PHYSICS PROBLEM SOLVING

(^) believe these groups were particularly cohesive, and in fact may have experienced more
forces of disruption than of cohesion. As I mentioned earlier, the two week residence
time in a particular group may not be adequate for good cohesion.
This lack of cohesion can be explained in the context of these 14 groups.
Structuring academic controversies is an integral part of learning to be effective in a
cooperative learning group (Johnson, Johnson and Smith, 1990). In an ideal situation,
students would experience group activities that build the skills, both interpersonal and
problem solving, necessary for effective, constructive controversy. Students in this
course were not taught these skills. Thus, when constructive controversy occurs in these
groups, it is somehow instinctual or may even arise as a part of the problem-solving
strategy and the group roles, which encourage skepticism and critical questioning.
It also may be that these groups avoided conflict because they lacked one or more
of the five characteristics of the Johnson model. The attention to the details of structuring
these groups fell by the wayside as the teaching assistants attempted to balance their
teaching duties with their own academic work. Of the 14 groups, three were groups of
four, not three members. The performance heterogeneity of the groups was not balanced
in 9 of the 14 groups. There was a gender imbalance in 9 of the 14 groups. As seen in
the transcripts, fixed furniture greatly inhibited face-to-face interaction in Group 4C.
Typically, groups left the room after finishing the problem, without engaging in any
group processing. These “structural defects” would all inhibit group cohesion and hence
tend to inhibit direct conflict. However, this may also be serendipitous.
Summary