Student Talk in a Whole Class and Cooperative Learning

Abastracts | Alphabetical Index Student Talk in a Whole Class and Cooperative Learning
Setting in a Philosophy for Children Program

Kevin Barry

University of Notre Dame, Australia

Leonard King

Edith Cowan University

Maureen Burke

St Pius X Catholic School, Perth

In the past 10 years, research into teacher influences on student cognitive processes during cooperative learning has emerged as a significant domain of inquiry. Our study into the use of Philosophy for Children within small groups has continued the probe into the cognitive psychological domain of cooperative learning. Specifically, the study attempted to:

1. Observe, analyse and compare student talk during whole class and cooperative learning in a Philosophy for children program in a Year 7 (12-year-olds) and Year 5 (10-year-olds) classes.

2. Establish the nature and degree of connection between the intent and form of cooperative learning set by the teacher (conditions) and the kind of peer group interactions and talk (discussion).

3. Probe the strengths and shortcomings of the whole class versus the cooperative learning format in a Philosophy for Children program.

The study of teaching literature (including cooperative learning) currently embraces helping students learn to think as one prominent line of research endeavour (Good & Brophy, 2000). But the teaching of Philosophy for Children opens new lines for approaching this research effort. Those promoting Philosophy for Children, such as Lipman (1991) and Splitter (1995), point to conceptualising the teaching of thinking as, firstly, better thinking within the discipline of philosophy as adapted to the cognitive level and interests of the students and, secondly, within a classroom environment that can be regarded as a community of inquiry characterised by having students engage with each other, with ideas and the skills of critical thinking (Freakley & Burgh, 2000).

When compared to traditional teaching methods, research indicates that cooperative learning provides positive effects in terms of achievement and other outcomes (Good & Brophy, 2000; Slavin, 1991). One outcome in particular, the development of higher cognitive level talk and therefore, by implication, better thinking, has been emphasised in the cooperative learning literature. The student learning theories of Bruner (1986) and Vygotsky (1978) posit the importance of group social interactions in the development of student cognition and thinking. Students working in small groups can engage in what Bennett and Dunne (1991) refer to as task-enhancing talk. Further focussing of the relationship between cooperative learning and developing thinking was provided by Meloth, Deering and Sanders (1993) when they suggested a cognitive psychological perspective to match the existing social psychological perspective in research on cooperative learning. Such a cognitive psychological perspective sought to investigate the progressive connections between the teacher's cognitive intent for group work, the prevailing conditions set for the group work (i.e., talk, group composition, teacher's role), the quality of student interactions and talk occurring during group work, and the quality of learning that resulted relative to the teacher's original cognitive intent. Our studies (Barry, King, Pitts-Hill & Zehnder, 1998; King, Barry, Maloney & Tayler, 1997; King, Barry & Zehnder, 1995) confirmed the usefulness of the Meloth, Deering and Sanders research framework in investigating how cooperative learning facilitates the development of student thinking.

This study extends our April 2000 study 'Philosophy for Children and the Promotion of Student High Level Cognitive Talk in Small Group Cooperative Learning' (Barry, King, Maloney & Burke, 2000) to a year long study of two other classes of students. It also brings together the movement for helping students learn to think better through Philosophy for Children and the cognitive psychological perspective on cooperative learning in the context of whole class and cooperative learning settings. In both research lines, the role of the teacher is seen to be of vital importance. The belief system, the learning format chosen, and the pedagogical expertise of the teacher provide the foundation for the success or otherwise of this union.

Methodology

The research was designed as two single classroom case studies involving the teacher and 28 students of a Year 7 class and 28 students of a Year 5 class in a medium sized suburban Catholic school. The study occurred in two phases. First, we observed six lessons over a six-month period of the classes engaged in Philosophy for Children on a whole class basis. The second phase consisted of the Year 7 students spending the discussion section of Philosophy for Children lessons in a cooperative learning model based on a whole class introduction, followed by cooperative learning, then group reporting to the whole class (Good & Brophy, 1997; Johnson & Johnson, 1991). Groups were formed on a heterogeneous basis. We observed and audio-recorded three such lessons, including the recording of all student talk in six groups per lesson. Two target groups were script-taped by experienced observers. All discussions across the whole class in both year levels and cooperative learning lessons in the Year 7 class were transcribed and coded using the MAKITAB Small-group Learning Interaction Analysis System (King, Barry, Maloney & Tayler, 1993) and a qualitative analysis software package, NUD*IST (non-numerical, unstructured data, indexing, searching and theorising tool).

The major data source was the coded MAKITAB data about kinds of student talk, including higher level cognitive talk, student cognitive questions and student metacognitive talk. The use of the NUD*IST analysis of student talk provided an alternative view of some of the data through an analysis of key words such as think, argue, understand, meaning, question, classify, perspective, fair, listen, like, and assume. Discussion with teacher enabled us to access teacher thoughts and perceptions across all lessons. Student perceptions and evaluations of group functioning were identified from transcribed data of student interviews and a group self-assessment inventory.

Findings

1. Comparison of Year 7 and Year 5 lesson transcripts in a direct sense has proven somewhat difficult since most of the Year 7 lessons involved the use of small-group cooperative learning for some or all of the discussion stage of the lesson. The Year 5 lesson transcripts in 2000 have involved essentially the whole class mode for the discussion stage. However, there are fundamental points regarding the quality and quantity of higher-order talk where direct comparison between Year 7 and Year 5 whole class settings was occurring. For instance:

The analysis of student talk in both years levels during both whole class and cooperative learning in our study showed that nearly all talk was task-enhancing in nature and over 50% involved higher-order cognition. There was also strong evidence of metacognitive talk intertwined with cognitive talk in the higher-order cognition categories as well we regular reflective discussions on 'thinking about our thinking' and 'building a community of inquiry'.
In the cooperative learning setting there was a significantly greater degree of involvement by all students in higher cognitive level talk and therefore, by implication, better thinking. Our data indicated a mean number of 130 interactions for each of six groups per lesson as against a mean number of 90 for each whole class lesson.
The MAKITAB data show that there was significantly more student talk in the domain of metacognitive processing in cooperative learning. This was especially so in regard to organising and structuring the discussion, reviewing task direction and group evaluation. In addition, each group completed a self-assessment inventory describing how well they engaged with ideas and with each other. However, there was also strong evidence of metacognitive talk with perhaps more teacher evoking of this kind of talk at the Year 5 level that at the Year 7 level.
There was significantly higher levels of student question asking in the cooperative learning setting. Student question asking in the whole class mode was minimal, whereas the percentage of student-student cognitive question asking as a percentage of all talk in the cooperative learning mode was a very high 12%.
The presence of challenging student ideas, justifying points of views, expressing alternative ideas types of talk occurred at both year levels, though the incidence and conceptual depth of these were greater for the Year 7 level than the Year 5 level. When compared to whole class student talk, there was significantly higher levels of individual group members challenging, asserting or calling on other group members to contribute to discussion in the cooperative learning setting. In addition, challenges were always accepted or rejected in a dispassionate manner.
In the cooperative learning setting, students had greater opportunity to work as a community of inquiry through engaging with each other in attentive listening, speaking clearly, turn taking, trusting the group, treating each other with respect, giving time to make points, appreciating the contribution of others, controlling annoyance and appreciating the contribution of others.
There was a strong student preference in the Year 7 class for work in a format of whole class/small group/whole class. Sixteen students supported this mode; two students preferred the whole class mode for the lesson; four students preferred the whole class followed by small group only; and four students preferred the small group only.
The main disadvantage in the small group mode was that groups sometimes had difficulty in clarifying fundamental definitions or moved away from the issue being discussed. When this happened, the discussion of the question tended to be restricted. Another problem which occurred in some small groups was that the cooperative learning group sometimes ran out of ideas.
2. With the student perception data, understandably the degree of sophistication and the conceptual depth of interview responses by the Year 7 students was greater than those of Year 5 students. However, very often, a closer analysis of the two levels of responses revealed that the essence of the ideas expressed were quite similar. In Year 5, the ability to articulate proficiently a variety of profound ideas was a limiting factor. A summary of the Year 5 interview responses follows:
Strong positive expressions in favour of philosophy lessons from all students in the sample.
Wide array of justifications by students for their positive attitudes towards philosophy lessons.
Most of the justifications involved cognitive advantages perceived to be acquired from taking these lessons.
A less frequently stated reason perceived by the students involved affective factors-learning about life, enjoy being in the class during philosophy lessons, learning about others in the class, learning about peer relationships. These aspects of perception reflect positively on the community of inquiry notion of philosophy lessons.
Strong positive views were held by students about philosophy lessons and their value compared to other subject areas in the curriculum.
The least liked aspects of philosophy lessons, as expressed by the students, were mainly of an inverted positive nature about such lessons, e.g., "The lessons were too short," and "not enough opportunity to have a say in the discussion".
The mode of conducting philosophy lessons safely could involve all whole class sessions or some inclusion of small group cooperative learning. The students perceived advantages in both modes.
Some differential perceptions were held in regard to the use of journal writing but were favoured by more students who expressed good reasons for their views.

Discussion

1. The study has revealed the quality of student cognitive talk during whole class and cooperative learning lessons involving Philosophy for Children was uniformly high. As educators, we are challenged to explain how this quality of student discussion emerged. Using the cognitive psychological framework suggested by Meloth, Deering and Sanders (1993), certain conditions for cooperative learning were set in place by the teacher in the whole class and consolidated in the small group mode. For example:

In building a community of inquiry in the whole class mode throughout the year, the teacher and students had assumed many social and communication skills and attitudes considered fundamental to effective cooperative learning and these had transferred naturally to the peer learning mode.
Initially the teacher and eventually the students had modelled for each other the language style and thinking processes of Philosophy for Children during the whole class sessions and these likewise were transferred to the small group setting.
The use of Philosophy for Children as a study domain was carefully determined by the teacher to allow student choice of questions to be discussed which engendered student efficacy in an academic sense.
The process of generating higher cognitive questions from the students at the beginning of the lesson, and encouraging questions asking of other students throughout the whole class lesson, appeared to transfer across into cooperative learning behaviours.
The teacher's role fulfilment was highly effective and this expertise, coupled with high enthusiasm for Philosophy for Children, became infectious with the students who assumed much the same kind of positive attitudes toward thinking and working in a community of inquiry.

2. In terms of cooperative learning versus whole class learning in a Philosophy for Children program a model of cooperative learning that contains Johnson and Johnson's (1991) five basic elements and a whole class introduction followed by small group cooperative learning and whole class reporting and review would appear to be highly advantageous.

References

Barry, K., King, L., Maloney, C., & Burke, M. (1999). Philosophy for children and the promotion of student high level cognitive talk in small group cooperative learning. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans.

Barry, K., King, L., Pitts-Hill, K. & Zehnder, S. (1998). An investigation into student use of a heuristic in a series of cooperative learning problem-solving lessons. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego.

Bennett, N. & Dunne, E. (1991). The nature and quality of talk in cooperative classroom groups. Learning and Instruction, 1(2), 103-118.

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Freakley, M. & Burgh, G. (2000). Engaging with ethics: Ethical inquiry for teachers. Katoomba, NSW: Social Science Press.

Good, T. & Brophy, J. (2000). Looking in classrooms (8th ed.). New York: Longman.

Johnson, D. & Johnson, R. (1991). Learning together and alone: Cooperative, competitive and individualistic learning (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

King, L., Barry, K., Maloney, C., & Tayler, C. (1993). The MAKITAB small group learning interaction analysis system (Technical Report). Perth, Western Australia: Edith Cowan University.

King, L., Barry, K., Maloney, C., & Tayler, C. (1997). Task-enhancing talk in cooperative learning. Journal of the Australian Studies Institute, 4(1).

King, L., Barry, K. & Zehnder, S. (1996). Developing cognitive processes through cooperative learning. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York.

Lipman, M. (1991). Thinking in education. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Meloth, M., Deering, P. & Sanders, A. (1993). Teacher influences on cognitive processes during cooperative learning. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta.

Slavin, R. (`1991). Synthesis of research on cooperative learning. Educational Leadership, 48(5), 71-82.

Splitter, L. (1995). Teaching for better thinking: The classroom community of inquiry. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Student Talk in a Whole Class and Cooperative
Learning Setting in a Philosophy for
Children Program

Kevin Barry

University of Notre Dame, Australia

Leonard King

Edith Cowan University

Maureen Burke

St Pius X Catholic School, Perth

Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research

in Education (AARE) Conference, Sydney
4-7 December 2000

The authors gratefully acknowledge support for this research from the University of Notre Dame (Australia), and express their thanks to the students of the school which comprised the case studies for the research.