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From The Journals
* Indicates that this abstract was specially written; it did not appear with the original article. 1. This article describes a way of combining the how and the what of learning via collaboration. Students talk in groups about books on the theme of working together. Wood, K. D., Roser, N. L., & Martinez, M. (2001). The Reading Teacher, 55(2), 102-111. [email: kdwood@email.uncc.edu] * This article introduces the term collaborative literacy which the authors define as:
The authors provide a list of books at various reading levels on the theme of working together. They illustrate the discussions that ensued when these books were used in a Book Club approach. The authors also offer a discussion of the early roots of cooperation, including cooperation among other animals besides humans, as well as advice on how to help students learn to work collaboratively. 2. This article is already about three years old. We should have spotted it sooner. When any of you reading this column comes across a relevant article, please consider copying the abstract and the APA-style reference and sending it to IASCE at lbaloche@wcupa.edu. Springer, L., Stanne, M. E., & Donovan, S. S. (1999). Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 69, 21-51. Recent calls for instructional innovation in undergraduate science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) courses and programs highlight the need for a solid foundation of education research at the undergraduate level on which to base policy and practice. We report herein the results of a meta-analysis that integrates research on undergraduate SMET education since 1980. The meta-analysis demonstrates that various forms of small-group learning are effective in promoting greater academic achievement, more favorable attitudes toward learning, and increased persistence through SMET courses and programs. The magnitude of the effects reported in this study exceeds most findings in comparable reviews of research on educational innovations and supports more widespread implementation of small-group learning in undergraduate SMET. 3. This article offers a nice twist on a cooperative learning technique sometimes known as Cooperative Controversy. The authors provide a detailed account of how they use their version of the technique. D’Eon, M., & Proctor, P. (2001). An innovative modification to structured controversy. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 38, 251-256. [email: marcel.deon@usask.ca] ‘ Structured Controversy’ (SC) is a co-operative learning activity where students, working in small groups, argue one side of an issue in Round 1 and then another side of the same issue in Round 2. Typically, for Round 2, student teams argue against the same team they heard and spoke with in Round 1. Our innovation is to have student teams matched with a different team for Round 2 (in addition to arguing another side of the issue), in what we call a ‘Double Switch’. SC was successfully used in the course, ‘Professional Issues’, at the School of Physical Therapy, University of Saskatchewan, two years running in October 1999 and again in October 2000. The students reported a high degree of satisfaction with the SC activity and were challenged to think deeply about the issue in question. It appears that the modification we used (Double Switch) made Round 2 effective and as a result enhanced student learning.4. The next author kindly contributed this summary of a recent article, as well as information on a relevant book chapter. Kalman, C. S. (2002). Developing critical thinking in undergraduate courses: A philosophical approach. Science and Education, 11, 83-94. [Email: KALMAN@vax2.concordia.ca] Students are divided into out of class groups that study either Kuhn,
Popper, Lakatos, or Feyerabend and effectively teach the other students
about their philosopher. The article includes a peer evaluation form.
Students are taught the traditional course material in class. Students
really do come to understand all four philosophers as measured in a
question on the final exam. The form and a briefer description of my CL
methods appears along with other teaching methods that I use such as
freewrite-pair-share in "Teaching Science To Non-Science Students Using A
Student-Centred Classroom" Calvin S. Kalman chapter in book: "Inspiring
Students: 5. The next two articles are the second and third of three reporting research on how tertiary students in Singapore collaborate outside of class. Jacobs, G. M., Hussein, A., Fazilah, M. I., & Crookall, D. (2001). An exploratory study of teacher-required out-of-class academic collaboration among students at a polytechnic in Singapore. Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 38, 279-291. [email: aishah@tp.edu.sg] Academic collaboration among students takes place not only inside classrooms but outside of class as well. This study investigated such out-of-class academic collaboration among students at a polytechnic in Singapore as they worked on assignments on which their lecturers had required them to collaborate. Data were collected via a questionnaire completed by 232 students, interviews were conducted with ten lecturers, observations were done of eight student groups as they collaborated on teacher-required work outside of class, and then interviews were conducted with these eight groups. Suggestions are made for enhancing this collaboration. Lopez-Nerney, S., Teng, S. M. J., Wu, S. M., Toh, L. S. J. E., Norhayati, M. I., Meyer, L., Jacobs, G. M., & Crookall, D. (2001). An exploratory study of lecturers’ views of out-of-class academic collaboration among students. KATA, 3, 109-120. [email: elcsl@nus.edu.sg] This article reports an exploratory study of lecturers’ perceptions of out-of-class academic collaboration (OCAC) among students at a large Singapore university. Two types of OCAC were investigated: collaboration initiated by students, e.g., groups decide on their own to meet to prepare for exams, and collaboration required by teachers, e.g., teachers assign students to do projects in groups. Data were collected via one-on-one interviews with 18 faculty members from four faculties at the university. Findings suggest that OCAC, especially of a teacher-required kind, is fairly common at the university. Faculty members’ views on factors affecting the success of OCAC are discussed for the light they might shed on practices to enhance the effectiveness of OCAC. 6. Cooperative learning fits well with many other learner-centered methods in education. This article provides one example of this fit. Jacobs, G., & Gallo, P. (2002, February). Reading alone together:
Enhancing extensive reading via student-student cooperation in
second-language instruction. Reading Online, 5(6). Available:
http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=jacobs/index.html The article presents a rationale and practical suggestions for adding the element of cooperation among second language learners to the solitary task of silent reading. When extensive reading (ER) is supplemented with cooperative learning (CL), peers may be able enhance ER by: modeling enthusiasm for reading, acting as resources for finding existing reading materials, creating more reading materials, facilitating comprehension, and serving as an interactive audience for sharing about what has been read. A variety of CL techniques are presented with examples of how they can be combined with ER. Photos show a class of upper primary school students in Singapore using some of the CL techniques.
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