From research on collaborative learning, not only do students share what they are learning and reinforce it among themselves, but they also help one another learn by tutoring one another. They are emotionally supportive of one another and develop friendship networks. Some evidence suggests that collaborative arrangements may encourage a sense of civic responsibility or civic participation. Students in groups seem to develop some sense of responsibility for the learning of other members of the group as well as their own. Next, Dr. Terenzini talked about several approaches that promote learning.
Effective teaching emphasizes application and experience .
Hands-on experiences are more effective at teaching a variety of skills than more traditional approaches to instruction. The most dramatic evidence of this comes from a study that he and others are doing now as part of an evaluation of a coalition of seven engineering colleges from around the country. They are looking at course level effects, and have developed a set of items in the form of a questionnaire that students complete at the end of a course. Most of the items tried to tap the extent to which there were collaborative activities going on where students were working on teams and asking questions of the instructor. The outcomes had to do with things like the development of communication skills, problem-solving skills, doing engineering design, and working in groups.