Collaborating to learn, learning to collaborate: finding the balance in a cross-disciplinary design course

Authors:
Emma Mercier;Shelley Goldman;Angela Booker
Affiliations:
Stanford University, Stanford, CA;Stanford University, Stanford, CA;Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Venue:
ICLS '06 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences
Year:
2006

Citing 1
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Abstract

We report on a four-year study of a cross-disciplinary design course. Using an action research model, we have designed and studied this course. In this paper we report on our study of the students' collaborations. We have found that, although students come to the class believing that they know how to collaborate, there is great variation in their collaborative experiences and outcomes. We outline four dimensions of collaboration that differentiate high and low performing groups, where performances is determined by project quality and student learning. These dimensions, 'teamness', communication, creation of a joint problem space and commitment to learning, have been defined through analysis of the ten groups of students who have taken this course. In this paper we use case studies to illustrate how these dimensions have differentially affected two groups who took the course. Finally, we describe our interventions and the parallels between this study and other research.