Dex Busken Source 3

Citation of Source 3: Crooks, Steven M., and James D. Klein. "Effects Of Cooperative Learning And Learner-Control Model.." Journal Of Research On Computing In Education 29.2 (1996): 109. Professional Development Collection. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

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

My Initial Thoughts: So far my research has been focused on mainly certain groups of students and how they react to collaborative learning. I am still trying to figure out how to narrow my question to make it a little more specific and was planning on focusing on a certain group of students. After briefly skimming through multiple articles, I realized I have not looked at the other side of individual learning nearly as much as I should be. So I focused my search in a little with key words such as individual and learning strategies and finally found an article that seemed to touch on both of those points.

Step 2: This articles purpose is to investigate the effects of two instructional methods, cooperative and individual with two learner control approaches, full-minus and lean-plus approaches in computer based instruction in higher education. The full-minus and lean-plus is the way that the instructions for the assignment are given to a individual student or a group of students. Either the computer program gives the student an option of more instruction and practice problems or makes it a requirement to complete everything depending on the leaner control. The study goes to show what was most successful when the students were tested at the end of the study.

I agree with the source and the interpretation of the outcome of the research that was made. The results were very interesting, individuals seemed to take advantage of the optional practice and therefore achieved higher scores on the post tests than those that worked in groups with the same optional practice problems. The reasoning behind why this happened is not very detailed but it shows that these students were more focused on the objective than those in groups. Before reading this source I figured most students would prefer to work in groups. According to this sources multiple surveys, college students actually prefer to work individually because of the sense of control they have in controlling their own learning experience. According to the study, groups have to compromise how they will go about doing things for the good of the group. I found this interesting because normally when you put more than one mind to a task, you can be more creative with the different ways people view things and come up with something better than working alone.

This source goes to contradict my first two sources in the way that the results of the study support individual learning in this scenario. I do believe that an individual can stay focused and doesn't have to comprise to get what they want when compared to a group but I still think that cooperative learning goes to show why students need to be able to see others views on things to learn from them.

This source has led me to think about my next source and how I need to find something that has to deal with the social practice aspect of cooperative learning to show what impacts this creates on learning communication skills. I am still thinking about how to narrow my question down but I find myself trying to keep my thought process on topic with relating everything back to learning ability. Should I be asking more on how students react to a cooperative learning vs individual learning experience? Or even should cooperative learning be associated into curriculum's in higher education?