Dex Busken Source 2

Citation of Source 2: SENCIBAUGH, JOSEPH M., and ANGELA M. SENCIBAUGH. "An Analysis Of Cooperative Learning Approaches For Students With Learning Disabilities."Education 136.3 (2016): 356. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 9 Oct. 2016.

Question: How does peer interaction in classrooms influence students ability to learn?

My Initial Thoughts: At first when I started reading this article, I was questioning whether or not cooperative learning would be good for students with learning disabilities. I had the mindset that the students with learning disabilities need to focus on their individual work to help them stay on track and make sure that they are actually comprehending what they are doing which could be overlooked by a teacher if in a group. It seems that after getting farther into the article that studies actually show working in pairs or groups is beneficial to students with disabilities.

Step 2: The article identifies when it is appropriate for peer learning to be used in a classroom and it is backed by multiple studies of cooperative learning within education institutions. One study showed that students exposed to cooperative learning scored ten to twenty five percent higher than students taught only conventionally. It seems that most of the results of the studies favor cooperative learning as long as two essential conditions are met. The first is that some kind of recognition is given to the groups that do well and the second is that there still must be individual accountability. Also the different cooperative learning strategies are examined to see which ones are more successful than others in the way that students comprehend and achieve there academic success.

This article has helped to expand my thinking on how interacting with others in learning environments can influence behaviors relating to learning. It talks about how students with learning disability's are affected by peer interaction within a classroom and the different strategies teachers use to promote this interaction.The article goes to support cooperative learning but also looks at the other side of the argument, independent learning cannot be overlooked. It goes into detail about the time when it is necessary for students to work independently which is very important to the learning process as well.

This source narrows my question to only students with learning disabilities compared to my first source which studied all students but the studies specifically focused on diversity. As of now I agree with both of the sources because they study different groups of students. Each article was credible with research to back up each assertion made about when and how cooperative learning should be used. Both state that individual accountability in groups is a key factor to the success of students adding their own thoughts to group decisions. 

After reading this article I am beginning to feel that my question may be to broad. I most likely need to narrow my question down to a certain group of students and define "ability to learn". I am struggling on exactly how to do so without making it to narrow and hard to find sources. How does peer interaction in education institutes influence student achievements in higher education?