An investigation into individual gains through group-work
Children learning together
Gregor WatsonTeacher Action Research Scholar 2007-08
Glashieburn Primary School, Aberdeen
Presentation at STNE Seminar Perspectives on Learning
18 March 2008 at University of Aberdeen
Learning
Three views of learning:1. Learning is being taught2. Learning is individual sense making3. Learning is building knowledge as part of
doing things with others
From “Learning; a sense-maker’s guide”
Commissioned by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers
Written by Chris Watkins, tutor for MA Effective Learning at University of London Institute of Education
What some children said
I find it hard to work all on my own sometimes so me
and my partner give each other
ideas (Rhea)
You learn more because if you explain to people what to do you say things that you wouldn’t say to yourself, really. So you learn things that you wouldn’t know if
you were just doing it by yourself (Annie)
Group-work behaviour
• Kids not actually working together but in parallel, and not communicating
• Arguing in a futile way
• Not listening to each other
• One child dominating proceedings
• Often off task
From research on group working in classrooms (1990 – 1999) by Open University Professor of Language and Communications, Neil Mercer
3 types of interaction
Source: Mercer (1995)
Disputational talk -disagreement
and individualised decision making
Cumulative talk – positive butuncritical comment
Exploratory talk – constructive criticism, justified challenges,
solutions offered
‘Thinking Together’ framework
1. Teacher leads group talk, modelling and encouraging skills necessary for exploratory talk (i.e. listening to others, active participation, respectful challenging, reasoning, negotiating)
2. Elements of group work evaluated and rules made and agreed on for working together successfullySource: Mercer (2005)
The context for my research
Arrival of interactive whiteboard
School registration to on-line
learning platform ‘Education City’
Aims
• To find if structured group-work, following the Thinking Together model, can improve individual attainment in maths activities, more than unstructured group-work
Procedure – Part 1
Individual activity to measure
gain from practising with
group (2nd Assessment)
‘Unstructured’ group working at the whiteboard
Individual activity on
class computer to form
baseline measure
(Initial assessment)
Part 2
Individual activity
On class computer
(3rd Assessment)
Gain from
‘structured group-work’
measured by comparing
2nd individual assessment
with the 3rd
Groups working at whiteboard using learned
strategies for success
Teach and practise framework for Thinking Together
Initial findings
• The class experience of ‘Unstructured group-work’ matched that found by Mercer
• The group activity scores are consistently higher than mean individual scores from the baseline and second assessments
• Individual scores for the second assessment are neither consistently better nor worse than the baseline measure
Design and participants
• Within group design – children will participate in both conditions of the research
• Three ‘symmetrical’ maths groups
• Quantitative data – score from activities
• Qualitative triangulation – focus group