A case study on cooperative problem solving processes in small 9th grade student groups

Abstract

It is one of a teacher's challenges in lesson planning to consider all levels of learning involving students' team skills while taking the actual subject content into account. This descriptive study examines how the student-centered approach can be utilized as supportive classroom climate and how it can be combined with cooperative team tasks for solving computational thinking problems using an easy accessible computer-coding environment. Drawing on existing concepts and research methods this study applies a case study approach with mixed methods to investigate students' development of team-attitudes and characteristics of team cooperation. It turned out, that students identified the quality of cooperation in their teams as beneficial and productive while from an outside point of view their teamwork seemed to be unorganized and not cooperative. These contradicting results were clarified in a classroom meeting, where it became clear, that the student-centered classroom climate still could have influenced students' team attitudes in a way that students felt comfortable to express themselves in their, sometimes not so nice, youth language during problem solving tasks but while be able to solve problems effectively.