Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This study was undertaken in conjunction with the Successful Integration of Learning Technologies (SILT) project in state schools in Victoria, Australia.The thesis reports an interpretative analysis of cooperative learning in computer-supported classes as it is currently conducted in selected Victorian primary schools.The framework for the study is grounded in the belief that cooperative learning encourages learning as a group as opposed to learning in a group (Slavin, 1980).The framework emphasises the importance of teachers using cooperative learning as a structure to enable students to think together.Therefore, analysis focuses on cooperative learning in a classroom context and the teachers' units of work guiding the tasks they create.Using a mixedmethod approach involving questionnaires, interviews and videotaped observations, the study was conducted in four sites with two teachers from each school and two groups of students from each class.The investigation sought to determine whether teachers had adopted four essential elements for cooperation to occur: positive interdependence, individual accountability, group processing and group composition (Johnson & Johnson, 2001).In addition, the study examined the influence the task, the location and configuration of computers had on cooperative learning.Analyses focussed on the teachers' during three stages of cooperative student learning-preparing, monitoring, and reviewingand students' talk when engaged in computer tasks.Analyses of the teachers' and students' behaviour found that teachers had false clarity (Fullan, 1993) about cooperative learning theory.The teachers in this study perceived cooperative learning as a means to enhance social cohesion rather than to facilitate students' social, task and thinking skills.More specifically, understanding of the interdependency required for cooperative behaviour was negligible.The study also found that interaction at the computer produced five types of talk: cumulative, exploratory, disputational, tutorial, and task in which social, task and thinking skills were embedded.While all teachers provided opportunities for students to work cohesively, the teachers were not fully cognisant of the role that interdependence plays in enabling students to v
Author: Jean C. Thompson
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2622298698