1. What study was the inspiration for this study?
Title: The evolution of research on collaborative learning
DILLENBOURG, P., BAKER, M., BLAYE, A. & O'MALLEY, C.(1996) The evolution of research on collaborative In E. Spada & P. Reiman (Eds) Learning in Humans and Machine: Towards an interdisciplinary learning science. (211). Oxford: Elsevier.
P. Dillenbourg (Université de Genève, Switzerland)
M. Baker (CNRS, France)
A. Blaye (Université de Provence à Aix, France)
C. O'Malley (University of Nottingham, UK)
Research Review:
The researchers of the above listed paper expressed that, for decades researches focused on the how “individuals function in a group” and on “several independent variables (size of the group, composition of the group, nature of the task….)” impact on collaborative learning. The researchers found that the independent variables used in the previous studies interacted with one another, and hence it was difficult to deduct clear correlations as of direct cause-effect relationship.
The research main question was:
“Is Collaborative learning more efficient than learning alone”
The researchers were so specific in their study. They distinguished between
1. Learning and problem solving
2. Collaboration and cooperation
Based on this distinction, the researchers developed different techniques to match each one.
The main purpose of the study is to focus on the group (team in the collaborative learning) as a unit of analysis. The individual members (students) are considered as cognitive systems in the unit. To study the unit the researchers had to look it from three approaches:
1- The socio-constructivist approach: inter-actions with others in the team through “conflicts and coordination of points of view” enhances learning. (members of the team have different viewpoints)
2- The socio-cultural approach: This approach relate the social interaction as a cause to individual cognitive change. (members of the team have different levels of skill)
The researchers’ Results:
1- The low achievers progressively become passive when collaborating with high achievers. So, if the team members are at four levels (-1, 0. +1, +2) the +1 was the only one observed to have significant improvement.
2- Pairs are more effective than larger groups.
3- Students should have a certain cognitive level to benefit from collaboration. (the ability to translate conflict -interaction into cognitive restructuring)
Finally, the researchers recommended that: “we should stop using the word ‘collaboration’ in general and start referring only to precise categories of interaction.”
2. Why is the study important?
As a science high school teacher I tried many teaching methods to help enhance learning in my classroom. During 1998, I started teaching an Inquiry based curriculum published by Its-About-Time “Active Physics” and “EarthComm”. This inquiry based curriculum is based on the 5e’s learning cycle, among which is explore. Explore is the collaborative learning part of the learning cycle. I cannot express enough how challenging it is. Some students used to beg to work by themselves because others will just copy from them. I tried many strategies over the years such as:
1- Assigning roles for the team members, by mentoring them how the roles work as writer, material manager, and so on.
2- As a part of their lab writing was to evaluate the team members’ performance and effort during the lab.
3- Sorting Cards to group students, these colored cards had an image, a letter, a number after handing out the cards as the students come in the class I group them either by color or number or the image. Kids are kids they tried to exchange the cards to get with the smart ones, or the trouble makers tried to stay together.
If I want to list all the strategies I used, it will take pages to cover all of them. I am not saying that this problem is in all classes, because it varied from standard classes to honors and AP classes.
For this reason, I selected my mini-research to be about:
3. What is the basic research question?
Students conducting a wave gizmo over the computer will perform better on the post assessment than students working in pairs in a traditional lab setting.
4. Who are the subjects/participants of the proposed study?
High school Integrated Physics and Chemistry Class (mostly 9-10 graders)
I will collect from 12 students:
a. 4 high performing students (2 boys and two girls, level of performance will be based on class grades, TAKS performance 8th grade)
b. 4 standard students (2 boys and two girls, level of performance will be based on class grades, TAKS performance 8th grade)
c. 4 low performing students (2 boys and two girls, level of performance will be based on class grades, TAKS performance 8th grade including science and math grades)
From each group of 4 students, I will have 1female and 1 male student conduct the Gizmo, and 1female and 1 male student conduct the traditional lab
5. What is the time frame of the study?
I will collect data during the spring semester. During the fall semester, I will be observing the students to make sure that my subjects in each group are very close in performance level.
6. Where would the study be conducted?
In a public high school standard level class
7. What type of data would be collected?
I will collect both
a. Quantitative data- TAK’s , class performance daily and assessment
b. Qualitative data- observation (motivation, participation in classroom discussion)
c. I will make sure that the traditional lab handout match all the material covered by the gizmo.
8. How the data would be analyzed?
The pre-data: I will look for similarities
Post-data: I will compare the data, if the students who participated in the gizmo performed better; then, my hypothesis will be true and vise versa.
then click on browse Gizmos, I typed waves
then pick the 1st activity
Also, you can launch the Gizmo for a 5-minutes or 30-days free trial.
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