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Designing Collaborative Learning Activities for Two Outcomes: Deep Structural Knowledge and Idea Generation

Four versions of a collaborative activity were designed by manipulating two factors: cognitive engagement and preparation to collaborate. The activities were implemented in real classrooms where students worked in pairs. Findings showed a benefit of preparation on deep knowledge, regardless of how students were instructed to engage. However, discourse data revealed that only students in the “constructive” engagement conditions generated ideas beyond the target concepts. The implications for classroom practices are discussed. Introduction and Purpose To extend the work on the Interactive-Constructive-Active-Passive (ICAP) framework and the Preparation for Future Learning (PFL) paradigm, this work drew from the theoretical assumptions of each model to investigate how a collaborative learning activity implemented in introductory psychology courses at a community college would impact deep understanding of concepts of memory. Both models support the notion that students will be more likely to acquire structural understanding of a topic (i.e. build more accurate mental models) when they have the opportunity to struggle with existing knowledge because it allows them to fill gaps and resolve inconsistencies in thinking (Chi, 2000; Schwartz, Sears, & Chang, 2007). The ICAP framework differentiates how student overt behaviors link to underlying cognitive processes (Chi, 2009; Menekse, Stump, Krause, & Chi, 2013). For example listening to a lecture constitutes Passive engagement and aligns to the process of storing knowledge. Copying a teacher’s notes from the board during the lecture makes engagement Active, linked to assimilating knowledge. To be categorized as Constructive engagement, students would have to create knowledge such as through generating explanations or questions in their own words. Interactive engagement links to co-creating knowledge, where discussion would lead to shared meaning. Since we know that students do not always interact effectively nor engage in dialogic behaviors that facilitate mutual meaning-making (Barron, 2003; Volet, Summers, & Thurman, 2009), researchers continue to search for ways to improve collaborative activities. The current study aimed to address whether collaborating on a constructive version of a task compared to an active version would improve student interactions to lead to deeper learning. In other words, would a task designed specifically to elicit constructive cognitive engagement help students to collaborate more effectively for learning? The PFL paradigm offers a dual phase instructional model where students first “prepare” their knowledge through a difficult open-ended learning activity, and then consolidate knowledge through a “future” lecture (Schwartz & Bransford, 1998; Schwartz & Martin, 2004). For the current study, the same premise was used to create a collaborative task that could provide a preparation-of-knowledge period and a consolidation-ofknowledge period. In this case, students first worked on the task alone to prepare knowledge, then completed the task with a partner to consolidate knowledge through discussion. This aimed to address the question of how collaboration, rather than a form of direct instruction, could serve in the consolidation phase of a PFL model. Thus, by using ICAP and PFL as instructional design tools, this work aimed to create a collaborative task that could present the opportunity to struggle with knowledge through constructive engagement during “preparation,” and then to consolidate knowledge during “future” collaboration to lead to deep learning.