Research on Student Collaboration

Something that has been coming up quite often lately in my professional practice as a teacher is the use of student collaboration and its effect on content learning. This could take a variety of forms in a high school art classroom like mine, and indeed it has shown up sometimes by being deliberately directed, and sometimes very organically. There is always the inevitable groan through the room when you bring up the dreaded phrase “group work.” It brings to mind awful experiences from our own years in school when the group work isn’t done by anyone until the last minute and “the smart kid” has to do all the work while the others earn a reward off their efforts. In an art classroom collaboration doesn’t have to take the form of the vilified “group project.” It could be a collaborative drawing, a shared group critique, a peer directed drawing exercise, among other things.

If presented correctly, I think collaboration could be something that pushes student understanding to the next level. I would like to look into research by other educators about the effects of student collaboration, peer teaching, group work, and active student engagement with crafting their own lessons. This does make the topic search quite broad, but I think through the process of additional research it will narrow down to something more specific as new information becomes available. I would specifically like to look into varied options for student peer teaching as next school year I will have multiple courses occupying the same classroom at the same time, and as the only adult in the room the instruction might benefit from being dispersed across multiple minds.

The understanding I have on the topic of student collaboration and peer teaching comes from a few sources. First, my experience comes from first hand interactions with my peers in high school and college art courses. Typically, this comes from a casual method of discussing our work and sharing information as peers with a shared interest in the topic. This also came from class critiques in which we are tasked with commenting on a specified number of peer’s work, and have ours commented on in turn. Second, I have acquired some knowledge through brainstorming methods of peer interaction based on the needs of the students I am working with. This experimentation in the classroom has yielded mixed results, which also warrants further study with a more pointed focus. Third, I have observed professional artists and practicing teachers using techniques of peer collaboration for the purposes of extending learning. Some YouTube channels by artists who create for entertainment purposes (Drawfee, Jazza, NerdForge, TenHundred, Kiptoe, SLEW, to name a few) have worked collaboratively with their viewers and fellow artists and yielded quality results. They also learned something from the process whether it was their intent or not. Fourth, I have also learned some group critique practices from the website The Art of Education. Through their PD and resources I have taken quite a few skills back into the classroom for my personal practice.

I intend to look into a few more research papers prior to posting here, but that should be updating on this blog post in the next day or so.

Annotated Bibliography:

Linus, T. (2021) “Collaborative Cultures of Architecture Teams: Team Learning and Reflective Practice,” The Design Journal, 24:3, 489-98, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2020.1864942.

This article is a published project that explores the learning and reflective practices in architecture teams, through which I intend to draw parallels to other visual art specific fields and the art classroom. One method covered in the article is reflection in action, by which the architect (or artist) builds knowledge through experiencing the project and the work itself. Typically, this happens alone. However, most architects work together in teams. The same can be said for the majority of art related careers with the exception of lone studio artists and other self-employed creators. The intent of this project is to determine how team learning affects competitive performance of an architectural team, measuring the effect of team learning, exploring a team learning workshop and noting the performance effects, and using reflective practice, team learning, and design collaboration to determine how architects learn together as a team.

Cohen, A. (2014). “A mixed-methods study of collaboration in distance learning drawing classes.” In SAGE Research Methods Cases. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/978144627305014528637

This case study covers a multiple-method dissertation study on distance learning drawing courses. Given that most higher education institutions are resistant to offering distance learning opportunities for visual art because of a long history of traditional in-person learning, the authors chose to dive into the subject of teaching physical art through an online practice. A focus was given to critiques as a method of providing quality feedback to students and to create a student culture. In this study the author wanted to know the students’ experiences and to examine the actual actions taken in the course. One result of the study showed that when a strong visual culture is present it will positively impact collaboration in a distance learning environment. Students also seem to prefer a balance between asynchronous and synchronous discussion protocols, and a preference for image and video over text-based directions. My take-away from this case study is that collaboration does have a positive effect when learning, especially in a physically isolated environment like distance learning. A shared visual culture is a necessary part of the classroom, be it in person or online. A variety of task methods would also allow for multiple intelligences to be honored in the process. Critique and human interaction are also key when looking at collaboration in a classroom of any type.

Wiggins, A. (2017). “The Best Class You Never Taught: How Spider Web Discussion Can Turn Students into Learning Leaders.” Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/lib/ohiostate-ebooks/reader.action?docID=5091858&ppg=14.

Alexis Wiggins covers the philosophy of spider web discussions as a method of engaging students in a collaborative learning process in this book. It is not simply a method of instruction, but a way of structuring a classroom environment to instill classroom collaboration and create leadership opportunities for students. Wiggins posits that it is integral to teach students how to collaborate effectively more so than merely exposing them to collaboration because it will be one of the more important skills for the future. This follows after the practice of Edward Harkness of teaching using the Socratic method in which students lead their own discussions around a “round table” of sorts. The teacher switches their role from providing direct instruction to a facilitator in this method, and in the spider web discussions. As the students act as a group in this practice, they would all receive the same grade. This is best used as a formative assessment practice that would not affect the students’ overall GPA. The benefit to this method of instruction allows the teacher to get away from spoon feeding students content, and asks students to take an active role in their own education. By discussing and actively learning the content would be more likely to stick in the students’ minds.

From these three publications I am learning that collaborative learning has been a valid subject of inquiry to multiple institutions, from higher education, architecture, and K-12 education. The overarching themes of these works demonstrate that collaboration in the classroom is something that can both increase student learning outcomes as well as teach “soft skills” that are becoming something more important in the future. Including collaborative learning experiences in the classroom would be a valuable asset to both teacher and student. If pursued further, the collaborative processes could create courses in which the students act as leaders. I will be looking for more publications that cover this topic in the future.

A few of my tentative research questions I have posed so far about this include:

1. In what ways does collaborative learning and group work increase student content understanding?

2. How does incorporating student agency and choice into a lesson improve the quality of the learning?

3. What are the outcomes when students are asked to teach each other new lessons?