Peer Pedagogy: Student Collaboration and Reflection in a Learning-Through-Design Project

Background: Existing research suggests that one of the challenges for teachers in persisting with innovative inquiry curricula is their difficulty scaffolding students’ transitions into technology-supported and open-ended activities. The question of whether students can effectively scaffold one another’s transitions has not been previously investigated, in part, we argue, because of a predominant focus in collaborative learning research on short-term tasks and perfunctory “helping” behaviors. Purpose: This article addresses the nature and role of students’ collaborations in learningthrough-design, a technology-rich science inquiry curriculum. Within this environment, we examined emergent collaborative patterns among students, the affordances of those patterns for effective learning, and students’ reflections on their interactions. We paid particular attention to how students with varying degrees of previous experience in this curricular approach collaborated with one another. Setting: This study took place at a university-affiliated elementary school in a West Coast urban area. Population: Two mixed-grade classes of fourth- and fifth-grade students (n = 63) and their science teacher participated in this study. Fifth-grade students in one class had extensive experiences with learning through design during the previous year. Practice: For 10 weeks during the fall, students in both classes learned about marine biology. During this time, they also worked in teams to create marine simulations using Logo Microworlds programming and multimedia software.

[1]  Annemarie S. Palincsar,et al.  Group processes in the classroom. , 1996 .

[2]  Donald A. Schön.  The reflective practitioner : how professionals think in action , 1986 .

[3]  Anselm L. Strauss,et al.  Basics of qualitative research : techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory , 1998 .

[4]  Janet L. Kolodner,et al.  Problem-based Learning Meets Case-based Reasoning , 1996, ICLS.

[5]  Susan E. Newman,et al.  Cognitive Apprenticeship: Teaching the Craft of Reading, Writing, and Mathematics. Technical Report No. 403. , 1987 .

[6]  Yasmin B. Kafai,et al.  The Classroom as "Living Laboratory": Design-Based Research for Understanding, Comparing, and Evaluating Learning Science Through Design , 2005 .

[7]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[8]  Seymour Papert,et al.  Software Design as a Learning Environment , 1990, Interact. Learn. Environ..

[9]  G. Richmond,et al.  Moving from outside to inside : High school students' use of apprenticeships as vehicles for entering the culture and practice of science , 1999 .

[10]  B. Rogoff.  Observing sociocultural activity on three planes: participatory appropriation, guided participation, and apprenticeship , 1995 .

[11]  John McCarthy,et al.  Reviewing the "Community of Practice" Metaphor: An Analysis of Control Relations in a Primary School Classroom , 2001 .

[12]  H. Mintrop.  Educating Students To Teach in a Constructivist Way--Can It All Be Done?. , 2001 .

[13]  Cynthia Carter Ching,et al.  Children as designers of educational multimedia software , 1997, Comput. Educ..

[14]  S. Laverty.  Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Phenomenology: A Comparison of Historical and Methodological Considerations , 2003 .

[15]  Stephen M. Ritchie,et al.  Laboratory Apprenticeship through a Student Research Project. , 1996 .

[16]  E. Hutchins.  Understanding practice: Learning to navigate , 1993 .

[17]  J. Shea.  National Science Education Standards , 1995 .

[18]  Larry Cuban.  Teachers and machines : the classroom use of technology since 1920 , 1986 .

[19]  Yasmin B. Kafai,et al.  Affordances of Collaborative Software Design Planning for Elementary Students' Science Talk , 2001 .

[20]  Roy D. Pea,et al.  Constructivism in the Collaboratory , 1995 .

[21]  Brigid Barron.  When Smart Groups Fail , 2003 .

[22]  A. Su,et al.  The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics , 1932, The Mathematical Gazette.

[23]  K. Frank,et al.  Factors Affecting Technology Uses in Schools: An Ecological Perspective , 2003 .

[24]  Nancy Butler Songer,et al.  Exploring learning opportunities in coordinated network-enhanced classrooms: A case of kids as global scientists. , 1996 .

[25]  Kristine Nagel,et al.  The design discussion area: a collaborative learning tool in support of learning from problem-solving and design activities , 1999, CSCL.

[26]  Leonard H. King.  High and Low Achievers' Perceptions and Cooperative Learning in Two Small Groups , 1993, The Elementary School Journal.

[27]  Penelope L. Peterson,et al.  The Relationship of Student Ability and Small-Group Interaction to Student Achievement , 1982 .

[28]  Alexander W. Chizhik,et al.  Equity Issues in Collaborative Group Assessment: Group Composition and Performance , 1998 .

[29]  Janet L. Kolodner,et al.  Problem-Based Learning Meets Case-Based Reasoning in the Middle-School Science Classroom: Putting Learning by Design(tm) Into Practice , 2003 .

[30]  N. Webb.  Peer interaction and learning in small groups , 1989 .

[31]  Yasmin B. Kafai,et al.  Minds In Play: Computer Game Design as a Context for Children''s , 1994 .

[32]  Annemarie S. Palincsar,et al.  Motivating Project-Based Learning: Sustaining the Doing, Supporting the Learning , 1991 .

[33]  Janet L. Kolodner,et al.  Designing to Learn About Complex Systems , 2000 .

[34]  J. Lave.  Understanding practice: The practice of learning , 1993 .

[35]  S. Barab,et al.  Constructivism in Practice: A Comparison and Contrast of Apprenticeship and Constructionist Learning Environments , 2001 .

[36]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Guided discovery in a community of learners. , 1994 .

[37]  Noreen M. Webb,et al.  A process‐outcome analysis of learning in group and individual settings , 1980 .

[38]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[39]  D. Schoen,et al.  The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action , 1985 .

[40]  Brigid Barron.  Achieving Coordination in Collaborative Problem-Solving Groups , 2000 .

[41]  Brian J. Reiser,et al.  Scaffolding Complex Learning: The Mechanisms of Structuring and Problematizing Student Work , 2004, The Journal of the Learning Sciences.

[42]  Yasmin B. Kafai,et al.  Spaces for Change: Gender and Technology Access in Collaborative Software Design , 2000 .

[43]  Marlene Scardamalia,et al.  Teachability of Reflective Processes in Written Composition , 1984, Cogn. Sci..

[44]  Diane Celia Hodges,et al.  Participation as dis-identification with/in a community of practice , 1998 .

[45]  D. Perkins.  Knowledge As Design , 1986 .

[46]  Larry Cuban.  Oversold and Underused , 2001 .

[47]  E. Cohen.  Restructuring the Classroom: Conditions for Productive Small Groups , 1994 .

[48]  Wolff-Michael Roth,et al.  Inventors, Copycats, and Everyone Else: The Emergence of Shared Resources and Practices As Defining Aspects of Classroom Communities. , 1995 .