Useful Concepts from Collaborative Learning Techniques

Useful Concepts from
Collaborative Learning
Techniques: A Handbook for
College Faculty (2004)
(2nd Edition, 2014)
by Elizabeth F. Barkley,
K. Patricia Cross, and
Claire Howell Major
PowerPoint by Adam Kempler (click to continue)

Material reprinted and posted with permission
Part 1: The Case for
 What is the pedagogical rationale for

collaborative learning?
 A basic tenet of modern cognitive theory:
“learners must be actively engaged in
learning” (10).
 Furthermore, neurologists and cognitive
scientists agree that “students must be
actively engaged in building their own
minds” (25) by “actively constructing the
mental structures that connect and organize
isolated bits of information” (11).
 “Alexander Astin’s large-scale statistical
studies across hundreds of colleges and
thousands of students, using twenty-two
measures of student learning outcomes,
concluded that two factors had a special
potency in academic achievement, personal
development, and student satisfaction with
college: interactions with fellow students
and interactions with faculty members”
(15).
 Richard Light and colleagues interviewed
570 Harvard undergraduates “to see what
learning experiences they valued most in
their college years.” He concluded,
“Students who get the most out of college,
who grow the most academically, and who
are the happiest, organize their time to
include interpersonal activities with faculty
members, or with fellow students built
around substantive, academic work” (15).
 Barkley, Cross, and Major point out, “The grand
synthesis of research on learning in college is widely
known as the Seven Principles for Good Practice in
Undergraduate Education” (16).
 Good practice in undergraduate education does the
following:
1. encourages contact between students and faculty,
2. develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
3. encourages active learning,
4. gives prompt feedback,
5. emphasizes time on task,
6. communicates high expectations, and
7. respects diverse talents and ways of learning.
 The first three principles are the backbone of
collaborative learning
 Johnson and colleagues at U of Minnesota
studied three learning structures:
cooperative, competitive, and individualistic.
 Johnson observed, “In extensive meta-
analyses across hundreds of studies,
cooperative arrangements were found
superior to either competitive or
individualistic structures on a variety of
measures, generally, showing higher
achievement, higher-level reasoning, more
frequent generation of new ideas and
solutions, and greater transfer of what is
learned in one situation to another” (18).
 In-class versus out-out-class collaborative
learning
 Barkley, Cross, and Major note, “Out-of-
class meetings (typically study sessions)
have greater effects on achievement than
in-class collaboration, but in-class
collaborations have more favorable effects
on student attitudes than out-of-class
meetings” (19).
 What about student satisfaction?
 Johnson found that “students who study
under various forms of peer interaction. . .
have more positive attitudes toward the
subject matter, increased motivation to
learn more about the subject, and are
better satisfied with their experience than
students who have less opportunity to
interact with fellow students and teachers”
(19).
 Which students benefit the most from
collaborative learning?
 Barkley, Cross, and Major explain that “non-
traditional college students prefer
cooperative group learning and stand to
benefit more from it than traditional
students”; non-traditional students include
women, minorities, adult and re-entry
students, commuters, and international
students (21).
 What about the best lecture/discussion
versus the best collaborative learning?
 Wright et al. found that students in
cooperative learning classes “had
quantifiably better reasoning and
communication skills” than students
taught in lecture/discussion classes
(22).
Part 2: Implementing
 Before starting collaborative learning,
understand your own teaching style and
goals.
 Try taking Grasha’s Teaching Style
Inventory online at
http://www.iats.com/publications/TSI.html
(28).
 Try taking Angelo and Cross’s Teaching
Goals Inventory at
http://fm.iowa.uiowa.edu/fmi/xsl/tgi/data_e
ntry.xsl?-db=tgi_data&-lay=Layout01&-view
(64).
 Orient students
 Include a collaborative learning policy
in your syllabus that “summarizes
why, how, and in what ways
collaborative learning will be a part of
the course” (35).
 Show students the benefits of
collaboration through, for example, an
individual quiz followed by a group
quiz on the syllabus.
 Form groups
 Consider group type: informal (brief),
formal (sustained for a project), base
(full semester)
 Both groups of 2 (maximize
involvement) and groups of 5 work
well (44).
 Instructor-selected, heterogeneous
groups often work better than
student-selected or random groups.
 Structure the collaborative task (56)

1. Assignment relates to course objectives
2. Task matches students’ skills
3. Task promotes interdependence
4. Try to ensure individual accountability
5. Plan each phase of the activity
 The learning task prompt
 Modern research confirms “John Dewey’s
basic premise that significant learning starts
with the learner’s active engagement with a
problem” (57).
 Bean advises that “generally speaking,
learning tasks should be open-ended,
require critical thinking with supporting
evidence or arguments. Tasks should
promote controversy, result in some type of
group product, and be directed toward a
learning goal of the course” (57).
 When creating collaborative learning tasks,
keep in mind the six levels of Bloom’s
cognitive taxonomy: knowledge,
comprehension, application, analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation (59).
 Barkley, Cross, and Major note, “arguably,
the most effective courses tend to reflect
the entire taxonomy in goals, activities, and
assessment” (60).
 Facilitating student collaboration (69)
 Observe and interact with all groups
(supportive rather than directive)
 Solve problems
– Inequitable participation (talk to students)
– Resistance to group work (clarify rewards)
– Off-task behavior (set hard-to-reach time limit
and move closer to off-task students)
 Group Reports
 Closure: synthesis, additions, corrections,
implications, etc.
 Grading and evaluating collaborative
learning (83)
 Don’t grade everything (but collect
everything)
 View grading as a tool for learning
 Have students evaluate some of their own
work and the work of others
 Instructors may give individual (2/3) and
group (1/3) scores on projects
 Include self-evaluation: reflection. John
Dewey said, “We don’t learn by experience.
We learn by reflecting on experience.”
Part 3: Collaborative
Learning Techniques
 Techniques for Discussions
1. Think-Pair-Share (104)
2. Round Robin (108)
3. Buzz Groups (112)
4. Talking Chips (117)
5. *Three-Step Interview (121)
6. *Critical Debates (126)
*Moderate to high online transferability
Learning Techniques
 Techniques for Reciprocal Teaching
1. *Note-Taking Pairs (135)
2. *Learning Cell (140)
3. *Fishbowl (145)
4. *Role Play (150)
5. *Jigsaw (156)
6. *Test-Taking Teams (163)
Learning Techniques
 Techniques for Problem Solving
1. Think-Aloud Pair Problem Solving (172)
2. *Send-A-Problem (177)
3. *Case Study (182)
4. *Structured Problem Solving (188)
5. *Analytic Teams (193)
6. *Group Investigation (199)
Learning Techniques
 Techniques Using Graphic
Information Organizers
1. Affinity Grouping (207)
2. Group Grid (211)
3. Team Matrix (216)
4. Sequence Chains (221)
5. Word Webs (226)
Learning Techniques
 Techniques Focusing on Writing
1. *Dialogue Journals (236)
2. *Round Table (241)
3. *Dyadic Essays (246)
4. *Peer Editing (251)
5. *Collaborative Writing (256)
6. *Team Anthologies (262)
7. *Paper Seminar (267)
The End
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Useful Concepts from Collaborative Learning Techniques

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Useful Concepts from

PowerPoint by Adam Kempler (click to continue)

 What is the pedagogical rationale for

 Structure the collaborative task (56)

 Click here to return to my website.

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