CLEA day 1, session 2

I had to miss a few papers for meetings.  I caught most of Jenny Chan’s paper (Jenny is a PhD student at Chinese U of HK – I know her from working with staff and students there) on ‘Collaborative and co-operative learning in legal education – the case of Hong Kong’.  Collab. vs Coop models — are they the same thing? No — co-op work produces individual work for an individual grade while collaborative work involves students working jointly to produce a final product for a joint grade. (Rosenbaum & Zimmerman, Fostering teamwork through co-operative and collaborative assignments).  She also noted the effects of pedagogical values vs issues.  Values: learning outcomes, positive student responses.  But issues: free riders, learning styles, time-consuming, over-assessment and reliable evidence.  In the context of HK, culture has an influence on learning styles — eg learning styles of a lecture vs the collection ist culture and the priority on group.  She took three studies in HK.  First, Jackson’s study of English proficiency, Flowerdew on the benefits from collaborative learning (eg HK students do work collectively and have collective responsibility), and You & Ko on behavioural issues, ie free riders (low in trust), and conflict resolution (high in trust). Final remarks — Jenny noted that terminologies are used inconsistently; perceived pedagogical values, but also there’s a need to be aware of issues; and does this have applicability in HK?  Yes, she would argue, particularly in an exam-based assessment culture.