1. Useful Concepts from Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (2004)
by Elizabeth F. Barkley,
K. Patricia Cross, and
Claire Howell Major
PowerPoint by Adam Kempler (click to continue)
Material reprinted and posted with permission

2. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
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).

3. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
“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).

4. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
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).

5. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
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:
encourages contact between students and faculty,
develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
encourages active learning,
gives prompt feedback,
emphasizes time on task,
communicates high expectations, and
respects diverse talents and ways of learning.
The first three principles are the backbone of collaborative learning

6. Part 1: The Case for 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).

7. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
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).

8. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
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).

9. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
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).

10. Part 1: The Case for Collaborative Learning
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).

11. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
Before starting collaborative learning, understand your own teaching style and goals.
Try taking Grasha’s Teaching Style Inventory online at (28).
Try taking Angelo and Cross’s Teaching Goals Inventory at (64).

12. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
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.

13. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
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.

14. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
Structure the collaborative task (56)
Assignment relates to course objectives
Task matches students’ skills
Task promotes interdependence
Try to ensure individual accountability
Plan each phase of the activity

15. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
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).

16. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
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).

17. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
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.

18. Part 2: Implementing Collaborative Learning
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.”

19. Part 3: Collaborative Learning Techniques
Techniques for Discussions
Think-Pair-Share (104)
Round Robin (108)
Buzz Groups (112)
Talking Chips (117)
*Three-Step Interview (121)
*Critical Debates (126)
*Moderate to high online transferability

20. Part 3: Collaborative Learning Techniques
Techniques for Reciprocal Teaching
*Note-Taking Pairs (135)
*Learning Cell (140)
*Fishbowl (145)
*Role Play (150)
*Jigsaw (156)
*Test-Taking Teams (163)
*Moderate to high online transferability

21. Part 3: Collaborative Learning Techniques
Techniques for Problem Solving
Think-Aloud Pair Problem Solving (172)
*Send-A-Problem (177)
*Case Study (182)
*Structured Problem Solving (188)
*Analytic Teams (193)
*Group Investigation (199)
*Moderate to high online transferability

22. Part 3: Collaborative Learning Techniques
Techniques Using Graphic Information Organizers
Affinity Grouping (207)
Group Grid (211)
Team Matrix (216)
Sequence Chains (221)
Word Webs (226)
*Moderate to high online transferability

23. Part 3: Collaborative Learning Techniques
Techniques Focusing on Writing
*Dialogue Journals (236)
*Round Table (241)
*Dyadic Essays (246)
*Peer Editing (251)
*Collaborative Writing (256)
*Team Anthologies (262)
*Paper Seminar (267)
*Moderate to high online transferability

24. The End
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