Relational thinking is a necessary skill for building students' individual capabilities and a core concept in geography education. Geographical relational thinking refers to being able to give interrelated, causal explanations for geographical phenomena such as regional change. The aim of this study was to gain more insight into differences in…

Many teachers are aware of the benefits of small-group learning. However, implementation, especially in classrooms with communication challenges, can be difficult. For students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) in mainstream classrooms, communication is most often supported through sign language interpreters and captioning. This model of…

Studies of primary education within the UK have shown that small groups can feature within classrooms; however, equivalent research within secondary education remains scarce. Research has established effective group work approaches, yet secondary teachers may encounter difficulties employing approaches tied to parameters embedded within primary…

Argues that both small group behavior and writing processes are involved in the writing of group reports. (SRT)

A study investigated the relationship between teaching style and group conflict within the small instructional group. The conjecture was that the transactional teaching style is associated with more positive resolutions to group conflict than either the nomothetic or idiographic style. Research was conducted on 10 instructional groups within the…

Presents some suggestions to secondary teachers on organizing small group instruction projects and provides a sample set of conduct guidelines for students participating in group work. (SJL)

Describes a class exercise in which student teams answer questions about meetings, after which the class discusses and analyzes results. Shows how this leads students to understand how the interplay of ideas, personalities, and environment--the ecology--of a meeting contributes to productivity in group process, and understand the need to…

Determined types of group behaviors related to the content achievement of middle school special education and nonspecial education students working in groups on computers. Results indicated that two interpersonal behavior variables were related to achievement: mutual keyboard usage and giving explanation; and that special education students gave…

This review includes recent research that manipulated features of cooperative learning as well as studies of the relationship between interaction in small groups and outcomes. The analysis examines the kinds of discourse that are productive for different types of learning and moves toward studies of task and interaction. (SLD)

Values can and should be a part of small group communication instruction. Discourse is value laden and to understand the communication process, the role of values must be understood. Many students come to the classroom not understanding values, and not being aware of the role of values in decision-making. Their lack of understanding requires that…

Describes the use of group dynamics in a junior high school science classroom as a means of dealing with problems associated with the heterogeneous nature of the student population. (JR)

The qualities of small group communication and interaction were tested in this study, which specifically measured group consensus and the quality of group decision making. Fifty groups of five members each were used. One member of each group was trained to exhibit either high or low "orientation," knowledge of the procedures the group…

Describes the characteristics and behavior of three kinds of peer groups in the composition classroom. Discusses some of the difficulties these groups encounter in their critiquing, and some suggestions for improving the dynamics of the less successful groups. (HTH)

In order to study the effects of cognitive style, task structure, and task setting on student achievement and attitudes, structured and unstructured tasks were presented to students in both group and individual settings. It was postulated that through small group and individual activities an individual may display his/her best cognitive style of…