Identification of Dysfunctional Cooperative Learning Teams Based on Students' Academic Achievement

Background Considerable evidence exists to suggest that students who study cooperatively reap significant benefits in terms of their learning performance. However, sooner or later, most cooperative learning teams have to deal with one or more members whose actions disturb the team. Unless these problems are quickly resolved, the cooperative learning team gradually becomes dysfunctional and the benefits of cooperative learning are diminished. Purpose (Hypothesis ) A method is proposed for identifying dysfunctional cooperative learning teams by comparing the academic achievement of students in a cooperative learning condition with that of students in an individual learning condition. Design /Method A series of experiments were performed in which 42 sophomore mechanical engineering students were randomly assigned to the two learning conditions and were formed into mixed‐ability groups comprising three team members. The academic performance of the students in the two learning conditions was then systematically compared in terms of their respective test scores. Results Dysfunctional teams were identified using a new quality index defined as the mean test score of the team divided by the standard deviation of the team members' test scores. The probability of a Type I error was quantified using a control chart. The identification results were verified by analyzing the students' off‐task behavior frequency and attitudes toward cooperative learning, respectively. Conclusions The experimental results confirm that the proposed quality index is a potential indicator of dysfunctional cooperative learning teams.     

Comparing Competitive and Cooperative Strategies for Learning Project Management

Many organizations use project management to organize and administer resources in time and in place in an effort to optimize costs and meet certain constraints. These constitute cognitive skills acquired through training and experience that have successfully been shown to be trainable through simulation. However, past research on simulation‐based project management training focused on individual learning. In this paper, we are interested in investigating whether a competitive or cooperative strategy is more desirable in using simulators for project management training. Several theories suggest that cooperative learning is more beneficial to learning than competitive learning. To investigate this problem, an experiment was set up based on the simulation‐based Project Management Trainer (PMT) software. The results suggest that using both PMT cooperative and competitive strategies yield learning in project management. However, cooperative strategies yield better results in the overall outcome.     

Dynamics of Peer Education in Cooperative Learning Workgroups

Many recent studies demonstrate that cooperative learning provides a variety of educational advantages over more traditional instructional models, both in general and specifically in engineering education. Little is known, however, about the interactional dynamics among students in engineering work groups. To explore these dynamics and their implications for engineering education, we analyzed work sessions of student groups in a sophomore‐level chemical engineering course at North Carolina State University. Using conversation analysis as a methodology for understanding how students taught and learned from one another, we found that group members generally engaged in two types of teaching‐learning interactions. In the first type, transfer‐of‐knowledge (TK) sequences, they took on distinct teacher and pupil roles, and in the second, collaborative sequences (CS), they worked together with no clear role differentiation. The interactional problems that occurred during the work sessions were associated primarily with TK sequences, and had to do with students who either habitually assumed the pupil's role (constant pupils) or habitually discouraged others' contributions (blockers). Our findings suggest that professors can facilitate student group interactions by introducing students to the two modes of teaching interaction so group members can effectively manage exchanges of knowledge, and also by helping students distribute tasks in a way that minimizes role imbalances.     

The Nuts and Bolts of Cooperative Learning in Engineering

A great number of engineering students work alone most of the time. This is in sharp contrast with industry where most of the work is performed in teams. The ability to work in a team effectively is not acquired automatically. It takes interpersonal and social skills which need to be developed and practiced. In addition, research shows that the student-student interaction, often neglected in traditional ways of teaching, is a most effective way of learning. Thus, it is imperative that we encourage our students to work with each other in their efforts to achieve their educational goals. In this paper I discuss my experience with Cooperative Learning (CL) in a variety of engineering courses during the last four years. The discussion includes benefits and problems along with possible solutions. Lastly, I have made an effort to evaluate the impact of CL on student performance and attitude.     

Cooperative Learning Instructional Activities in a Capstone Design Course

In developing our capstone design course, we decided to include instruction in design methodology, project management, engineering communications, and professional ethics, along with a comprehensive design project. As this course evolved over a number of years, we found that active and cooperative learning was critical for effective instruction in these topics and we developed a series of instructional activities using this methodology. These activities consisted of short presentations (mini‐lectures) with interspersed team exercises. We describe our course, these instructional activities, and some evaluation data showing that our students found them effective and important. Our experiences convinced us that the cooperative learning approach both enhanced our students' understanding of these topics and encouraged them to incorporate the associated skills into their working skill set. Including team exercises that dealt with various steps in the design process provided a “jump‐start” on these unfamiliar activities in a structured, short duration exercise environment in class. Listening to presentations by other teams and reviewing and discussing another team's results as a part of the team exercises provided an opportunity to see and think about different formulations of the problem they just considered.     

Cooperative Perception Optimization Based on Self-Checking Machine Learning

In the process of spectrum perception, in order to realize accurate perception of the channel state, the method of multi-node cooperative perception can usually be used. However, the first problem to be considered is how to complete information fusion and obtain more accurate and reliable judgment results based on multi-node perception results. The ideas put forward in this paper are as follows: firstly, the perceived results of each node are obtained on the premise of limiting detection probability and false alarm probability. Then, on the one hand, the weighted fusion criterion of decision-making weight optimization of each node is realized based on a genetic algorithm, and the useless nodes also can be screened out to reduce energy loss; on the other hand, through the linear fitting ability of RBF neural network, the self-inspection of the perceptive nodes can be realized to ensure the normal operation of the perceptive work of each node. What's more, the real-time training data can be obtained by spectral segmentation technology to ensure the real-time accuracy of the optimization results. Finally, the simulation results show that this method can effectively improve the accuracy and stability of channel perception results, optimize the structure of the cooperative network and reduce energy consumption.     

Introducing Cooperative Learning into a Dynamics Lecture Class

Numerous references have suggested that cooperative learning can significantly increase student understanding. Yet, structuring a lecture class to be given over totally to cooperative learning groups is overwhelming to most instructors and many remain unconvinced of its value. In this department, a limited experiment has served to introduce cooperative learning to the students as well as the instructor. Through a series of cooperative problem solving exercises, “lecture” classes become more active learning environments.     

Introducing Cooperative Learning through a Faculty Instructional Development Program

Cooperative Learning was officially introduced in the College of Engineering at San Jose State University in 1995 with a two‐day workshop. The Faculty Instructional Development Program in the college maintains interest in the subjsect and provides support for instructors who use Cooperative Learning, through workshops and informal discussions (Conversations on Teaching). This paper discusses the effectiveness of the program in introducing, promoting, and implementing Cooperative Learning among the faculty and students in the college of engineering. A variety of performance criteria have been used in this assessment, some faculty‐centered and some student‐centered. The results indicate that although a relatively small percentage of faculty have chosen to adopt Cooperative Learning as a teaching tool in their courses, the impact on student attitudes and learning is significant, making the effort worthwhile.     

个体及协同因素下的员工与工作任务匹配问题

针对员工与工作任务的匹配决策问题,首先分析了员工与工作任务匹配的个体因素和协同因素,个体因素涉及工作耐受力、工作持续性和技能任务匹配度等方面,而协同因素涉及协同成本和协同公平性等方面;然后在此基础上,构建了综合考虑个体与协同因素的多目标优化模型,并采用基于隶属度函数的加权和方法将多目标优化模型转化为线性规划模型,通过求解该模型,可得到员工与工作任务的合理匹配结果.实例分析表明,本文给出的方法具有可行性和实用性.     

Student Cooperative Learning Workshops Go Mainstream: UMR's Excel Program

We offer cooperative learning workshops to all students enrolled in our largest lower division math and science courses where failure rates are high. Participation in the workshops is related to retention and higher academic achievement among engineering students of various abilities. In the tradition of workshops developed for disadvantaged students in mathematics, science, and engineering, our students meet outside of class in structured group meetings. Our contributions to this tradition include application to a broader range of courses, the inclusion of all types of students, and enhanced training of workshop facilitators in small group communication methods and modern leadership techniques. Our approach is readily adaptable to most institutions.     

关于知识团队心理契约的分析

章从分析知识员工的特点入手，提出了管理知识团队仅靠商业契约远远不够，还必须建立心理契约来进行补充的观点：需要改变传统的绩效考核与激励办法，强调对知识员工进行兑现承诺的激励和对其价值观进行报偿；只有那些能够与员工达成心理契约的管理才能成为真正的团队领袖。从树立知识团队的目标、培育知识团队的氛围，以及给予知识员工价值认可和符合其价值观的回报等方面分析了这种心理契约的主要内容。     

航天异地协同设计中协同模型的研究

通过对航天复杂产品设计过程和特点的考察和研究,提出了航天异地协同设计的周期协同模型,介绍了协同模型的中协同的关键内容以及功能框架模型.该模型已在实际建设中得到应用,并取得初步成效.     

Response Surface Designed Experiment for Door Closing Effort

This study employed a Draper-Lin small-composite response surface design to determine the optimal dimensional-factor levels to minimize the door-closing effort for a new automobile project. It was found that the factor levels that minimize the closing effort did not lead to robust manufacturing conditions. Likewise, the factor levels needed to produce a robust process did not lead to a sufficiently low closing effort. Various compromises were considered; namely, the minimum closing effort obtainable subject to selected semirobust conditions. The net result was that it was not possible to obtain sufficiently robust factor conditions, while achieving a suitably low value for closing effort.     

An Effort for Improving Transport Efficiency of Plasma in Acurved Magnet Filter

In this article an effort was made to increase the efficiency of plasma transmission by using a additional wire netting between the substrate and the filter duct which was floated. The substrate was biased with a negative voltage or connected to anode, respectively. the parameters of the exited plasma and ion saturation current are examined by Langmuir probe and current collector plate. It was found that When the wire netting is connected to apositive voltage and the substrate is biased with a negative voltage, the ion saturation current and ion density had obviously improvement . The result proved that this method could improve the ion saturation current and ion density.     

Accounting for Heteroscedasticity in Experimental Design

Power transformation weighting has been found to be a powerful technique for accounting for heteroscedasticity in model fitting. In this paper the transformation weighting concept is used in developing sequential design criteria for precise parameter estimation in heteroscedastic situations. Criteria are proposed for precise estimation of the model and transformation parameters together and for precise estimation of the model parameters alone. Implementation of the criteria is illustrated with two examples from chemical kinetics.