Applying a methodology for collaborative assessment in learning groups

While extensive research on student help-seeking and teachers’ help-giving behaviour in teacher-centred classroom and self-directed learning environments is available, little is known regarding teachers’ beliefs and behaviour about help seeking or their role when students work in groups. This study investigated primary (elementary) school teachers’ self-reported help-giving behaviour when teaching science in small group settings. Specifically, examined were the strategies teachers typically encourage in a group learning setting, their self-reported responses to specific student requests for help and their self-described role in a group learning situation. Results indicated that half of the teachers encouraged students to seek help from other groups or the teacher, while the rest discouraged help seeking from inter-group and from the teacher, preferring that their students keep to their own groups. The reasons reported for both strategies were manifold and ranged from the development of self-directedness, collaboration and problem-solving skills to issues of classroom management. However, what the teachers encouraged was not what they consequently reported they typically do. All of the teachers, regardless of whether they encouraged or discouraged help seeking, reported that they would not deny any request for help. These findings imply that teachers may not be as mindful about how they communicate help-seeking expectations in a group learning context, which has implications for both teachers and teacher educators.

This study evaluates a cooperative learning approach for teaching anatomy to health science students incorporating small group and peer instruction based on the jigsaw method first described in the 1970's. Fifty-three volunteers participated in abdominal anatomy workshops. Students were given time to become an "expert" in one of four segments of the topic (sub-topics) by allocating groups to work-stations with learning resources: axial computerized tomography (CT) of abdominal structures, axial CT of abdominal blood vessels, angiograms and venograms of abdominal blood vessels and structures located within abdominal quadrants. In the second part of workshop, students were redistributed into "jigsaw" learning groups with at least one "expert" at each workstation. The "jigsaw" learning groups then circulated between workstations learning all sub-topics with the "expert" teaching others in their group. To assess abdominal anatomy knowledge, students completed a quiz pre- and post- workshop. Students increased their knowledge with significant improvements in quiz scores irrespective of prior exposure to lectures or practical classes related to the workshop topic. The evidence for long-term retention of knowledge, assessed by comparing end-semester examination performance of workshop participants with workshop nonparticipants, was less convincing. Workshop participants rated the jigsaw workshop highly for both educational value and enjoyment and felt the teaching approach would improve their course performance. The jigsaw method improved anatomy knowledge in the short-term by engaging students in group work and peer-led learning, with minimal supervision required. Reported outcomes suggest that cooperative learning approaches can lead to gains in student performance and motivation to learn. Anat Sci Educ 00: 000-000. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.

The aim of this paper is to present a learning model for programming based laboratory courses where cognitive enhancement is succeeded through active evaluation of programming assignments among peers. The model comprises three successive phases: training of students in peer-evaluation processes, in-class collaborative peer evaluation, and distance peer evaluation. A first experiment on the effectiveness of the model has been carried out in the context of an Artificial Intelligence laboratory course during the spring semester of 2012, with promising results. Students expressed their satisfaction with peer evaluation activities and especially with collaborative evaluation in class, by means of a questionnaire delivered to them at the end of the semester. Future steps will be to apply the model to additional programming courses of the curriculum in order to acquire more data and study in depth the obtained benefits with regard to the students' cognitive, behavioral and social enhancement.

Collaborative Declarative Modeling combines the flexibility of abstract declarative description of a scene with the integration of views and opinions of multiple designers. One of the stages where this integration applies is the scene understanding phase, where solutions corresponding to the submitted description are visualized and evaluated. In the current work we propose a mechanism for collaborative solution evaluation based on previous feedback with respect to each collaborating designer’s preferences. Designers are grouped into clusters of preference revealing the proximity of their evaluations for previously seen solutions. These clusters are formed upon criteria ensuring wide inter-cluster preference representation and thorough intra-cluster compactness. Clusters subsequently participate through representative designers to the formation of the consensus solution set corresponding to the submitted description. The proposed mechanism allows adjustment of parameters controlling intuitive characteristics of the collaborative declarative design methodology such as importance of each designer and strictness in solution evaluation.

The objective of the current paper is to examine how group learning and cooperative learning are used in civil engineering courses. The paper defines group learning and cooperative learning in the first section. It is hypothesized that group learning is used in civil engineering courses to build teamwork skills and communication skills among civil engineers but that its effectiveness is not maximized owing to a lack of awareness of how it can be structured. The paper suggests that using cooperative learning is more effective. The paper describes a study of the attitudes and perceptions of lecturers in civil engineering departments in several universities. The paper finds that many lecturers use group learning in order to teach civil engineers ‘soft skills’ but are uncomfortable with the assessment of such work. There is a lack of awareness regarding how group work can be structured and regarding research into the use of cooperative learning.

The process of learning in groups, as exemplified by the author's experience in a multidiscipline conference on a surgical ward of a general hospital has been examined. A sequence of six developmental states has been identified: initial ambivalence; passive receptivity; resistance; task orientation; the work group and consolidation. These findings have been compared with those of other studies dealing with sequential stages in group development. The psychiatric consultant's role in expediting these phases and some of the difficulties encountered have been mentioned.

Recommending learning assets in e-Learning systems represents a key feature. Among many available assets there are quizzes that validate and also evaluate learner’s knowledge level. This paper presents a recommender system based on SVD algorithm that is able to properly recommend quizzes such that learner’s knowledge level is evaluated and displayed in real time by means of a custom designed concept map for graphs algorithms within the Data Structures course. A preliminary case study presents a comparative analysis between a group of learners that received random quizzes and a group of learners that received recommended questions. The visual analytics and interpretation of two representative cases show a clear advantage of the students who received recommended questions over the other ones.

Participatory programs are increasingly recognised as effective in assisting rural communities identify issues of concern, determine their needs, and draw in resources to enact social and environmental change. A fundamental assumption of these programs is that farmer knowledge is used and valued in the process of group interaction and social learning. The role of farmer knowledge in group learning in Australia is explored in this paper using case studies of Landcare and Prograze. In both case studies, group activity focused upon building landholder knowledge and skills for sustainable pasture management. Research findings suggest farmer knowledge can remain dormant unless critical factors in group learning and development are addressed. These include experiential learning, integrating information, effective facilitation, group autonomy and building ongoing relationships and learning opportunities.

Isolation in the teaching profession remains a concern and has its roots in leadership models from the previous century that endorsed strict hierarchies and where teachers served as a part of an assembly line style of education. The literature review for this study suggests that collaboration among teachers has been recognized as a method to decrease isolation and improve professional growth. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation was to explore group learning as a result of collaboration on a teaching team at an international school in Asia. The aim was to answer the research question: How does a team of teachers at an international school in Asia describe their group learning? A case study approach allowed the researcher to study the topic of group learning within the context that it exists. The research site is a large international school in Singapore and the case study was a collaborative team that is perceived by the school leadership as successful. The study was grounded by an organizational learning theoretical framework (Crossan, Lane and White, 1999) that proposes processes of learning across levels of an organization. The findings related to the theory included evidence that institutional support and an exchange and interpretation of ideas within the team led to new and improved practices. The findings also included evidence of group learning as a result of the tension between accountability and autonomy, and the importance of relationships, shared norms and leadership. The study shares implications for individual teachers, collaborative teams and schools.--Author's abstract

Before they enter practice, law students need to be able to work effectively in groups. This reality has been acknowledged by the universities and legal professional bodies. The Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) for the Australian Law degree stipulate, for instance, that law students must acquire and be able to demonstrate skills in collaboration and communication. Meanwhile, a growing body of research is establishing the positive links between group work and a range of benefits, including achievement, critical thinking, problem-solving ability, creativity, wellbeing and satisfaction. Not only does group work enhance a student’s experience and individual performance, it also equips them with critical practice skills. Despite this, law students typically dislike and resist group work, which means they may not be achieving important professional competencies. Nevertheless, to force students into group learning would seem counterproductive. As we examine in this paper, students’ aversion to group work likely signals low intrinsic motivation – where intrinsic motivation means doing something because it is in itself enjoyable or optimally challenging; and where extrinsic motivation, by contrast, means doing something because it leads to or avoids a separate outcome. Making group work assessable as the primary way to induce student collaboration, or otherwise simply mandating it, means participation rests on external rewards and punishments. Extrinsic teaching approaches usually result in less effective learning. We argue in this paper that when designing group work, it is essential to consider and apply theories of learning motivation. This article asks the following: How can we increase the likelihood that law students positively engage in collaborative learning? To address this, the article draws on a theory of motivation, Self-Determination Theory (‘SDT’), to propose a framework and set of strategies for effective group-based learning in legal education. Pintrick and Schunk describe SDT as ‘one of the most comprehensive and empirically supported theories of motivation available today.’ It has been used in other legal educational areas, including curriculum design and assessment, and ethics and wellbeing. However, we consider it especially useful for group-based learning. The article adds to the small but growing legal education scholarship on teamwork, and makes distinct contributions in its motivational theory dimension, setting up an SDT framework designed to promote collaborative learning.

Group work can inspire students, encourage constructive learning, and improve essential critical thinking, communication, and decision-making in the present competitive world. The risk factors in group learning include students who prefer working alone and strongly despise dealing with things created by gathering in teams. Online learners often have problems locating lasting peace times for group therapy sessions are considered an essential factor. A predictive Group Learning Behavior Approach (PGLBA) has been proposed. Students who commute to college agree to group conferences and workgroup learning and Inquiry learning for higher education. The grounded Inquiry Learning Approach is invented to strengthen students’ enjoyment of active group learning, and the students find times for group meetings that are often mutually advantageous. The simulation analysis is performed based on performance, accuracy, and efficiency proves the proposed framework’s reliability. The experimental results show that the proposed PGLBA-IL model enhances the accuracy ratio of 81.2%, an efficiency ratio of the number of students 86.4%, and the overall performance analysis ratio of 85.1% compared to others existing approaches.

Creativity is a significant element in design education, and frequently a significant competency during recruitment for design professions. Group work and individual work are widely employed in higher education. Many studies have highlighted the merits of employing group work in design education, cultivating collaborative design abilities and fostering sought-after employability skills. Although the benefits of group work in design practice and education are widely recognised, few studies have shown evidence that group work outperforms individual work regarding creative design activities in higher education contexts. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore whether group or individual work is more beneficial for fostering students in generating creative designs in STEM design education. A case study, involving two cohorts of second-year undergraduate students studying a UK Engineering degree Industrial Design programme, is reported. The case study compares the design outputs produced by the two cohorts tackling the same design challenge in a product design module but employing individual and group work, respectively. The case study results show that no significant differences have been found between the design outputs produced by group work and individual work, considering novelty, usefulness and overall creativity. Further analysis reveals that a student’s academic performance is not significantly related to the level of creativity of the design produced. This research indicates design educators should employ both group and individual work to complement each other in design education, and suggests potential solutions to enhance students’ design creativity.

The construct ‘mathematical resilience’ [1] was developed to describe a positive stance towards learning mathematics, that includes both persistence and perseverance [2], recruiting support when needed. Mathematical resilience can be engineered within both formal and informal learning environments by strategic, explicit focus on the culture of learning mathematics. A focus on ‘mathematical resilience’ enables learners to manage and protect themselves from unhelpful emotions, such as mathematics anxiety, that may arise when mathematics becomes difficult, as well as to recruit appropriate support. Mathematical resilience is not just something that learners do or do not have, it can be grown. In a previous paper [3] we described working with Further Education (FE) teachers to engineer the growth of mathematical resilience in their practice. In this paper, we discuss the outcomes of a teacher Work Group focussed on building mathematical resilience (January to July 2018). Following previous work on growth mindsets with teachers local to Birmingham, UK, through their Maths Hub, work done locally with FE teachers [4,5], and the work of Clare Lee [6] with a southern UK Maths Hub, teachers were recruited to join a local Work Group called ‘building mathematical resilience’. The Work Group was advertised as ‘suitable for primary, secondary and FE colleagues at all stages of their professional education’. 16 teacher volunteers were chosen to take part on a first-come-first-served basis. The Work Group focused on developing teachers’ awareness of affective barriers to learning mathematics, such as mathematics anxiety and avoidance, and how to develop more resilience in learners working on mathematics. Key concepts included: the hand model of the brain [7] to understand the impact of anxiety on thinking, the growth zone model [8] as a means to help learners understand and articulate their feelings when learning mathematics, and to promote mathematical safe-guarding, and some mindfulness techniques to trigger the relaxation response [9] if a learner begins to experience anxiety. Teaching for resilience also involves teachers developing in learners: a growth mindset; willingness to struggle (persistence); knowledge of how to work at mathematics when stuck and how to recruit support (perseverance); understanding of the meaning, value, personal relevance and purpose of mathematics. Based on Dylan Wiliam’s components for effective teacher learning communities, in which all teachers embrace the idea of continuous improvement, the local Maths Hub adopts an approach in which teachers collaborate to change their practice with: Choice, Flexibility, Small steps, Accountability and Support. The Work Group was organised as four face-to-face sessions combined with membership of an online community and pre-reading. The four sessions were: an introductory day of input, group learning and action planning; two twilight sessions of feedback, new learning, and personal action planning; a feedback day, sharing evidence of impact, evaluation and reviewing, and of beginning preparation for a joint publication to share the work with other teachers. This structure enabled the session leader to optimise teacher self-efficacy by sharing mastery, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, encouragement and positive affect. In the paper, we discuss the outcomes. Keywords: mathematics anxiety, learned helplessness, mathematical resilience, teacher learning communities, action research

Conditions under which group work leads to learning have been studied in collaborative settings. Little is known, however, about whether and how the interplay between collaboration and cooperation impinges on group learning. In this paper, we study this interplay in the context of mathematical problem-solving. We focus on how training students to learn together influences this interplay, and on the relations of this interplay with mathematical problem-solving. Five groups of Grade 8 students participated in a course aimed at fostering learning to solve mathematical problems in small groups. Before and after the course, they solved a mathematical problem. An increase in the ratio of cooperation episodes out of total group work time was observed, as well as advancements in mathematical problem-solving. In addition, we found a mid-high correlation between instances of cooperation and mathematical activity: up to a certain threshold, cooperating more in a group yielded an increase in the individual generation of mathematical claims and arguments. We identified the critical role of coordination: for group learning to be productive, students should continuously negotiate and adjust their goals through communication before or while they cooperate on different tasks. We conclude that teachers aiming at fostering group work should encourage the diversification of modes of group work, for the advancement of mathematical problem-solving or of any case in which individual settings are too challenging.

Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei are located in the Bohai Rim region of Northeast Asia, China. It is the region with the largest economic scale and strongest economic vitality in northern China. Due to historical development and administrative division, the economic strength of Beijing and Tianjin is strong, while the economic strength of Hebei Province is weak. The economic development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is severely uneven. The “Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Strategy” is proposed and elevated to a national strategy in this context, aiming to explore the path of coordinated economic development in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, promote economic cooperation, balance economic differences, and enhance the overall economic strength of the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region through national leadership. The economic collaborative development evaluation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is a classical multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problems. Recently, the TODIM and Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) method has been used to cope with MADM issues. The hesitant triangular fuzzy sets (HTFSs) are used as a tool for characterizing uncertain information during the economic collaborative development evaluation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In this paper, the hesitant triangular fuzzy TODIM-EDAS (HTF-TODIM-EDAS) method is built to solve the MADM under HTFSs. In the end, a numerical case study for economic collaborative development evaluation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is given to validate the proposed method. The main contributions of this paper are summarized: (1) the HTF-TODIM-EDAS method is proposed under HTFSs. (2) The MADM method is designed based on the information entropy and HTF-TODIM-EDAS method under HTFSs. (3) A numerical case study for economic collaborative development evaluation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is given to validate the proposed method. (4) A comparison between proposed method and existing methods is carried out to check its effectiveness.