Background: This paper presents a case study from a physics course at a Norwegian university college, investigating key aspects of a group-work project, so-called learning labs, from the participating students' perspective. Purpose: In order to develop these learning labs further, the students' perspective is important. Which aspects are essential…

The author explores concrete ways to help students learn more and have fun doing it while they support each other's learning. The article specifically shows the relationships between cooperative learning and deep learning. Readers will become familiar with the tenets of cooperative learning and its power to enhance learning--even more so when…

This article reviews a classroom application titled "The Quest for Kudos Challenge," which is a long-term, multitask, large group competition to attain a reward that was designed to adhere to the recommendations for creating a cooperative learning experience while maintaining the elements of a constructive competition. The application…

This article forms part of an exploration into the results of a single-case, embedded study that was conducted to explore how domestic part-time graduate business students in the United States experience group work for summative assessment. Multiple information collection methods were utilised, including open-ended and semi-structured interviews,…

As a secondary mathematics teacher, I used practitioner action research to determine effective ways to intervene with students working in groups, with the goal of improving their communication. Utilising transcripts of group interactions and teacher interventions, field notes, and student feedback, I discovered ten different issues that prevent…

Debates have been used to develop critical thinking within teaching environments. Many learning activities are configured as working groups, which use debates to make decisions. Nevertheless, in a classroom debate, only a few students can participate; large work groups are similarly limited. Whilst the use of web tools would appear to offer a…

The use of group work in classroom activities is a method used for motivating learning and increasing the idea of pleasure through learning. The current study investigates the advantages of group work in exams in the English department, in the College of Basic Education. 40 students in two classes of "The Introduction of Phonetics and…

Teacher-candidate course assessment is one topic that has not been adequately explored in teacher education literature where pre-service teachers' voices are rarely heard. This mixed-methods study explored a group of female pre-service teachers (n = 83) enrolled in a Diploma of Education program to identify their preferred method of assessment for…

This study examined whether inspecting and constructing different part-task-specific visualizations differentially affects learning. To this end, a complex business-economics problem was structured into three phase-related part-tasks: (1) determining core concepts, (2) proposing multiple solutions, and (3) coming to a single solution. Each phase…

Literacy is a national concern in the United States. Many students are graduating from high school across the U.S. lacking the skills needed to be a proficient reader. The lack of college readiness skills in reading causes these students to be placed in remedial classes on the collegiate level. School systems that recognize the high percentage of…

Which is the better approach in pupil learning--working together in collaborative situations or working by the self in ongoing learning activities? Howard Gardner (1993), Harvard University psychologist, emphasized that these are two different intelligences. Collaboration is preferred by selected pupils in learning. These learners do best when…

Science is a collaborative endeavor. The solitary genius working on the next great scientific breakthrough is a myth not seen much today. Instead, most physicists have worked in a group at one point in their careers, whether as a graduate student, faculty member, staff scientist, or industrial researcher. As an experimental nuclear physicist with…

In this era of high-stakes testing and densely packed state standards, it is too easy for writing to become a meaningless process, useful only for school. Many strategies can help to get all students writing, but this author set out to find a strategy to help students see the power of writing and to know that their voices matter. Writing groups…

Small group interactions can provide rich conceptual mathematical understandings. This paper reports on the mathematical talk of Maori and Pasifika students as they participated in small group activity. The findings illustrate that when the students were scaffolded to work collaboratively the talk shifted between focusing on mathematics…

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…