Proceedings of The International Conference on Modern Research in Education, Teaching and Learning
Year: 2019
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/icmetl.2019.06.293
Investigating Student Collaboration within Self-Organised Learning Environments (SOLEs)
Fatma Otain, James Stanfield, Pamela Woolner
ABSTRACT:
This paper investigates the extent to which 28 children in a primary school in Saudi Arabia collaborated within groups within a Self Organised Learning Environment (SOLE). Students with access to the internet were asked to answer a series of big questions but with minimal teacher intervention. Data was collected using observations, student and parent questionnaires and teacher interviews.After taking into account the duration of the study (1 session a week over 10 weeks), it was clear that some collaborative skills did develop as the sessions progressed. However, conflicts occurred between students within different groups causing serious concern about teamwork and this required additional teacher interventions. This paper will therefore suggest a number of strategies that teachers can use both prior and during a SOLE to help ensure that students understand more about how to collaborate and also the importance of continuously developing their collaborative skills.
Keywords: Collaborative learning, SOLE, teachers’ role, primary-school students.