PBL Group Autonomy in a High School Environmental Science Class
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PBL Group Autonomy in a High School Environmental Science Class D. Mark Weiss1 • Brian R. Belland1
Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017
Abstract With increasing class sizes, teachers and facilitators alike hope for learning groups where students work together in self-contained and autonomous ways requiring reduced teacher support. Yet many instructors find the idea of developing independent learning in small groups to be elusive particularly in K-12 settings (Ertmer and Simons in Interdiscip J Probl Based Learn 1(1):5, doi:10.7771/1541-5015.1005, 2006; Simons and Klein in Inst Sci 35(1):41–72, 2007). Autonomy in small learning groups is actively promoted in many of the forms of problem-based learning (PBL). A PBL learning group is traditionally defined as students with tutor assigned to the group. However, as PBL is introduced into K-12 environments, the assumption of group autonomous functioning is tenuous for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this research is to determine the extent to which a K-12 PBL learning group functions in autonomous ways when a computer-based scaffold provides some student support normally provided by the teacher or tutor during a PBL environmental science unit. If a computer-based scaffold can successfully enable key elements of autonomous group functioning by supplying process level support normally provided by a tutor or teacher, K-12 teachers anxious to attempt PBL may be able to venture with greater confidence that they can provide multiple learning groups adequate support. Results suggest that a computer-based scaffold informed by Moore’s transactional distance theory can promote process elements of autonomous group functioning. Keywords Problem-based learning Transactional distance theory Autonomy Dialog Course structure Abbreviations PBL Problem-based learning TDT Transactional distance theory
& D. Mark Weiss [email protected] 1
Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University, 2830 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-2830, USA
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D. M. Weiss, B. R. Belland
1 Introduction With increasing class sizes, teachers and facilitators alike hope for learning groups where students work together in self-contained and autonomous ways requiring reduced teacher support. Yet many instructors find the idea of developing independent learning in small groups to be elusive (Ertmer and Simons 2006; Simons and Klein 2007). Autonomy in small learning groups is actively promoted in many of the forms of problem-based learning (PBL). For example, in some versions of PBL, a learning group consisting of a small number of students and a tutor (or facilitator) has many, if not all the essential characteristics and tools necessary to function as an independent group (Papinczak et al. 2009). Just as crew members in a capsule on a space mission must have all the capacity and elements to complete their mission, students and a tutor working together in PBL learning group must also have the capacity and necessary elements to complete their learning task. However, as
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