The Effects of Cooperative Learning and Concept Mapping on Learning Strategy Use.

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this research is to study the effects of cooperative, individual concept mapping, and traditional teaching methods on learning strategy use. One of the experimental groups was taught by cooperative concept mapping, and the other by individual concept mapping. Traditional method was implemented in the control group. Fifth graders (52 females, 70 males) enrolled in an elementary school in Aegean district, Turkey participated, in this research. Sound and Light unit was covered during a 35-hour treatment. Experimental groups were provided with training about concept mapping strategy and cooperation skills. Data were collected by the Learning Strategy Inventory and in-depth interview protocols with the participants. The findings showed that cooperative and individual concept mapping conditions promoted the use of effective learning strategies more than traditional teaching. Key Words Cooperative Learning, Concept Mapping, Learning Strategy. There has been an increasing emphasis on effective science teaching because of technological and scientific developments. But, science education has so many problems that we, as educators, are not able to realize the aims despite intensive research and efforts. Unfortunately, using laboratories, experiments and observations in science classes couldn't help the realization of desired outcomes. Because, those activities remain as cookbook activities designed to verify well-established principles and laws (Gabel, 2001). Even in science classes those activities take place, students are mostly passive. This contradicts with today's cognitive theories which view students as active participants of the learning process. So, educators have new ways such as cooperative learning, to help learners solve their learning problems and be independent learners. Hundreds of research results have proved that cooperative learning has positive effects on various learning outcomes, in various fields and countries. Cooperative learning promotes effective learning strategy use, and it is an effective method on strategy teaching. It is also easy to implement and combine with active instructional tasks such as concept mapping. Learning strategies are intentional actions and thoughts that students use when they study to facilitate acquisition, comprehension, retention and retrieve new knowledge and skills. Effective learning strategy use is an important predictor of academic achievement. Teaching students to use learning strategies produce positive results. There are numerous learning strategies that can help students to be good learners. One of them is concept mapping that is considered as an important strategy by science educators. Concept mapping, on the other hand, is a powerful learning strategy, which allows for depiction of both the interrelationships among the elements of contents and relationship between new and prior knowledge. Concept mapping has positive effects on various learning outcomes as well. Thus, this research aims at examining the effects of cooperative learning and concept mapping on learning strategy use. In addition, the effects of cooperative concept mapping (combination of cooperative learning and concept mapping) are examined to see if better results could be obtained. Method Participants Fifth graders (52 females, 70 males) enrolled in an elementary school in Aegean district participated in this research. One of the 3 classes taught by volunteer teachers was assigned randomly to one of following conditions: traditional, concept mapping, cooperative concept mapping. Instruments The data were collected by the Learning Strategy Inventory and in-depth interviews. The Learning Strategy Inventory includes 35 Likert type items. It has been developed by researchers to determine students' strategy use in science learning at elementary level. The choices of each item are; always, often, sometimes, rarely, and never. …