Although pair and group work are commonly used in language classrooms, very few studies have investigated the nature of such collaboration when students produce a jointly written text. This study set out to investigate collaborative writing. The study was classroom based, and the participants (23) were adult ESL students completing degree courses.…

Though in its infancy, research on the use of critical thinking in physical education has shown promising results. To many, the notion of combining critical thinking and physical education might even be seen as a contradiction in terms. This article explores the dispositional aspect of critical thinking and asks two questions: (1) Are students…

This article explores the relevance for network learning of themes developed by Wenger, initially with Lave and subsequently alone. While Wenger's fieldwork is located in the workplace, he sees his theorisation on becoming a learner as applicable to any context, be it home, work or formal education. In unravelling the connectedness between…

Provision of computers in universities for self-study is taken for granted and is seen as a must have educational resource, yet it is very expensive to fund. Students report that they use the Internet as their first stop in approaching research tasks. Learning theorists posit the important role of social interaction in contributing to learning.…

Eleanor Roosevelt could be called a Superstar First Lady. In the era when women's suffrage was first being exercised, she was "pushing the envelope" of what the President's wife, and women in general, might be expected to do in civic life. She wrote syndicated columns for magazines and newspapers, the most famous of which was entitled "My Day," a…

The aim of this article is to problematise and discuss collaboration between children as a means of learning and as an essential aspect of pedagogical quality in educational settings. In theories of learning, children's social interaction and collaboration are highlighted as fundamental to their learning. This implies that children's opportunities…

This study examines the formation and change of collaborative learning social networks in a distributed learning community. A social network perspective is employed to understand how collaborative networks evolved over time when 31 distributed learners collaborated on a design project using a computer-mediated communication system during two…

A collaborative-learning approach to teaching biochemistry to a diverse group of students that was developed is proving successful. This instructional strategy has increased student academic performance and changed the way in which students master science.

This paper presents a class activity which aims to help students prepare both for the intellectual and the interpersonal work. On the first day of class, students are asked to read and reflect upon "Listening to Understand." Subsequently, they are then asked to discuss their responses in a small group and then later on in a large group discussion,…

This article deals with the potential of school-based teacher education for creating a professional community of learners. Learning to participate in the social and cultural practices with regard to education is assumed to be crucial for developing a professional identity as a teacher. From the perspective of socio-cultural theory, we have made a…

This article addresses the use of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) to foster communication and interaction and to facilitate cooperative learning in an online course. The authors delineate the definition and history of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), and describe current uses of MMORPGs in education, including…

Several studies on cooperative learning suggest that cooperative learning make students develop more higher level reasoning, more frequent generation of new ideas and solutions, and greater transfer of what is learned within one situation to another. Cooperative learning also promotes academic achievement, increases retention, and vastly improves…

Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) is a method of student assisted learning in which a successful undergraduate student guides a team of 6-8 students engaged in solving problems developed by the course instructor. The peer leaders serve as role models for their students who want to become peer leaders and the leaders also recruit other students to…

Explains a collaborative research project in which students study a phenomenon known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect which is a measure of the near-surface air temperature contrast between urbanized and adjoining rural areas. Includes background content and literature review, preliminary studies, development of research questions,…

Prior research concluded that collaborative learning reduces test anxiety. Examination of the evidence used in that research, however, calls into question those conclusions. The present study used an empirical measure of test anxiety and an experimental design to provide an improved estimate of the effect of collaboration in an evaluative context…