AAS Meeting #193 - Austin, Texas, January 1999
Session 34. Teaching Astronomy in Colleges and Universities
Display, Thursday, January 7, 1999, 9:20am-6:30pm, Exhibits Hall 1

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[34.11] Collaborative Learning Works! Resources for Faculty

R. D. Mathieu (U. Wisconsin-Madison/National Institute for Science Education), G. Brissenden (AAS/National Institute for Science Education), NISE College Level-1 Team

Recent calls for instructional innovation in undergraduate science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) courses highlight the need for a solid foundation of education research at the undergraduate level on which to base policy and practice. We report the results of a meta-analysis that integrates research on undergraduate SMET education since 1980. The meta-analysis demonstrates that various forms of small-group learning are effective in promoting greater academic achievement, more favorable attitudes toward learning, and increased persistence through SMET courses and programs. The magnitude of the effects reported in this study exceeds most findings in comparable reviews of research on educational innovations and supports more widespread implementation of small-group learning in undergraduate SMET courses.

We have created a web-site to assist instructors who wish to incorporate collaborative learning in their lectures, classrooms, and laboratories. The site provides straightforward, easy-to-use ideas for those just getting started, extensive additional resources for those already using small-group techniques, and the educational research foundation for the use of collaborative learning (including the meta-analysis). You can visit the site at www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise/cl1.


If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise/cl1. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: mathieu@astro.wisc.edu

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