Small Group Learning

The importance of grouping for effective learning in general has been a concern of educators for many years. Indeed, as early as 1929, Purdom noted that there already existed a large amount of literature on the topic of efficacious grouping. Many of the debates concerning grouping have been centered around whether students should be grouped in a heterogeneous collective (dissimilar levels of existing knowledge, skill level, aptitude, intelligence) or a homogeneous collective (similar levels of existing knowledge, skill level, aptitudes intelligence). However, as pointed out by Slavin (1988), while homogeneous grouping appears to offer the benefit of instructional efficiency, it has been associated with a number of disadvantages. Specifically, Slavin (1988) states that homogeneous grouping based on ability:

. . . may stigmatize low achievers, put them into classes or groups for which teachers have low expectations, or lead to the creation of academic elites (or) doom children . . . to second-class instruction and, ultimately, second-class futur

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tion. 7. Increases in students' ability to tolerate and to accept differences in other people. 8. Decreases in the degree to which students depend upon their teachers for learning. Some of the support for the notion that cooperative learning works well with respect to technological/industrial education, has come from the work of Slavin (1980), who noted that for learning that involves matters related to calculation and for the application of formulas and principles, cooperative learning was found to be more effective than other techniques when the cooperative learning methods were: (1) used in a structured and focused instructional schedule; (2) those that held group members accountable for team performance; and (3) those that used a strong and well-defined reward system for success. Moreover, Slavin (1980) noted that for higher level learning such as the kind of conceptual skills involved in problem-solving, cooperative learning fostered better problem-solving than individual instruction provided that the group had a high level of student autonomy and participation in decision-making. Slavin (1987) has attempted to delineate a theoretical basis to explain the effects of cooperative learning. In this regard, he first ex
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Approximate Word count = 2409
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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