Group work does not necessarily equal collaborative learning: evidence from observations and self-reports

Situative and sociocognitive analyses were combined to examine engagement in high-level collaborative learning and its relationship with individuals’ cognitions. Video footage of 53 science university students’ (nine groups) collaborative learning interactions as they worked through a case-based project was analysed in combination with students’ appraisals and reflections on the activity. Sizeable group differences in amount of high-level discussion of learning content were revealed. Individual high-level contributions were positively correlated with overall unit performance. Motivation at task onset predicted amount but not depth of content-related group discussion. Interviews with participants suggested that groups’ divergent patterns of engagement with content could be related to different perceptions of the notion of collaborative learning. Results are discussed in terms of implications for collaborative learning research and educational practice.     

Liberal Studies in Hong Kong: A new perspective on critical thinking through group work

This article reports research that is contextualised within reforms of secondary education in Hong Kong and the reintroduction of Liberal Studies, which jointly emphasise the need for a learning environment that facilitates the practice of group work and the development of critical thinking. A study is described that explores the relevance of group work for fostering critical thinking, looking in particular at the participation of teachers in small group activity. While attention is paid to the results of critical thinking tests and excerpts extracted from the students’ dialogues, the research also seeks to highlight the role of the teacher in breaking stalemates in discussion with appropriate interventions. In sum, this article concludes by illustrating the importance of collaborative group work in the development of students’ critical thinking skills.     

阳光体育:学生生命成长的诉求

教育的起点是人的生命,教育的根本目的是使人的生命不断成长,使人"成人".然而目前的教育使人成为"器"或者"工具",使人背离了"人的生命成长轨迹."阳光体育对学生的生命成长具有一定的意义.     

Increasing international and domestic student interaction through group work: a case study from the humanities

This article explores the use of group work strategies to increase student interaction and learning. Despite the growing linguistic and cultural diversity in tertiary institutions, there is strong evidence of minimal interaction between ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ students in classrooms and in wider university contexts. This study investigates the implementation of teaching and learning strategies in an undergraduate class comprising domestic and international students from Education and Arts. The strategies relate to in-class group work, tutorial groups and assessment design. The findings indicate greater class interaction, higher satisfaction ratings and better learning outcomes as a result of the strategies. The article argues for three key features underpinning the pedagogy: where international students can work from a position of power equality in class, where both groups of students can enact the role of ‘experts’ and where support in language and learning how to learn is embedded in assessment and outcomes.     

Learning intercultural communication through group work oriented to the world beyond the classroom

Competence in intercultural communication has become a necessity for functioning effectively in our increasingly globalised and multicultural society. This study reports the use of a group project to enhance students’ learning of intercultural communication. Participants were from a large undergraduate class in an Australian university. The aim of the course is to encourage students to develop knowledge of intercultural communication by orienting themselves to the world beyond the classroom, and by learning from each other’s experiences and perspectives. In a group project assignment, students used the knowledge and skills gained in class to resolve practical problems that they encountered in intercultural interactions outside the classroom. This paper focused on students’ experience of working in groups, and links between this experience and performance on the group project. Our study confirms previous research that demonstrates active engagement in group work can enhance learning outcomes. It also goes further in showing that groups that more highly rated their learning of intercultural communication through the group work experience obtained higher grades on the project.     

Experiencing work as a communications professional: Students' reflections on their off-campus work practice

In order to ease the transition from the world of theuniversity to the world of work, it is of crucialimportance to provide university students withon-the-job skills and pre-professional workexperience. In the article, Finnish SpeechCommunication students' reflections on theirpre-professional practice in working life areinvestigated. The main purpose was to identifycritical factors affecting students' experiences andlearning outcomes of an off-campus practice period. Thestudy is based on reports by 70 students, analyzedqualitatively. The results indicate that whether thepracticum comes up to students' expectations dependson e.g. the following factors: the correspondencebetween the work-tasks and the student's studyprogram, the goal-orientedness of the work, thepossibility to commit oneself to work and to achieveset goals, challenges at work in general and invarious tasks, the supportiveness and attentiveness ofcolleagues and supervisor, a competent initialorientation by the supervisor on the first day, and anoptimal level of independence as well as a balancebetween goal-orientedness, supervision andindependence. For university students, a well-arrangedpracticum is not only an important part ofprofessional education, but at its best also a meansof personal development and growth.     

Experimenting with group work

Summary

In order for group analysis to be successful and to achieve the atmosphere which allows student cooperation to flourish, it is essential that adequate physical and financial resources are provided. These can be summarized as follows:

• (i)Adequate budget to allow for expenditure on models, visual materials, acquisition of background information, etc.

• (ii)Secretarial staff for typing and administration

• (iii)Laboratory technicians

• (iv)Visual aid staff

• (v)All resources available to the industrialist viz: information library, telephone, typing, stationery, workspace, storage, etc.

• (vi)The active cooperation of academic and technical staff

• (vii)Flexibility in timetabling and room allocations

• (viii)Seminar members who will command the respect of the students and will readily adapt to role playing where necessary

• (ix)Studio masters who are totally committed to the group analysis method of teaching and are, therefore, willing to allot substantial proportions of their time to student consultation

• (x)A cooperative administrative staff.

It is not difficult to provide such resources to make a new experience for a considerable number of college administrators and teachers alike.     

论管理与发展

高校学生管理的目的是为了促进学生的各方面健康发展。为了实现这一目的,管理者必须树立发展的管理观,开展多样的教育性的活动,把制度管理与对学生的人文关怀相结合,发挥评价的发展功能。     

Challenges facing group work online

Online group work can be complicated because of its asynchronous characteristics and lack of physical presence, and its requirements for skills in handling technology, human relationships, and content-related tasks. This study focuses on the administrative, logistical and relationship-related challenges in online group work. Challenges in areas such as commitment/responsibility, communication/coordination, structure/management, and leadership are discussed; strategies for how to streamline the management of online group work, how to decrease unnecessary logistical load and extra layers of structure, and how to improve online group work through the design of the syllabus are presented. The study suggests that instructors split group work into individual portions, use peer evaluation, establish guidelines for communication, use tools such as Google Drive to streamline duplicate works, monitor the process of the group work, and give group members freedom, ownership, and autonomy in their group work.     

实践活动:大学生成长的重要载体

大学校园学生实践活动是高校精神文明建设的重要组成部分,大学生通过实践活动,增加实践经验,提高思想素养,推动自身的全面发展;学校通过实践活动,丰富校园文化,为学生创造良好的学习和发展环境,促进学生和学校的互融共进.     

教师的心理素质对学生成长的影响

教师这个角色对学生人格、世界观、人生观及行为模式的形成都具有指导定向的作用。教师心理素质对学生成长的影响是重大的、不可忽略的。在学校里,教师一进课堂,就会不自觉地设定一个“场”。一个悲观、沮丧、经常训斥学生、情绪暴躁的老师启动的是消极的“场”,而一个乐观、快乐、经常启发学生心智的老师启动的则是积极的“场”。每个老师启动的究竟是什么样的“场”,不仅关乎学生的学习效率,而且决定着学生的个性是否能够健全发展。教师素质是实施素质教育的关键,没有教师的质量就没有教育的质量,而教师的心理素质构成了学生成长环境的一个重要部分。     

Structuring cooperative group work in classrooms

Cooperative, small-group learning is widely recognised as a pedagogical practice that promotes learning and socialisation across a range of curriculum areas from primary school through to high school and college. When children work cooperatively together, they learn to give and receive help, share their ideas and listen to other students’ perspectives, seek new ways of clarifying differences, resolving problems, and constructing new understandings and knowledge. The result is that students attain higher academic outcomes and are more motivated to achieve than they would be if they worked alone. This paper provides an overview of five different studies that the author has conducted that demonstrate clearly the importance of explicitly structuring cooperative small-group work in classrooms if children are to derive the benefits widely attributed to this pedagogical practice.     

Learning from group work in science

Abstract

This paper addresses itself to the question of how effective group work is in promoting ‘learning from others’. It follows an earlier report in which verbal interactions between pupils engaged in group work were analysed. The tasks attended to during the group work were all concerned with the planning of scientific investigations.

The findings obtained indicate that a significant amount of ‘learning from others’ occurs as the result of pupils being involved in group work: in the present case, about 40% of information points included in pupils’ independent written accounts had previously been contributed to the group discussion by other pupils. However, the accounts also contained information points that had not been mentioned during the preceding group discussions.

The extent of pupils’ achievement and ‘learning from others’ in group work appeared unrelated to their actual group behaviours, which suggests that even seemingly ‘inactive’ group members benefit from their involvement in group learning experiences.     

Emotions in group work: insights from an appraisal-oriented perspective

Small group work is common practice in higher education. However, empirical research on students’ emotions related to group work is still relatively scarce. Particularly, little is known about students’ appraisals of a group task as antecedents of emotions arising in the context of group work. This paper provides a first attempt to systematically disentangle the relationship between individual differences in group work appraisals and emotions that arise in the context of a real-life group assignment. Beginning and end questionnaires (with an interval of 6 weeks) from 446 teacher education students who completed a mandatory, assessed group assignment within a university course were used to examine students’ multi-dimensional group work appraisals and emotional experiences. Findings showed that individual differences in emotions emerge as a function of appraisal processes and provided support for systematically treating students’ group work experiences as multi-dimensional, as appraisal dimensions have distinct implications for students’ emotional experiences.     

Learning through work: Exploring instances of relational interdependencies

This paper provides an account of the inter-psychological processes that constitute learning through work. It does this by drawing on deliberations about the relative contributions of the immediate social world (i.e., workplace setting) that individuals encounter and the personal premises for individuals’ learning. This account is realised through analyses of workers’ experiences of working and learning in both large and small enterprises. Together, these premises and their contributions are used to elaborate how learning through work proceeds as a process of relational interdependence between the affordance of the workplace and the engagement of workers. This relational process is evident in work of different kinds, from the labours of coalminers through to the entrepreneurial activities of small business operators. Instances of learning through work are elaborated through studies that identify how workplaces’ affordances—those that invite workers in particular ways to participate, access support and reward—are generated and projected. These contributions to engaging in and learning through work can be conceptualised as the immediate social contribution or experience that is shaped by cultural and situational factors and the social legacies that shape how individuals construe, engage in, and learn through those practices. It concludes by discussing issues related to both the inter-psychological process and outcomes (e.g., inter-subjectivity) arising from learning through work.     

浅析小组工作在学校社会工作中的介入模式

随着我国教育的改革、社会的发展与变迁,我国当代学生出现了很多心理、行为和人际交往的社会问题,传统的学生工作已经无法满足大部分学生健康成长的需要。在这种情况下,学校社会工作以其全新的工作理念和方法,成为解决学生问题的有效途径之一。在学校中进行社会工作并结合小组工作等社会工作方法为学生的健康成长提供帮助,从而对未来和谐社会的建设具有重要的意义。     

以学生社团为依托的大学生职业核心能力自我培养机制探析

本文从师资团队建设、活动项目开发和职业核心能力测评3方面,对如何借助大学生社团的有利条件,构建学生职业核心能力自我培养机制进行了探讨,以期为促进大学生职业核心能力的培养提供参考。     

基于学生学术社团的专业能力培养探索

学术社团作为培养学生工程能力的新载体,全面贯彻了“卓越计划”的思想,丰富了学生的课余兴趣生活,也为学生更好地学习专业知识提供了平台。介绍了学生学术社团的相关概念和定义,综述了其发展现状,通过一个建设实例探讨了学术社团对学生专业能力培养的实践和意义,并对其前景作了展望。     

Parental Involvement and Students' Academic Achievement: A Growth Modeling Analysis

The major research objective of this study was to assess the effect of parental involvement on students' academic growth during the high school years. The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) data were used, and latent growth curve analysis within the framework of structural equation modeling was the major analytic tool. The following are the major findings of the study: (a) Parental involvement appears to be multidimensional; (b) ethnic group samples reported comparable degrees of parental involvement; (c) parents' aspiration for their children's education attainment had a consistent and positive effect on students' academic growth; and (d) the effect, or lack thereof, of parental involvement was consistent across ethnic group samples and across data sources (student vs. parent data). Plausible reasons for the consistent effect of parents' aspirations on students' academic achievement are discussed. The author offers explanations for why some parental involvement dimensions showed negative, though generally small, effects on students' academic growth.