Describes a competition involving political science honors students in which teams from Miami and Purdue universities prepared and delivered papers taking opposing positions on contemporary topics. Reviews the benefits of the project for students and their teachers and suggests ways similar benefits can be achieved using a student cluster approach…

The purpose of this study is to investigate learning effects of online peer-support for generating critical questions and counter arguments in small group online discussion. The online peer-support includes descriptions of what to do and generic and domain specific examples of questions. About 45 students were recruited from an online introductory…

This study examines the use of question prompts and peer interactions as scaffolding strategies to help undergraduate students with their problem-solving processes on an ill-structured task. The mixed research method, combining both experimental and comparative multiple-case studies, was used to study the outcomes as well as the processes of…

This article, which details the benefits of collaborative learning, is intended to promote human interactions through cooperation as the favored educational paradigm. The first part of this article presents four major categories of benefits created by collaborative learning methods: academic, social, psychological, and assessment. Each of these…

Successful implementation of a Collaborative Learning (CL) strategy is much like planning for a journey. The more people are talked to and the more background research is done about the journey, the more successful it will be. Teachers who want to start using CL techniques should observe a teacher or teachers who are experienced and proficient in…

The mission of the NetPro European project is to develop project-based learning through the Internet. The NetPro project is creating tools and services to facilitate communication and collaboration between distant students, and to manage access and control of project deliverables. NetPro project teams form cross-institutional learning communities.…

This study investigated Hong Kong elementary school teachers' and students' attitudes toward cooperative learning. Teachers from one school completed a two-part questionnaire. Part 1 asked for personal information. Part 2 had eight sections that discussed: organizational strategies used in the classroom; frequency of using classroom organizational…

Describes a method of peer group teaching that stresses group responsibility and awareness of goals. (JL)

Aims to give the teacher a practical framework which can be used in the classroom. The analysis of the framework is based on tape recordings of classroom lessons in the teaching of English as a second language (ESL) in Germany and on observations during a project on bilingual education in Wales. (AMH)

Discusses theories behind the shift in emphasis from drill to communication practice. Concludes that students' awareness of their learning process helps bridge this gap. Includes communication exercises promoting natural information exchange which motivate students to take responsibility for improving their communicative skills. (PMJ)

This study examined the effect that instruction about and participation in groupwork/cooperative learning had on preservice teachers' attitudes toward cooperative learning, especially their knowledge of related academic and social benefits, and their pedagogical competence to organize classrooms for group work/cooperative learning. Surveys…

Describes the five-cups activity in which students explore materials in the cups. Discusses the effects of this activity on students' understanding of the nature of evidence and the quality and evaluation of that evidence. Includes test results during class and overnight. (KHR)

Data are presented from a study of cooperative learning as a teaching strategy in teacher education courses. Two university methods courses were restructured to incorporate learning teams and interactive practice activities. Results indicated that students who had difficulty mastering specific content performed better with cooperative learning…

Discusses collaborative planning as a heuristic for dealing with the rhetorical elements often considered by experienced writers when they plan and prepare documents. Defines collaborative planning, identifies its benefits, discusses its implementation in upper-level business communication courses, and presents a series of examples of students…