Week 2: Learning, peer collaboration, and group work in the classroom

Behaviourist approach

rewards and sanctions are used to shape student behaviour

Disequilibrium

the uncomfortable state of having to accept new information to your current worldview

Mayer (2004)

suggested that pure discovery fails to promote selecting relevant information

Socio-cultural approach

the relationship between intramental thinking and intermental action

Scaffolding

supporting students with what they are struggling with so they can reach their potential

Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development

• out of reach

• zone of proximal development

• current understanding

Radiziszewska & Rogoff (1991)

• Child paired with either trained adult, trained child, or untrained child

• Presence of trained adult or child did the task effectively

• BUT a week later only adult could support child to do the task

Mercer & Howe (2012)

dialogic talk and collaboration are important in the classroom

Reciprocal teaching

the child takes turns being the teacher or learner

Jigsaw classroom

split groups into expertise and then pool information together

Information processing theories

• hardware → processing speed, memory capacity

• software → strategies, knowledge

Craik & Lockhart (1972)

deeper levels of processing improved recall

Schneider et al (1993)

• study asked child experts and adult novices to memorise chess pieces

• meaningful positions (32% variance explained)

• random positions (9% variance explained)

Sieglar (2005)

researched how children choose and change strategies

Smart & Csapo (2003)

groups need to be selected by teachers and ideally 5-7 students for optimal collaboration

Flipped classroom

where students study content before the class so they are more confident with peer discussion

Role of teacher in collaborative dialogue

• explaining task expectations

• forming groups

• designing group task

• teacher discourse

Saito et al (2021)

in south east asia cooperative learning is popular but collaborative is not, there is a culture that is reluctant for students to ask others for help

Markham (1977)

as metacognition increases with age, so does comprehension

Lange & Pierce (1992)

young children can use memory strategies and recall better when they do so