, perceived difficulty, learning outcome level, and the level of consensus required by the question structure. We present specific recommendations for veterinary educators to consider while designing questions for veterinary student groups.

An Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory Technique Course using Scaffolded, Inquiry-Based Laboratories and Project-Based Learning.

To enhance students' learning and help them understand the whole picture of the field of inorganic chemistry, an inorganic laboratory technique course was designed that uses scaffolded, inquiry-based lab experiments and project-based learning. The scaffolded, inquiry-based laboratories taught in the first 8 weeks of the course helped students better understand the aim of each lab and how to apply each lab technique to a bigger research project. The laboratory experiments also included opportunities for cooperative and collaborative learning through student group work and feedback. To further develop students' independent research skills, we implemented project-based learning in the second part of the course (last 4 weeks), in which students develop a research proposal based on independent literature research and the laboratory techniques they learned from the course. Pilot data suggest that the course helped improve students' interest in inorganic chemistry, science self-efficacy, and science identity. Additionally, students reported that both the scaffolded, inquiry-based laboratories and the project-based learning module enhanced their problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Development of Critical Thinking of Students in the Process of Organizing Chemical Experiments

In the work the importance and methodological features of the organization chemical experiment for the formation of natural science knowledge about chemical processes by school students and the development of their critical thinking was shown. The influence of the methodology of conducting a chemical experiment on the success of mastering chemistry in experimental classes and the level of formation critical thinking by school students was established. For identifying the subject erudition of school students in inorganic chemistry, after studying the theme, a control work was carried out, some questions of which required demonstrating the skills of analysis, generalization and formulation of arguments. It was shown that the problem-research chemical experiment provides school students with high motivation to study the discipline, the formation of such important universal educational actions as analysis, synthesis, generalization. Mastering such research skills as setting goals, identifying problems, planning actions to solve it, summing up, contributes to the development of school students' personality through the development of critical thinking. The use of a specially elaborated chemical experiment for the organization of individual and group work of school students in the classroom contributes not only to the development of critical thinking and the formation of skills and abilities, but also to the formation of subject knowledge, confirmed by the results of the formative pedagogical experiment.

Peningkatan Keaktifan Kerja Kelompok Melalui Model Problem Based Learning Berbasis Outdoor Study Siswa Kelas IV SDN Sarikarya Yogyakarta

The purpose of conducting this research is to increase the activeness of group work through the Problem Based Learning model based on Outdoor Learning in class IV with the subject of Pancasila Education (PP) at SD Negeri Sarikarya Yogyakarta. The research carried out applies the type of Classroom Action Research (CAR). Sources of data are educators and students as research subjects. The data collection instruments used in this study were interviews, observations and questionnaires. Data collection was carried out in three cycles, namely pre-cycle, cycle I, and cycle II. The data analysis technique is descriptively taken from the percentage of active group work. Based on the results of the research that has been carried out, it can be concluded that the use of the Outdoor Study-based Problem Based Learning learning model is able to increase the activity of students in group work for class IV SD Negeri Sarikarya. In the pre-cycle implementation, the average activity of students in group work was 54.5. The data generated in the first cycle there was an increase of 15.4 to 69.9 and was included in the fairly active criteria. Because the results were not appropriate, it was continued in cycle II and showed an increase of 18.8 to 88.7 and was included in the Very Active criteria. From the increased activity data obtained, it can be seen that there has been an increase in activity starting from the pre-cycle stage, cycle I to cycle II.

Teaching the Best Research Data Management Practices to PhD Students

Good Research Data Management (RDM) practices make it easier for researchers to conduct their research and ensure their data is preserved and stored securely for the long-term. Archiving is one of the last stages of Research Data Lifecycle and deals with depositing and preserving datasets at the end of a project in a suitable storage location (repositories, local server, or hard drive). Students may not find data management topic as interesting as their core course topics. This can result in lack of students’ knowledge of the importance and benefits of good data management practices for their studies. At Warwick, I design and deliver Research Data Management & Planning (RDM&P) case study sessions to PhD students. Students learn different elements of RDM and importance of RDM for long-term preservation. Students work in groups to develop and present Data Management Plan (DMP) and put RDM&P learning into practice. In this presentation, I briefly introduce the above case study, feedbacks received from students across different disciplines and further steps.

Groupwork and collaborative learning: Chinese university students’ struggles and strategies

ABSTRACT University students’ collaborative learning, particularly groupwork, has been more often investigated in Western settings than in countries that have borrowed this Western pedagogy. This qualitative study re-examines Chinese university students’ groupwork responses regarding their expectations, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Their responses, the findings revealed, could be conceptualized as strategic navigation resulting from students, as rational and pragmatic learners, negotiating and navigating the interplay among multiple cultures of learning brought by policies, teachers, and the labor market. The study supplements the literature on collaborative learning and borrowed pedagogy and reflects university policymakers’ and teachers’ need to rethink making student groupwork truly collaborative.

SELECTION OF DIGITAL TOOLS FOR ORGANIZING STUDENTS' GROUP WORK IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

The transformation of classical education into distance education has become increasingly relevant, especially given the challenging conditions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and military operations in our country. In these circumstances, distance learning requires practical educational materials that are easily accessible to students. This paper proposes criteria and indicators for selecting digital tools that can facilitate group work with educational content in distance learning. We analyzed the tools available on the Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Cisco Webex platforms and evaluated their suitability for managing students’ group work in distance learning in institutions of higher education at various stages of the learning process including setting tasks, designing the learning environment, facilitating group interaction and communication, managing educational content and files, promoting teamwork and productivity, and presenting results. To obtain expert assessment of the defined criteria and indicators, we engaged seventeen researchers and educators who have practical experience using digital tools in distance learning. Our study identified three important criteria for selecting digital tools for group work with educational content, namely: design, functional-technological, education-communication ones. We determined the weight of the indicators for these criteria and assessed digital tools for group work with educational content in distance learning. Digital tools such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace was found to be more suitable for providing group work of students in a distance learning, while Cisco Webex was found to be the most suitable tool for organizing real-time group work. Other digital tools for group work of students in distance learning can be evaluated according to defined criteria and indicators.

Melejitkan Hasil Belajar Peserta Didik pada Mata Pelajaran Ilmu Pengetahuan Sosial melalui Metode Jigsaw

The research aimed to improve the students’ outcome in Social Science subject through Jigsaw. The subjects of this research were the grade IX students of class IX B at SMP Negeri 30 Bandarlampung year 2018/2019. Therefore, the classroom action research by using the Jigsaw model was conducted. This classroom action research consisted of 3 cycles. The subject of the research was 27 students from class IX B. The data of students’ activity level was obtained from the observation sheet and the result of students group work assignment. The data of student’s learning outcome was obtained from individual written evaluation. The research showed that there was an increase in students’ activity level and learning outcome from cycle I through cycle III. Those result proved that through Jigsaw model, the learning outcomes in Social Science subject of students in class IX B at SMP Negeri 30 Bandarlampung year 2018/2019 significantly increased.

Digital mind maps (DMM) in developing students’ critical thinking within the course of Business Communication

In the era of information technology development, various interactive computer programmes and electronic resources in educational settings are of particular relevance for effective teacher-student interaction. This paper discusses didactic potential of using Digital Mind Mapping (DMM) technology in the context of developing Masters students’ critical thinking within business communication classes. In this context, mind mapping is an innovative strategy to facilitate recognition and memorization of important information by students, as well as to ensure the depth of their understanding by making connections between pieces of information and to develop critical thinking of students. The study gives an overview of services for creating DMM, a comparative analysis of their functional characteristics, and also offers a model for using DMM consisting of several stages, using the “Business communication” course in a foreign language for Masters students as an example. The authors concludes that the use of DMM in the educational process stimulates the development of creative abilities and critical thinking of students; develops general cultural competencies of students in group work; promotes the development of argumentation skills; justification of their point of view and possession of clear oral and written speech; forms the ability to work in a team, and promotes the development of cooperation skills; makes it possible to ma

USE OF ENGLISH SPECIFIC INFORMATION SOURCES IN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS AS A CONDITION FOR IMPROVING OF FUTURE DENTISTS’ PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE

The need for close cooperation between different countries grows every year and necessitates the training of specialists who are fluent in languages of international communication, primarily in English, and use them in their professional activities. Today, it is difficult to imagine a competitive medical specialist who does not use knowledge of the English language in his/her activity to effectively establish professional contacts and obtain the latest information.
 The purpose of the article is to determine the possibilities of improving the quality of professional training of future dentists due to the improvement of foreign language communicative competence through the use of English-language professional information sources in educational process at clinical departments.
 Materials and methods. A search and study of publications on the specified issue was conducted in library sources and search engines.
 Research results. The change in requirements for modern student of higher medical educational institution, caused by the need to enter the world and European educational and scientific space, makes it necessary for future doctors to master the English language at a professional level. Proficiency in English gives future dentists direct access to professional literature, periodicals, websites, etc. Having a sufficient level of language skills, they will be able to expand their horizons of professional growth by attending international conferences, seminars, trainings, exhibitions, getting acquainted with the experience of leading scientists and practitioners.
 Based on this, it should be noted that turning to English-language professional sources in the training of future dentists should not be limited by professional English classes, but their use should become a necessary element of educational process at clinical departments. At the departments of Poltava State Medical University’s Stomatological Faculty the practice of including English-language publications in the lists of recommended literature, listening to reports at practical classes, and the results of individual tasks prepared in English based on the study of original scientific literature has already become a common practice. Nevertheless, the educational process at clinical departments needs more active implementation of such types of educational activities as finding and analyzing new textual, graphic and video information contained in professional materials in English. The work of student scientific groups should provide especially wide opportunities for this.
 Thus, it can be concluded that the use of the English-language professional literature, publications in periodicals, and Internet resources in educational process of future dentists should become an additional factor in students’ effective acquisition and assimilation of knowledge needed in future professional activities.

Turning social inclusion into exclusion during collaborative learning between students with and without SEN

ABSTRACT Creating opportunities for meaningful social relationships between through collaborative learning has been suggested to facilitate all students’ social inclusion. However, little attention has been given to the interaction processes leading to unsuccessful knowledge co-creation in mixed-ability peer groups including students with and without special educational needs (SEN). This study addressed this research gap by conducting multimodal conversation analyses of the social exclusion during group work of students with and without SEN, and how the students with SEN responded to their positioning as unequal learning partners. The results were based on video-recordings of 24 lessons involving fifth graders in Finnish school spaces featuring open and flexible learning environments. The results showed that although the students with SEN performed relevant on-task initiations, their contributions were misaligned by ignoring, denying, invalidating their contributions, manipulating shared learning materials, or downgrading their status as help givers. Despite this, students with SEN continued to orient toward collaborative working by persistently initiating joint activities, negotiating their task performance and struggling to ensure their right to contribute. The study underlines the importance of instructing all students to create a warm learning community in which every student has equal rights to participate and to be positively recognised.

Pragmatic Model and Faculty Toolkit for PharmD Student Engagement in Social and Administrative Pharmacy Research

ObjectiveWe aim to describe the development of a pharmacy student workgroup as an experiential education model to provide social and administrative pharmacy research opportunities and provide a toolkit for faculty seeking to increase student research engagement via this model. MethodsThree pharmacy faculty with diverse training backgrounds but a common interest in opioid medications established a workgroup named the Opioid Research Workgroup. The workgroup consisted of first-year pharmacy students, research interns, and advanced graduate trainees. A hierarchical leadership model of supervision was implemented, whereby students reported progress on research tasks directly to an advanced graduate trainee leading a project team. To understand students’ perspectives on the research experience and educational outcomes, students were asked to complete an anonymous voluntary survey after a year of participation. ResultsSince its establishment, the workgroup has published multiple conference abstracts, manuscripts, and grants. Students’ overall satisfaction with the Workgroup on a scale of 1–5, 5 being very high, was 4.69. The successful scalability and longevity of this model are dependent on administrative support that protects faculty resources. The toolkit provided offers resources for those interested in adapting this model. ConclusionOur experience with the pragmatic model of pharmacy student engagement in research proved successful in terms of research output and student training experience. Although the model can be applied across a variety of health science clinical and research topics, and faculty can leverage this approach to increase productivity in research output, faculty must ensure that resources are available to support this effort.

Creating Meaningful Learning Opportunities through Incorporating Local Research into Chemistry Classroom Activities

Incorporating real-life context through connections to research early in the curriculum can create meaningful learning opportunities that encourage students to engage deeply with classroom content to construct chemistry knowledge. Course-based undergraduate research experiences have been successful at integrating real-life context, but are often only incorporated into upper-level courses. To provide an additional pathway to foster interaction with research, four activities from an introductory chemistry discussion class were created to incorporate authentic research connections. Care was taken to incorporate metacognitive questions designed to help students make connections between their preexisting knowledge and course content. Marzano’s taxonomy was used to analyze the cognitive complexity of tasks, which increased in the revised activities, allowing for more opportunities for knowledge construction. Audio and written work of student groups as they worked through activities was collected. Qualitative analysis of student engagement revealed that control over the content of activities to incorporate opportunities for knowledge construction is not enough to facilitate students consciously engaging in meaningful learning. If instructors wish to promote students integrating chemistry knowledge into their existing framework, course instructors, including graduate teaching assistants, need to be trained on how to properly facilitate classroom experiences to increase the likelihood of success.

Designing Our Own Board Games in the Playful Space: Improving High School Student’s Citizenship Competencies and Creativity through Game-Based Learning

The nurturing of a student’s core competencies and creativity has been promoted and prioritized as one of the main axes in education worldwide, which has also been emphasized in Taiwan’s new curriculum guidelines. This study aims to develop a new creative teaching and learning approach—“Self-designed Board Games” (SdBG), in which the students work in groups to design and play their self-designed board games in high school citizenship studies. The study further investigates the impact of SdBG on the students’ citizenship competencies and creativity. A quasi-experimental design was employed throughout one semester; 76 high school students were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (SdBG) or the comparison group (traditional lecturing teaching). The experimental group was asked to develop board games based on their interests and the learning contents of the 18- week semester. Later, all of the experimental group students played the board games developed by themselves and other fellow students. The main findings are as follows: (a) Citizenship competencies: the experimental group experienced a significant improvement in citizenship competencies, whereas no significant difference was found in the control group. (b) Creativity: the experimental group witnessed great improvements in all four facets of creativity, including fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration, whereas the control group experienced significant regression in all four facets in the pretest and post-test. To our knowledge, this is the first study that creates a so-called “Playful Space”, enabling students to play their self-designed board games and simultaneously investigates its impact on citizenship competencies and creativity. Evidence revealed that the SdBG is an effective approach in Citizenship studies, which offers the warrant for the study to make theoretical and practical contributions to the field and knowledge.

Using IF-AT Cards to Engage Students in Deeper Learning of Course Content

The free access to online materials has changed the role of traditional lectures from being a vehicle to deliver course content to providing face-to-face guidance to clarify and expand on difficult concepts. This means students instead of listening and taking notes, participate in interactive activities that revise the lectures content. Active learning strategies are seen as positive steps towards increasing students engagement and learning during class time. In particular, posting multiple-choice questions (MCQ) is a popular technique to both capture student attention and fix possible misconceptions. Quizzes using <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IF-AT</i> cards differ from other in-class MCQ approaches such as clickers in that students work in groups, and that they must continue to discuss a question until they find the correct answer. This paper reports on two different experiences of using <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IF-AT</i> cards to revise course content for (a) a second- year Computer Systems course at the University of Adelaide and (b) a first-year Physics course at Universidad del Pacifico. The dynamics of team collaboration and its impact on test results is analysed for each course. Both case studies indicate that IF-AT cards succeed in engaging students to discuss and consolidate their knowledge. Additionally, collaborative discussion supports soft skills development such as technical communication skills.

Interdependence between Perceived Cooperative Learning, Sense of Belonging, and Generic Skills in Undergraduate STEM Education

The development of sense of belonging and generic skills may be considered important to succeed in higher education and in life and may be enhanced through student group work. For group work to succeed, Social Interdependence Theory and Cooperative Learning suggest that group members need to be positively interdependent. In the present study we conducted a cross-sectional survey in a sample of 401 students in undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education in Norway mapping the students’ perceptions of cooperative learning, sense of belonging and generic skills. By means of Pearson bivariate correlation analyses and standard multiple regression analyses, we found that 1) Cooperative Learning was positively associated with the development of both sense of belonging and generic skills, 2) Sense of belonging and generic skills were positively interrelated, and 3) Interaction was the cooperative learning principle contributing most to the association with both sense of belonging and generic skills.