Implementation of the Peer-Led Team-Learning Instructional Model as a Stopgap Measure Improves Student Achievement for Students Opting Out of Laboratory

In entry-level university courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, students participating in associated laboratory sessions generally do better than those who have no related lab classes. This is a problem when, for various reasons, not enough lab sections can be offered for students and/or when students opt out of optional available lab courses. Faced with such a situation, this study evaluated the efficacy of the peer-led team-learning (PLTL) instructional model as a potential method for narrowing the achievement gap among undergraduate students electing not to enroll in an optional laboratory component of an introductory biology course. In peer-led workshops, small groups of students participated in solving problems and other activities that encouraged active learning. Students led by peer leaders attained significantly higher exam and final course grades in introductory biology than comparable students not participating in PLTL. Among the introductory biology students who opted not to enroll in the optional lab course, those who participated in PLTL averaged more than a letter grade higher than those who did not. This difference was statistically significant, and the PLTL workshops almost entirely closed the achievement gap in lecture exam and final grades for students who did not take the lab.     

Contrasting Perspectives and Performance of High School Students on Problem Solving in Real World, Situated, and School Contexts

This study describes and contrasts theoretically and empirically problem solving of situated problems in school and the real world at the macro level as a social-cultural activity system and analyzes the process of solving situated problems by high school students at the micro level as an activity. Three potentially experiential problem tasks were given to 31 last year high School science students. Action map, a concept derived from activity theory, was used to represent the solutions. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data obtained from the written solutions as well as interviews with the participants. Leont'ev's activity theory and Engeström's activity system were used as frameworks to analyze and interpret the data. The results indicate that there are fundamental identifiable differences among the activities and the activity systems of problem solving in the real world, situated, and school contexts.     

How Can We Improve Problem Solving in Undergraduate Biology? Applying Lessons from 30 Years of Physics Education Research

If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated student problem solving for the past three decades. Although physics and biology problems differ in structure and content, the instructional purposes align closely: explaining patterns and processes in the natural world and making predictions about physical and biological systems. In this paper, we discuss how research-supported approaches developed by physics education researchers can be adopted by biologists to enhance student problem-solving skills. First, we compare the problems that biology students are typically asked to solve with authentic, complex problems. We then describe the development of research-validated physics curricula emphasizing process skills in problem solving. We show that solving authentic, complex biology problems requires many of the same skills that practicing physicists and biologists use in representing problems, seeking relationships, making predictions, and verifying or checking solutions. We assert that acquiring these skills can help biology students become competent problem solvers. Finally, we propose how biology scholars can apply lessons from physics education in their classrooms and inspire new studies in biology education research.     

Focusing attention to deep structure in math problems: Effects on elementary education students with and without attentional deficits

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of actively categorizing math problems on the math problem solving performance of students with and without attention deficit disorder (ADD). To this purpose, 52 fifth and sixth grade students were involved in actively categorizing or noncategorizing (control) tasks followed by two problem solving activities. The results of this study indicated that students more frequently organize math problems by categories based on deeper structures (i.e., concepts or operations) when they were informed of the features to look for than students who organized math problems on their own. However, those students who actively organized the math problems and formed categories on their own had higher accuracy in an assessment of generality in a subsequent problem solving task than students who were earlier given categories. These effects were similar for both groups and provided generality to prior research on recall performance to assessing problem solving.     

Proportional Reasoning among 7th Grade Students with Different Curricular Experiences

Contextual problems involving rational numbers and proportional reasoning were presented to seventh grade students with different curricular experiences. There is strong evidence that students in reform curricula, who are encouraged to construct their own conceptual and procedural knowledge of proportionality through collaborative problem solving activities, perform better than students with more traditional, teacher-directed instructional experiences. Seventh grade students, especially those who study the new curricula, are capable of developing their own repertoire of sense-making tools to help them to produce creative solutions and explanations. This is demonstrated through analysis of solution strategies applied by students to a variety of rate problems.     

“I believe I will go out of this class actually knowing something”: Cooperative learning activities in physical chemistry

The purposes of this study were to describe the structure of events during cooperative learning activities—Friday discussion sessions—in a graduate-level thermodynamics course and to understand what these activities meant to the students. First, we describe the structure of Friday discussion sessions in our classroom, which were used to focus student attention on conceptual issues rather than algorithmic problem solving. Second, we delineate findings which emerge from the perspective of the students. We found that cooperative learning activities move students away from rote learning strategies and toward more meaningful strategies which allowed them to integrate concepts over the entire semester. In addition, we discovered that the sharing of insights and ideas between students leads to the development of interpersonal skills and communication skills which the students perceive as an important component of the Friday discussion sessions. Implications for further classroom use, low-status versus high-status students, and assessment are discussed. J Res Sci Teach 34: 819–835, 1997.     

Structured Collaboration versus Individual Learning in Solving Physics Problems

The research issue in this study is how to structure collaborative learning so that it improves solving physics problems more than individual learning. Structured collaborative learning has been compared with individual learning environments with Schoenfeld’s problem‐solving episodes. Students took a pre‐test and a post‐test and had the opportunity to solve six physics problems. Ninety‐nine students from a secondary school in Shanghai participated in the study. Students who learnt to solve problems in collaboration and students who learnt to solve problems individually with hints improved their problem‐solving skills compared with those who learnt to solve the problems individually without hints. However, it was hard to discern an extra effect for students working collaboratively with hints—although we observed these students working in a more structured way than those in the other groups. We discuss ways to further investigate effective collaborative processes for solving physics problems.     

Effects of Instruction on Verbal Interactions During Collaborative Problem Solving

During one school year, data were collected for vocational education students while they worked collaboratively on open-ended mathematics problems. In collaboration with participating teachers, instructional activities were designed with a twofold goal of modelling the process of problem solving and improving collaboration. Instructional activities were based on scaffolding instruction and included modelling problem solving, stimulating reflection, and giving feedback on the process of collaboration. These activities were gradually developed and implemented in collaboration with teachers who participated in the study. The main research question in this study was whether student collaboration while working in small groups creates a learning context where students work on open-ended problems and where instructional activities are aimed at stimulating collaborative problem solving in mathematics.To answer the research question, an experiment was undertaken in two classes in different schools. Two groups of students were videotaped while they tried to solve mathematics problems collaboratively. Observational data were analysed with a schema that was developed as part of this research. Analyses of the data showed that, in both groups, collaboration-oriented patterns increased during the school year. It is argued that the approach of gradual implementation of instructional activities that are designed in cooperation with participating teachers is effective in stimulating collaborative problem solving.     

Cognitive development,genetics problem solving,and genetics instruction: A critical review

Recent studies have analyzed the cognitive demands of solving problems in genetics, focusing primarily on the Piagetian schemas of combinations, proportions, and probability. Based on data from these primarily correlational studies, some authors have argued for the elimination of classical genetics from the high school curriculum. The critical review of the literature presented in this article reaffirms that formal-operational thought is conducive to successful genetics problem solving. The weight of the evidence to date, however, does not support the position that formal operational thought is strictly required for solving typical genetics problems. Arguments are therefore presented in support of the inclusion of genetics and genetics problem solving in high school biology. Implications of this analysis for the selection of appropriate content, problems, and instructional techniques for genetics instruction for nonformal students are presented.     

Do it this way! Metacognitive strategies in collaborative mathematical problem solving

Recent years have seen increasing interest in the role of metacognition in mathematical problem solving, and in the use of small group work in classroom settings. However, little is known about the nature of secondary students' metacognitive strategy use, and how these strategies are applied when students work together on problems. The study described in this paper investigated the monitoring behaviour of a pair of senior secondary school students as they worked collaboratively on problems in applied mathematics. Analysis of verbal protocols from think aloud problem solving sessions showed that, although the students generally benefited from adopting complementary metacognitive roles, unhelpful social interactions sometimes impeded progress. The findings shed some light on the nature of individual and interactive metacognitive strategy use during collaborative activity.     

The Software Process: A Parallel Approach through Problem Solving and Program Development

First-year computer science students are receiving early introduction to the software process through a problem solving and program development approach. We present a methodology that addresses the needs and difficulties of students learning programming, incorporating the tasks required for solving problems and writing programs. This approach allows for incremental exposure to the complex field of software engineering, consistent with the level of the introductory computing course, while providing the learner with fundamental skills applicable to other domains. The correlation between the software process and the problem solving/program development approach is also demonstrated.     

Promoting skilled problem-solving behavior among beginning physics students

Beginning physics students were constrained to analyze mechanics problems according to a hierarchical scheme that integrated concepts, principles, and procedures. After five 1-hour sessions students increased their reliance on the use of principles in categorizing problems according to similarity of solution and in writing qualitative explanations of physical situations. In contrast, no consistent shift toward these expert-like competencies was observed using control treatments in which subjects spent the same amount of time solving problems using traditional approaches. In addition, when successful at performing the qualitative analyses, novices showed significant improvements in problem-solving performance in comparison to novices who directed their own problem-solving activities. The implications of this research are discussed in terms of instructional strategies aimed at promoting a deeper understanding of physics.     

More than Manners: Conflict Resolution in Primary Level Classrooms

A diverse sample of kindergarten and 1st grade students participated in a social-emotional literacy and problem solving program. Students and their teachers participated in seven one-hour training sessions which included concrete activities designed to increase affective vocabulary and social problem-solving. Effective communication strategies such as I-messages and paraphrasing were also introduced and practiced. Pretest data and responses to the activities revealed that students could easily articulate inappropriate and disrespectful behaviors prior to training; however they were unable to articulate behaviors that would be helpful in resolving conflict. Although students had been extensively exposed to manners curricula which emphasized respectful behavior, the posttest results indicate that the social-emotional problem solving curricula offers a distinct set of skills which enable students to constructively manage conflict, manifested through statistically significant decreases in verbal and physical aggression. Teacher and staff posttest surveys corroborated the student findings.     

WormClassroom.org: an inquiry-rich educational web portal for research resources of Caenorhabditis elegans

The utilization of biology research resources, coupled with a “learning by inquiry” approach, has great potential to aid students in gaining an understanding of fundamental biological principles. To help realize this potential, we have developed a Web portal for undergraduate biology education, WormClassroom.org, based on current research resources of a model research organism, Caenorhabditis elegans. This portal is intended to serve as a resource gateway for students to learn biological concepts using C. elegans research material. The driving forces behind the WormClassroom website were the strengths of C. elegans as a teaching organism, getting researchers and educators to work together to develop instructional materials, and the 3 P's (problem posing, problem solving, and peer persuasion) approach for inquiry learning. Iterative assessment is an important aspect of the WormClassroom site development because it not only ensures that content is up-to-date and accurate, but also verifies that it does, in fact, aid student learning. A primary assessment was performed to refine the WormClassroom website utilizing undergraduate biology students and nonstudent experts such as C. elegans researchers; results and comments were used for site improvement. We are actively encouraging continued resource contributions from the C. elegans research and education community for the further development of WormClassroom.     

Student connections among counting problems: an exploration using actor-oriented transfer

The purpose of this article is to explore student-generated connections among counting problems. The literature indicates that such problems pose difficulties for students, who struggle to detect common structures and identify models of underlying problem types. A case study is presented here, in which students elaborate upon connections they make during the problem solving process. The selected case study highlights student work on three particular combinatorics problems, one of which highlights tendencies toward over-counting. The conception of Lobato (Educational Researcher 3(1):17–20, 2003) of actor-oriented transfer, in which students’ (as opposed to experts’) notions of similarity are emphasized, is used as a means by which to analyze the resulting qualitative data. Results include (1) a domain-specific categorization of fundamental types of actor-oriented transfer in combinatorics and (2) implications that there is much to be gained when students attend to features of problems that experts might not emphasize.     

Problem solving beyond the logic of things: contextual effects on understanding and solving word problems

Arguments are put forward in this paper that classroom word problem solving is more-and also less-than the urgent analysis of a factual structure, in the sense that it is essentially a species of a social-cognitive activity. Word-or story-problems, presented in classroom contexts, represent textual and pragmatic patterms of a certain grammaticality. To present a problem verbally to a student means to organize a fact in some way for the attention of a problem solver. There is not only the structure of the problem text itself by which situations are denoted, but there is also the stimulative nature of the social-pragmatic context which shapes the student's textbook-problem solving behavior over a long period of time.The present paper discusses the results of several studies showing, for example, that subject matter related attitudes towards a problem frequently do not play an important part in the problem solving efforts; that students often solve problems correctly without understanding them; and that false contextual expectations can lead to abstruse errors of understanding and to peculiar solution attempts.The studies indicate that students can become sensitive and skilful in perceiving and capitalizing on subtle textual and contextual signs pointing to the solution and anticipating its pattern. It seems that usual textbook problems let students get accustomed to certain courses of processing where a simple fact, like whether an equation works out evenly or does not, can stop the process or push it further. It is argued that the deeper reason for the observed textual and contextual influences on understanding and problem solving lies in a fundamental weakness of the student's epistemic control behavior. The psychological and instructional significance of the studies is discussed.     

Some Consequences of Prompting Novice Physics Students to Construct Force Diagrams

We conducted a series of experiments to investigate the extent to which prompting the construction of a force diagram affects student solutions to simple mechanics problems. A total of 891 university introductory physics students were given typical force and motion problems under one of the two conditions: when a force diagram was or was not prompted as part of the solution. Results indicated that students who were prompted to draw the force diagram were less likely to obtain a correct solution than those who were not prompted to solve the problem in any particular way. Analysis of the solution methods revealed that those students prompted to use a diagram tended to use the formally taught problem‐solving method, and those students not prompted to draw a force diagram tended to use more intuitive methods. Students who were prompted to draw diagrams were also more likely to depict incorrect forces. These results may be explained by two factors. First, novice students may simply be more effective using intuitive, situational reasoning than using new formal methods. Second, prompting the construction of a force diagram may be misinterpreted by the student as a separate task, unrelated to solving the problem. For instruction, the results of this study imply that ignoring students’ prior abilities to solve problems and their necessary developmental stages in learning formal problem‐solving techniques may lead to serious mismatches in what is taught and what is intended to be learned.     

Strategic development of multiplication problem solving: Patterns of students' strategy choices

Low mathematics achievement is a persistent problem in the United States, and multiplication is a fundamental area in which many students manifest learning difficulties. This study examined the strategic developmental levels of multiplication problem solving among 121 elementary school students in Grades 3 through 5. A latent class analysis modeling was used to identify three valid groups representing different patterns of strategy choices for each of three types of multiplication problems. Findings indicated intra-group variability for problem-solving accuracy, for frequency of using different strategies, and for accuracy of executing direct retrieval/algorithm (DR/AG) strategies. Students demonstrated relative consistency in their strategy choices for solving the three problem types. Students who used DR/AG strategies most frequently showed the highest problem-solving accuracy and the highest accuracy of executing the DR/AG strategies. Students who most frequently relied on incorrect operations or who indicated they did not know how to solve problems demonstrated the lowest problem-solving accuracy among the three groups; the number of students in this group increased with problem difficulty levels. Implications are discussed in terms of identifying students' strategic developmental levels and providing differentiated instruction based on the identified levels.     

Dynamic and spatial representation of web movements and navigational patterns through the use of navigational paths as data

Solving real-world problems is an effective learning activity that promotes meaningful learning in formal educational settings. Problems can be classified as being either well structured or ill structured. Internet information search approaches have an influential role to play in the successful performance of problem solving. A better understanding of how students differentially model information search strategies and movements in tackling well- and ill-structured problems is essential for creating engaging problem-solving environments for students. Static measures, such as the number of accessed nodes or links, or the number of times particular web browser function buttons are clicked, are limited in their ability to analyze attributes of information search patterns. A more dynamic and spatial representation of web movements and navigational patterns can be realized through the use of navigational paths as data. The two path-specific structural metrics that can be used to assess network-based navigational paths in relation to the structuredness of the problem-solving task are compactness and stratum. These metrics are, respectively, the indicators of the connectedness and linearity of network-based structures defining students’ online navigational visitations during the problem-solving sessions. This study explored the relevance and utility of these two metrics in analyzing the navigational movements of learners in seeking out electronic information to accomplish successful problem solving. The outcome findings of this study show that well- and ill-structured problems demand different cognitive and information seeking navigational approaches. The differing values of the two path metrics in analyzing the search movements organized by students in attending to well- and ill-structured problems were a direct result of the contrasting patterns of navigational path movements. The search patterns associated with well-structured problem solving tended to be more linear and less connected, whereas those related to ill-structured problem solving were more distributed and inter-connected.