Abstract
Interactive problem solving and learning are priorities in contemporary education, but these complex processes have proved difficult to research. This project addresses the question “How do we optimise social interaction for the promotion of learning in a mathematics classroom?” Employing the logic of multi-theoretic research design, this project uses the newly built Science of Learning Research Classroom (ARC-SR120300015) at The University of Melbourne and equivalent facilities in China to investigate classroom learning and social interactions, focusing on collaborative small group problem solving as a way to make the social aspects of learning visible. In Australia and China, intact classes of local year 7 students with their usual teacher will be brought into the research classroom facilities with built-in video cameras and audio recording equipment to participate in purposefully designed activities in mathematics. The students will undertake a sequence of tasks in the social units of individual, pair, small group (typically four students) and whole class. The conditions for student collaborative problem solving and learning will be manipulated so that student and teacher contributions to that learning process can be distinguished. Parallel and comparative analyses will identify culture-specific interactive patterns and provide the basis for hypotheses about the learning characteristics underlying collaborative problem solving performance documented in the research classrooms in each country. The ultimate goals of the project are to generate, develop and test more sophisticated hypotheses for the optimisation of social interaction in the mathematics classroom in the interest of improving learning and, particularly, student collaborative problem solving.
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26 July 2017
An erratum to this article has been published.
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Acknowledgements
This research is supported under Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project number DP170102541). The pilot study from which this project is building on was supported by the Science of Learning Research Centre funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC-SR120300015).
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The original version of this article was revised: In Fig. 3, the centrally located characters “C, c, a, m” were included in error and form no part of the intended diagram.
An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-017-0221-7.
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Chan, M.C.E., Clarke, D. & Cao, Y. The social essentials of learning: an experimental investigation of collaborative problem solving and knowledge construction in mathematics classrooms in Australia and China. Math Ed Res J 30, 39–50 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-017-0209-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-017-0209-3