My students often make comments that they feel that they learn better if they get time to think individually, discuss further with the student sitting beside them and finally share their reflections in groups or with the whole class. I am always trying to make more room for my students to really integrate what they are learning and not only rely on my own "output". What exercises do you use in class to help the students to interact, collaborate, share and reflect?
Kjartan Skogly Kversøy. Thank you for your question. You can distribute case scenarios (5-6 different scenarios) with activities to do in each case. Students may discuss the case with the student next to them and work on the exercise. Then you may open the discussion for presentations and feedback.
Yes, students learn better in groups in collaborative way. I give them opportunity to learn in groups but individual assignment to understand their learning status. This works.
Kjartan Skogly Kversøy. Thank you for your question. You can distribute case scenarios (5-6 different scenarios) with activities to do in each case. Students may discuss the case with the student next to them and work on the exercise. Then you may open the discussion for presentations and feedback.
I like to begin by asking a discussable question about the readings (i.e., something that is not a test of knowledge). I have each individual write down two or three quick thoughts about the question, then I use their seating arrangement to put the students into small groups where they compare their ideas. I usually aim for 4 groups, depending on the class size. As a next step, each group designates a reporter to describe their group's conclusions, while I write summaries of what they say on the board. That leads into a general class discussion of the issues.
Shirshendu Roy Samy Azer David L Morgan Thank you for your input. It is interesting and educational to read how others handle these challenges.
I offer to students some topics and ask them to make a presentation ( 3-4 students make a group). After the presentation of their work all students are involved in the disscusion.
I usually start class by initiating students to introduce themselves to their peers and for me too. Then, each session begins with some ice breaker or energizer related to the emphasis of each session. I feel that these attempts of mine and my being open in front of my students made them to join their hands for collaborative learning to take place.
Usually, I divide students into some groups, then I offer to my students some critical topics and ask them to solve it as a team member in a group.
Sometimes I ask them to arrange debate among groups to establish their opinion.
I use exercises such as Socratic Debate and Business Fiction to promote interaction and developing dreaming capabilities.
Jelena B Popović-Djordjević Solomon Mengistie Md. Shiblur Rahaman Professor Sushil Thank you all for your input. It is very inspiring to read.
May I argue that capstone-project based learning can be an engaging experience with relavance also for industrial partners. Therby students are better motivated to connect their project work to phenomena within communities or problems, and to apply outside-of-school learning experiences, with the help of interviews, scientific observations, or summer training sessions at companies. I find this question to be of top-impartance, so I went on to serach for additional valuable case -studies, please find them enclosed. These kinds of topics will be discussed in an international event in Budapest, 9-11 June 2020: "Learn, share, and expand your network at the 2020 University-Industry Interaction Conference" Available at: https://www.university-industry.com/
"Themes" including "Knowledge transfer and engagement professionals: Recognizing the importance of human capital" Available at: https://www.university-industry.com/index/themes
Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely
Great discussion
Mostly I am using group work and informal Cl activities
It sounds like your students like the concept in collaborative learning, what we call “think-pair-share.” It is a great tool to help students with varying learning styles too. As @davidmorgan mentioned, small groups reporting back can facilitate discussion. I use thay technique and give each person in the group a role - which holds each person accountable - such as reporter, note taker, etc. Again this comes from collaborative learning activities. I have also found it useful to give each group sticky notes to add an idea to and then post on the board. This helps them move around and think about learning in a more tactile way and see one another add information.
You may want to use the individual, pair, and group learning activities as detailed in the following manuscript:
Fostering the X-Factor in Pakistan's university students, doi:
10.1007/s12144-019-00237-6
I hope they work for you.
All the best
Zane Asher Green Thank you for the input. There seems to be a problem with the doi you suggested. Can you send me the article?
Rahmatullah Hashimi A. S. CohenMiller Bulcsu Szekely Kelvin Mutter Thank you for your input. I am getting an array of interesting perspectives.
Please understand I don't have the rights to share the file. But you may read the enhanced pdf version of the article. Just paste the following link in your browser:
https://rdcu.be/but1J
Let me know if that works.
All the best
Zane Asher Green Thank you. I understand fully. I will get our institutions library (OsloMet) to buy it.
1. You could also conduct a quiz-show based session in class, which may have different rounds: MCQs, Short answer questions, Scenario analysis based on video clips, etc. 2. Another activity that my students find interesting and at the same time useful is ranking alternative explanations to a scenario, that is, after studying a situation, quartets may reflect on as many possible alternative courses of action to the situation. Next, you may list the three best alternative explanations from each group on the whiteboard and finally the entire class could rank the top five alternative explanations.
Making the class Little humour...so that each student will easily interact
Students in a group of four are asked to read one paragraph together. Later each student will go back to their original group to share the one-paragraph reading.
Liqaa Habeb Al-Obaydi Ali mohamed rashed
Ulysses Chen Priya Dharshana Thank you for your input. I much appreciate this.
اقدم بعض الاسئلة الاثرائية والمتضمنة نوع من العصف الذهني . واشجع الجميع على الاجابه من خلال طرح كافة الافكار التي تراودهم
Giving group assignment/project...
Giving topics to students to present in class and answer questions from their colleagues thereafter..
Maximising practice time Learners need to practise as much as possible if they are to be successful. Interaction through pair and group work maximises the opportunities to practise as more learners speak for more of the time.
Socialisation Related to the concept of collaboration is that of socialisation. Interaction does not only promote language development but it also fosters the development of social skills (e.g. politeness, respect for others) that people need to operate successfully in any culture.
Self-consciousness I have met many learners who become very nervous and embarrassed when asked to speak English. As a language learner myself, I sympathise.
Insufficient language Perhaps the most common reason for interaction in English breaking down, or indeed not starting in the first place, is that the students don't have the language they need to interact and, therefore, complete the task successfully.
Rashmi Pramanik Thank you for your input. The challenges you are mentioning are very relevant.
When explaining the topic, I try to draw their attention by asking questions that will be answered from the environment surrounding us in order to attract their attention in the lesson as well as to strengthen their observation of the things that pass them in their daily lives, which has to relate with their specialization
Liqaa Habeb Al-Obaydi Ali Alhayany Thank you for your input.
A good preparation is an essential part of classroom teaching. I use students friendly methods and understand the individual differences among the students. I put effort to create a wall of discussion among the students to make it interactive and collaborative.
Sometimes I use 5 to 10 percent of the class duration to tell interesting stories or talk about general knowledge
- Introduce the task. This can be as simple as instructing students to turn to their neighbor to discuss or debate a topic.
- Provide students with enough time to engage with the task. Walk around and address any questions as needed.
- Debrief. Call on a few students to share a summary of their conclusions. Address any misconceptions or clarify any confusing points. Open the floor for questions.
In online education, the creation of social interaction may be a challenge. This observational study evaluated to what extent social interactions occur during small private online courses (SPOCs).
Uijl, S., Filius, R., & Ten Cate, O. (2017). Student interaction in small private online courses. Medical Science Educator, 27(2), 237-242.
student-student interaction...
Amorim, R. (2017). Code switching in student-student interaction; functions and reasons!. Linguística: Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto, 7.
Importance of student interaction with peers and teachers...
Nguyen, T. D., Cannata, M., & Miller, J. (2018). Understanding student behavioral engagement: Importance of student interaction with peers and teachers. The Journal of Educational Research, 111(2), 163-174.
drivers of student interaction...
Purarjomandlangrudi, A., Chen, D., & Nguyen, A. (2016). Investigating the drivers of student interaction and engagement in online courses: A study of state-of-the-art. Informatics in education, 15(2), 269-286.
student interaction with educational systems
Hansen, C., Hansen, C., Hjuler, N., Alstrup, S., & Lioma, C. (2017). Sequence modelling for analysing student interaction with educational systems. arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.04164.
By collaboratively solving a task, students are challenged to share ideas, express their thoughts, and engage in discussion. Collaborating groups of students may encounter problems concerning cognitive activities (such as a misunderstanding of the task material).
Van Leeuwen, A., Janssen, J., Erkens, G., & Brekelmans, M. (2015). Teacher regulation of cognitive activities during student collaboration: Effects of learning analytics. Computers & Education, 90, 80-94.
Chinaza Godswill Awuchi D A Gayan Nayanajith Thank you for your input.
Cooperative learning, especially through the use of collaborative tasks, has been shown to foster language development where learners can see a reason for using language to interact.
Get Them Involved. Teach the Students How To Cooperate And Collaborate.
I and my students create a group together and produce small projects together.
Ahmet Aykan Shurooq Talab Jaafar Thank you for your very interesting input.
In the Asian culture, group learning is highly valued amongst undergraduates. Therefore, I utilize this value by setting up a peer- assist support to help them learn from each other's mistakes and errors, while also encouraging them to learn together for making academic progress and not to get caught up in the grades.
I have been using the good old Jigsaw-method with advanced learners, lately. One feedback was that "this was the most meaningful learning experience in the whole program, so far". So, sometimes these "classics" still work out pretty well!
Other methods in this category: Think-Pair-Share; Fishbowl-discussion and of course all forms of Problem-based Learning.
Antonia Scholkmann We have similar experiences. Children, youth and students are learning a lot during times like this. Our job is to recognize the situation at hand at use it for benifit and development. Thank you for sharing.
I divide them into groups and give them topics for joint presentation. Every group is required to ask questions and make comments on other groups presentation
I divide whole class into 3-4 small groups and give the problems to think. After having discussions each group presents the theme separately. At the end they write individually what they learnt and how they connect the lesson with real world.
I give them topics to write about, and present them during classes, where they have to ask one another questions and make comments. They may form groups if necessary
I gave out task and group them to deliberate on it and they present a single report per group.
Prakash Bhue Chinaza Godswill Awuchi Najeem Olawale Adelakun Thank you for your input.
Personally, I have observed that high achievers prefer to work individually while low achievers indulge in group work or cooperative learning.
Mounya Abdaoui I often have to challenge some of the high achievers to work in groups, and often they amit it as beneficial.
i prefer to use the sharing method and keep the student’s mind attentive with this participation for everyone in the classroom.
Take a look at this paper by the director of our Educational Informatics Lab (EILab) at Ontario Tech University, based on real and successful application of Problem Based Learning and PBL Objects for individual engagement and social learning:
Conference Paper Exploring Problem-Based Learning in Higher Education: Case S...
Ulana Plawuszczak Pidzamecky Thank you for this very interesting paper.
I used to transform some complicated labs to "pseudo-exams" and tell them I may consider this lab as an exam, and you have to work it individually. After a few minutes, I observe that they focus on their work. Sometimes I leave the class or just sit and work on something else, I see then that they start to help each other to understand and to provide the correct answer, and this is finally my objective. So I don't empeche them from conferring, learning from each other, or consulting documents because I think this is one way of "collective learning".
I asked my students to answer the homework and write short reports (1-2) pages for each e-lesson.
Kjartan Skogly Kversøy , you are welcome, thank you for your interesting question!
The big challenge today, I think, on how to do such collaborative and interactive activities while teaching-learning online ?!
Hayet Si Salah I agree. We are working on this more than ever. The students like the online student groups we make. Often an introduction, then an assignment in groups and then meet later for discussion. The assignments need to be relevant for the situation the students are in or it does not work as well. Rafid A. Abdullah Jelena B Popović-Djordjević Thank you for your input.
Dear All,
This link talk about:5 Strategies to Deepen Student Collaboration
https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-strategies-deepen-student-collaboration-mary-burns
Dear Dr. Kjartan Skogly Kversøy m
You can achieve the cooperation through:
Kjartan Skogly Kversøy posed a very relevant and interesting question. Some time ago, I came across an unexpected aspect of this problem. I was engaged in the development of training tasks with several special properties: they were personal (individual for each student), varied (differed in methods of solution, complexity, etc.), but at the same time they were similar in appearance and unified methodologically. When I started testing tasks in the classroom, I came across an unexpected effect. The class began to spontaneously form working groups for collaboration. These groups were dynamic, they form, changed their composition and broke up. Fortunately, I had the determination to abandon the external regulation of this process. When students needed help, they did not hesitate to contact me.
I design systems for the production of special content, and I am sure that content plays a decisive role in education, just like the producers say that the main thing in the movie or theatre is the script, not the directors and actors. I urge you to think about the content that you use when you organize students to work together or for other purposes.
Vladimir Rotkin Thank you. This was very interesting to read.
It is the environment & responsibility of the teacher to act for student to change into successful manner .It help the teacher to move the student for which if not out of the way the responsibility of parents may help the student for the right behavior in their study approach .
It is in this line for student behavior & guideline may play for suitable action for which I have pressed my views in a very general way which I submit herewith for your perusal . It is not out of place if I mention that this presentation may not be tuned with the question asked for but it may be indirect reflection of the question .
We have to accept the fact that all student are not equal in their study ,intelligence,behavior ,& also the environment they receive from their home,parents,& social surrounding .
In this line we have to observe the student in scrutiny of their personal touch .If student are not performing well in their study we have to trace & examine his past record of performance,behavior ,& other part of his activity . It is the duty of the teacher to see that such students should not be placed either in person or in classroom in the embarrassing situation .
With this teacher can help the student in a comfortable situation & by method of loving behavior ,personal care & sympathetic approach a teacher can certainly help the student to prepare for his qualitative mode of his working in his study method .
This is my personal opinion
The interpersonal interaction amongst students in a class is a very important dimension in the learning environment. There is a good experiment done to get a very positive result is called the 'Buddy System'. Here the Buddy is usually a senior class student or a fast learner of the class. just by regularly getting connected to the buddy has proven very motivation especially in the undergraduate classrooms.
I tell them the next lecture is about a certain topic so that they can look it out and have some background about it when the topic is explained to them
Rohit Manilal Parikh Preeti Oza Raya Al-Naimi Thank you all for your input. It is very interesting to read.
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