A Comparison of the Effectiveness of Collaborative Learning and Individual Learning

As I sit here to this day group work is still not my favorite thing it makes me angry when professors mention it. I feel as if we are now in college not in high school. We should be treated as one person when doing an assignment. So you could see each potential of each

“Alright,” the teacher says to the students, “I’m going to number all of you off into groups. Each group will read a section from the textbook and become experts on that section. Then, each group will teach the rest of the class what they learned from their reading.” This is an instruction common to the classrooms in the United States. More and more is the pedagogy of public education leaning in favor of team-based activities, projects, and learning. Group work is generally seen as an ultimately beneficial way to teach students, but this may be somewhat of a fallacy. The emphasis on group-based learning in public schools causes a multitude of problems.

When I become a teacher I plan to have my students work in cooperative groups because this allows them a chance to share their knowledge and ideas with their peers. Due to the fact that most students are on different developmental levels, those students who are of higher developmental levels can provide the other students with their ideas and perception of their knowledge. I feel that teachers should not be scared to let their students participate in group work because I think it is a great method of learning.

This is why I also employ the constructivism technique of collaborative groups in my classroom to give students the opportunity to discuss ideas with their peers and make reasonable conclusions about what they are learning. My classroom is arranged with student desks placed in small groups, which allows students to direct their attention to the front of the room when needed, yet they can turn and collaborate with their peers during group work.

The teacher prepares the students to operate in a small group together. This practice can enhance the student’s cooperative learning skills.

Small groups require active teaching with much teacher guidance or involvement. Small groups can teach the context better than a larger group, allowing for no child to be struggling and left behind. Reading, math and science can benefit from small group interaction. Each student has a chance to be heard, voice his opinion or conclusion, get a response from the teacher and the other group participants, and close the gap for error. The key for successful learning is when the teacher involves himself and gets excited about what the children are to be taught. This is also true in group study as

In the education world of today, it is understood that one can only be effective in teaching by taking into consideration the different learning styles of students. In a classroom, it is expected that teachers would want their students to acquire a meaningful knowledge base, become proficient problem solvers and learn how to work productively with others (Biehler and Snowman, 2006, p. 370). If this is the case, teachers need to know how to be able to develop this situation in the classroom and make it more conducive to learning. Therefore, it would seem that they need to encourage students to converse with each other with group discussions and assignments, to make sure they are active in

In Case Study 5.1, Mrs. James not only effectively started her class with sharing her own experiences and building relationship with her students but also emphasized the importance of group work, which is in helping and learning from each other. She illustrated the following strategies and routines that supported cooperative learning: room arrangement, talk and movement procedures and individual accountability by building students’ social, explanation and sharing skills.

Throughout life there are many instances in which an individual has to work in a group to complete a task/project. The importance of group work is to have teamwork with each member of the group. Humans are driven to connect with each other and by working as a group ideas become much more enriched and the ideas or thoughts that each person ‘brings to the table’ each individual is able to add onto that idea or it can trigger one to think of something completely different.

With the heterogeneous groups the level of discussion and cooperative work is increased, providing benefits for every student partaking. According to Paul Burden and David Byrd (2012), “Having students work in groups generally has a positive effect on their achievement when compared to their work as individuals.” Small-group work and discussions allows for students to improve their communication skill, cooperation skills, and gain new insight and understanding from their peers in a way that could not be achieved working alone.

Having had the opportunity to assess children’s learning during PPL3, it is clear that there are certain strategies that best suits the needs of individuals. From studying lesson plans and evaluations, and from general observation it is clear that group work was often beneficial, and gave the children the chance to work with peers of different ability levels and different learning styles, so that they were able to develop and learn from their peers. Group work is great for getting children to work collaboratively, whether this is as a pair, or as a group of 6, or a group of 12, it takes them out of their comfort zones and to adapt to new situations. Using different strategies such as think-pair-share and mixed ability groups as well as self chosen groups can really determine the quality of children’s learning. I shall be looking into these strategies and reviewing my own teaching and how they were beneficial or detrimental towards a child’s education.

“Group work is a form of voluntary association of members benefiting from cooperative learning that enhances the total output of the activity than when done individually”.

The challenge this researcher faces lies in the structure of a particular Accelerated Math II (10th Grade) curriculum at Lucy C. Laney High School in Augusta, Georgia, in which all students enrolled in the course have to be proficient in all areas of the curriculum. The researcher has observed very little higher order/critical thinking and problem solving and low motivation/morale which may impact student performance in the math course. After a year of intense coursework, including real world application practice, and many short answer and multiple choice assessments, students show minimum performance on an accelerated curriculum provided to them. This challenges the instructional efforts of the teacher to increase the performance and promote higher order thinking in the math class. Therefore the purpose for this study is to determine if cooperative learning impacts higher order/critical thinking skills and student achievement.

I am Zeeshan Ali; I am working as a Computer teacher for Classes VI-X-M in Canal Side Boys Campus. I have done Masters in Computer Science (MCS) from Punjab University College of Information and Technology (PUCIT) Lahore. The students are the main focus of every teacher and our entire teaching efforts circle round our students to achieve the set targets. Effective Teaching includes many useful teaching strategies that a teacher chooses according to the requirement of his/her respective subject and topic as well. In result of my years of experience and as a Computer teacher I find Group Work as the most effective and fruitful technique at every level.

Collaborative learning is founded on the idea that the learning process is a naturally social act which requires the participants to talk among themselves. Collaborative learning involves small groups of students who act on a structured learning activity to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product. In simpler terms, the students work in groups to learn or understand a new concept they are studying. In this learning approach, it is important to understand that the students are accountable for individual work as well as the group work they do as a group in collaborative learning