Peer Pedagogy: Student Collaboration and Reflection in a Learning-Through-Design Project

Abstract

Background Existing research suggests that one of the challenges for teachers in persisting with innovative inquiry curricula is their difficulty scaffolding students’ transitions into technology-supported and open-ended activities. The question of whether students can effectively scaffold one another's transitions has not been previously investigated, in part, we argue, because of a predominant focus in collaborative learning research on short-term tasks and perfunctory “helping” behaviors. Purpose This article addresses the nature and role of students’ collaborations in learning-through-design, a technology-rich science inquiry curriculum. Within this environment, we examined emergent collaborative patterns among students, the affordances of those patterns for effective learning, and students’ reflections on their interactions. We paid particular attention to how students with varying degrees of previous experience in this curricular approach collaborated with one another. Setting This study took place at a university-affiliated elementary school in a West Coast urban area. Population Two mixed-grade classes of fourth- and fifth-grade students (n = 63) and their science teacher participated in this study. Fifth-grade students in one class had extensive experiences with learning through design during the previous year. Practice For 10 weeks during the fall, students in both classes learned about marine biology. During this time, they also worked in teams to create marine simulations using Logo Microworlds programming and multimedia software. Research Design/Data Collection and Analysis Design-based research guided the creation of the curriculum and examination of its effectiveness. Ethnographic methods, grounded theory, hermeneutics, and discourse analysis were used to collect and analyze video of student collaborations and interviews. Analysis of variance was conducted using the coded results from student interviews to determine significant differences among groups. Results We found that experienced fifth-graders took on many socializing functions, effectively apprenticing younger students into the practices of learning-through-design. Interviews revealed that both fourth-grade and fifth-grade students were highly reflective about their respective collaborative roles and that experienced students benefited as much as, if not more so, than inexperienced students from this arrangement. Conclusions Given experienced students’ strategic, effective, and thoughtful ongoing collaborations with their fourth-grade counterparts, we introduce and propose the term peer pedagogy to describe these interactions. This term and our constituent results have implications for existing research and practice with collaborative learning and project-based technology-integrated curricula, as well as for theory and scholarship on children's roles within learning communities.

Teachers’ Design Processes: An Analysis of Teachers’ Design Talk and Use of Pedagogical Patterns

“…Evaluation of reflection in children. Among all the reviewed papers, nine of them [10,19,21,25,27,33,43,47,54] measured or evaluated children's reflection in a collaborative interaction, or made an analysis of factors that play a role in children's reflection. Reflection was investigated through analysis of children's (a) verbal communication such as reflective discourses or utterances [21,27,54] in face-to-face interaction or online conversation through chat logs [19,47], (b) non-verbal interactions through behavioral and emotional engagement [25], peer help [10], physical interaction and enjoyment [43], or documentation of classroom activities including collaboration and teacher facilitation [33], (see Table 2).…”

“…This suggests that investigating children's reflective practices within a collaborative interaction mediated by technology is gaining attention, however the integral role of reflective aspects within collaborative practices is a rather new phenomenon in the literature. When it comes to the target age in the studies (see Table 1), children between 9 and 14 years old are the most represented age group [6,10,27,30,33,47,48,52]. Children younger than 9 years old were relatively less studied [21,25,43].…”

“…The collaborative activities in which the reflection took place in the studies were mainly design-based activities such as learning-through design using Logo Microworlds programming [10], game design with MaKey MaKey, Scratch and boardgames [29], coinvention activity with Lego robotics, GoGo boards and collaborative paper-based reflective journals, design-based learning and filling out a collaborative workbook as a guidance for activities [54], science learning activities such as science learning through a software tool (e.g., Web of Inquiry [47], Progress Portfolio [33], CSCL environment [19]), interactive surface (e.g., tablet [21], tabletop [27]), or co-writing activity tutoring a Nao robot [25], and other activities which could also be identified as leisure activities such as inter-generational file sharing between members of a distance choir [6], gameplay on a tangible tabletop application [52], or tracking physical activity and health attitude [43]. However, these activities are not mutually exclusive from each other; the design activities conducted in studies are mostly related to design-based learning and took place in a school context.…”

“…However, these activities are not mutually exclusive from each other; the design activities conducted in studies are mostly related to design-based learning and took place in a school context. The instances indicate the type of technologies that the reflective practices mediated within the collaborative interaction which fall under five broad categories: online software or tools [6,10,19,33,47], touch-based surfaces [21,27,52], hands-on tools for maker programming [29,48], paper-based design tools [48,54], and robots [25] (see Table 1).…”

“…Evaluation Method Verbal utterances [21,27,54] chat logs [19,47] Non-Verbal peer help [10] behavioral and emotional engagement [25] physical interaction and enjoyment [43] documentation [33] Among the reviewed papers, Eshuis et al relied heavily on the "joint reflection" concept and they presented an extensive overview of findings related to this concept as a grounding for their work [19]. They referred to Quinton and Smallbone in defining reflection as "a mental process that incorporates critical thought about an experience and demonstrates learning that can be taken forward" ( [39] in [19]).…”