lohman

Summary Notes on "Dynamics of Peer Education in Cooperative Learning Workgroups," by C. R. Haller, V. J. Gallagher, T. L. Weldon, and R. M. Felder, Journal of Engineering Education, 89(3), July 2000, pp. 285-293.

Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 10/27/00

"… Using conversation analysis as a methodology for understanding how students taught and learned from one another, we found that group members generally engaged in two types of teaching-learning interactions. In the first type, transfer-of-knowledge (TK) sequences, they took on distinct teacher and pupil roles, and in the second, collaborative sequences (CS), they worked together with no clear role differentiation. … Our findings suggest that professors can facilitate student group interactions by introducing students to the two modes of teaching interaction so group members can effectively manage exchanges of knowledge in their work, and also by helping students distribute tasks in a way that minimizes role imbalances."

"A key assumption of cooperative learning is that students working in groups will learn from and teach one another. … The use of cooperative learning has specifically been advocated as a means of retaining women in engineering programs, since women tend to prefer collaborative to competitive learning. … We sought in this study to determine how engineering student groups managed teaching sequences as they accomplished their work together and how group members' differing approaches to the management of teaching sequences enhanced and/or detracted from the group learning process. The in situ dialogue we analyzed was collected from four student groups enrolled in "Chemical Process Principles," the introductory chemical engineering course at North Carolina State University. … As a rule, students remain in the same homework groups for the entire semester and meet twice or more each week. …"

"During the 1997 fall semester, we recorded the dialogue of four groups of varying gender composition (herein referred to as Groups A, B, C, and D) as they worked on assigned group homework problems. … We analyzed transcripts of one problem-solving session from each group, with the objective exploring of exploring the interactional dynamics and learning in the groups. …

A. Transfer-of-Knowledge Sequences

TKs followed the teaching sequence pattern … exhibiting the following characteristics:

1. Participant roles in the dialogue were predominately asymmetrical. …

2. A teacher's pauses in speaking did not lead to a loss of conventional turn. …

3. The teacher's explanation of the knowledge he/she possessed was fully, clearly, and explicitly expressed in the sequence.

4. Students' conversational turns were generally discrete from one another …, and pupils rarely interrupted one another or the teacher.

5. The teacher frequently appeared to have either pre-worked or at least reviewed the problem under discussion prior to the sequence.

… The chances of a pupil's understanding a problem or concept is thus automatically enhanced by the ability to query the teacher immediately at the exact point of misunderstanding, and by the high likelihood that the teacher will continue to respond to the pupil's feedback until misunderstandings have been resolved.

B. Collaborative Sequences

… Collaborative sequences were characterized by the following:

1. Participant roles in the dialogue were predominantly symmetrical. Though knowledge was exchanged, there was not clear teacher for the sequence. …

2. Participant turns tended to overlap considerably and simultaneous speech was common. …

3. Several questions could be put on the table at a given time, with responses being temporarily held in suspension. …

4. More than one student sometimes responded to a question at once.

5. The dialogue was generally fragmented, tending to contain short and incomplete phrases and clauses…

… Learning in CS sequences appeared to be accomplished through shared thinking rather than the knowledge transmission that characterizes TK sequences. … CS sequences provide good practice for the kind of group work students will do in engineering design settings, where an optimal solution to a problem with no unequivocally right answer must be worked out using the expertise of all group members. …"

"In the transcripts we examined, TKs predominated over CSs; of 54 total teaching sequences, 37 (69%) were TKs and 17 (31%) were CSs. Table 1 shows the breakdown of teaching sequences type by group. …

Sequence Type	Gp. A (3 M)	Gp. B (4 F)	Gp. C (2 F, 1 M)	Gp. D (2 M, 2 F)
TK	8 (73%)	6 (50%)	13 (87%)	10 (62%)
CS	3 (27%)	6 (50%)	2 (13%)	6 (38%)
Total	11	12	15	16

We found that certain interactional management patterns in teaching sequences tended to create interpersonal tensions and interfere with optimal group functioning. …"

"Inflexibility in teacher-pupil roles was one of the major problems we observed in the groups we studied. … A Constant Pupil can frustrate other group members, causing them to feel slowed down and/or to feel that the Constant Pupil is not pulling his/her own weight. …A second type of interactional problem in teaching sequences occurred when one group member made it difficult for the others to contribute to the group effort. …"

"Dialogic patterns in both modes of group learning (TKs and CSs) assist students in understanding and applying engineering concepts. Interactional problems, however, such as imbalances in teacher-pupil role-playing (the Constant Pupil) and individual resistance to group contributions (the Blocker), can diminish the effectiveness of cooperative learning. …

A. Minimizing Interactional Problems in Cooperative Learning

The optimal approach to facilitation of group work is to prevent interactional problems from occurring. … What the instructor can do is establish conditions that minimize the impact of interactional problems on group functioning, alert students to the types of problems they might encounter, and equip them with tools to deal with those problems. Several specific suggestions follow:

· Consider issues of gender mix when assigning groups. …

· Make group work worthwhile. …

· Give students tips on how to approach group work efficiently. …

B. Diagnosing Interactional Problems in Group Work

When students first encounter cooperative learning, many of them are receptive to the idea and many others are resistant or downright hostile. … For most instructors, learning about the existence and nature of the problems does not require extensive detective work. Most students are reluctant to confront teammates with complaints about their failure to prepare for or contribute to group meetings or their tendency to dominate discussions or their refusal to help when help is called for, but many have no hesitation about complaining to the instructor. … If a specific problem shows up in several groups, the time may be right to bring it up to the class and to offer strategies for dealing with it.

C. Remedying Interactional Problems in Group Work

The paragraphs that follow present ideas for addressing the types of interactional problems discussed in this paper. …

· Help students to understand the interactional problems they might have already encountered or might encounter in the future. …

· Make students aware that some approaches to problem-solving are more appropriate than others when doing group work. …

· Point out to students who feel slowed down by the group that the best way to learn something at a deep level is by teaching it to someone else. …

· Remind students that teacher-pupil roles are flexible in healthy groups, with students alternating between the roles. …

· When students complain about 'doing all the work,' suggest ways to encourage more widespread active participation …

· When students complain about the blocking behavior of one of the group members, propose strategies for countering overdominance. …

· Involve the entire class in developing strategies for dealing with common interactional problems. …

· Use an active listening strategy for seriously dysfunctional groups. …"

"… Student learning appears to be enhanced in groups through both the continuous learning feedback loop maintained between teachers and pupils in TK sequences and mutuality of new knowledge generated in CS sequences. Imbalances in interactional modes, however, may precipitate interpersonal problems in groups. …"

[Readers who are interested in this article are encouraged to read the original paper in its entirety. Other summary notes on faculty reward systems are available on the Internet at http://lohman.tamu.edu under the heading "Summaries of Papers ..."]