No abstract

No abstract

This review uncovered multiple dimensions of the teacher's role in fostering beneficial group dialogue, including preparing students for collaborative work, forming groups, structuring the group-work task, and influencing student interaction through teachers' discourse with small groups and with the class. Common threads through the research are the importance of students explaining their thinking, and teacher strategies and practices that may promote student elaboration of ideas.

No abstract

This study identified student behaviors that best predicted mathematics learning in peerdirected small groups among students who needed help. Two behaviors were hypothesized to predict achievement: receiving explanations instead of only the right answer and subsequently carrying out constructive activity (solving or explaining how to solve problems using concepts stated or implied in the explanations received). Six classes of 7th graders participated in 2 sequential instructional units. Students in 4 classes worked in heterogeneous small groups throughout a 3-week unit on operations with decimal numbers (Unit 1); students in all 6 classes worked in groups throughout a 4-week unit on operations with fractions (Unit 2). Analyses of the transcripts of tape recordings of students' verbal interaction confirmed the hypotheses. Level of constructive activity was the strongest predictor of achievement. The level of help that students received predicted level of constructive activity but did not predict achievement directly.