Co-op Learning, Concept Map, Lecture
This week I would like to share research published this month on how some of the active learning strategies shared on this SoTL article blog continue to be examined. The article entitled, “Lecture, Cooperative Learning and Concept Mapping: Any Differences on Critical and Creative Thinking Development” by Silva, Lopes, Dominguez and Morais (2022) shares the comparison between Cooperative Learning, Concept Mapping and Lecture.
“This study investigated the effects of lecturing, cooperative learning and concept maps on the development of critical and creative thinking skills. A quasi experimental non-randomized study ran for 15 weeks, one semester. A Critical and Creative Thinking test was applied to assess pre and post critical and creative thinking skills. The results show that students from the two classes that used cooperative learning and cooperative learning + concept maps improved further critical and creative thinking skills in relation to the lecturing class, with no significant differences between the first two.”
The authors remind us that Cooperative Learning (CL)(Think-Pair-Share and Jigsaw) is an active learning method centered on students (Johnson & Johnson, 2014). In CL, students work in heterogeneous small groups to perform activities, share ideas and reach common learning objectives. Through their interaction, many opportunities emerge to present ideas, debate, defend or question arguments, evaluate and synthesize information coming up with a better understanding and a shared (and new) knowledge or solutions (Cottell & Millis, 1992).
Concept mapping (CM) is a research tool and an instructional technique that can be used for meaningful learning. A CM is a visual graphic representation of the relations between key-concepts related to the theme or content, creating meaningful structures. This study confirms previous findings which show that active learning methods have superior benefits, compared to lecture, regarding students’ content comprehension and higher-order thinking (Bernstein, 2018). CL groups help students discuss the content, share ideas and solve problems.
References
Silva, H., Lopes, J., Dominguez, C., & Morais, E. (2022). Lecture, cooperative learning and concept mapping: Any differences on critical and creative thinking development? International Journal of Instruction, 15(1), 765-780. https://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2022.15144a
Bernstein, D. A. (2018). Does active learning work? A good question, but not the right one. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 4(4), 290–307. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000124
Cottell, P., & Millis, B. (1992). Cooperative learning in accounting. Journal of Accounting Education, 10(1), 95-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/0748-5751(92)90019-2
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2014). Cooperative Learning in 21st Century. [Aprendizaje cooperativo en el siglo XXI]. Anales de Psicología, 30(3), 841–851.
