diversity

Does Promoting Diversity of Opinion in Collaborative Learning in Conservation Enhance Student Learning?

cdtlsd Paper Presentations , , , , ,

Ian Zhi Wen CHAN
Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science (FOS)

ianchan@nus.edu.sg

 

Chan, I. Z. W. (2023). Does promoting diversity of opinion in collaborative learning in conservation enhance student learning? [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/does-promoting-diversity-of-opinion-in-collaborative-learning-in-conservation-enhance-student-learning/

SUB-THEME

Communities and Education 

 

KEYWORDS

Diversity, collaborative learning, learning outcomes, learning objectives, conservation

 

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

 

ABSTRACT

The use of pedagogical techniques to promote collaborative learning has wide-ranging social, psychological, and academic benefits for students (Panitz, 1996; Laal & Ghodsi, 2012). Academically, the successful implementation of collaborative learning results in increased student motivation, improved learning, and generally enhanced classroom results. However, there exist many potential pitfalls along the process of forming and working in groups which can detrimentally affect learning (Bitzer, 1999), such as differing motivation levels amongst group members and potentially disruptive interpersonal conflict. It is important for educators to be aware of these hazards to manage them well.

 

One area that would benefit from further study is how diversity in groups affects learning outcomes. In the literature, diversity is often seen as a challenge to be overcome (Ashman & Gillies, 2013) or a problem to be solved through collaborative learning as a form of social intervention, e.g. see the Jigsaw method (Aronson, n.d.) and Loes et al. (2018). Anecdotally, educators typically try to achieve a balance—too little diversity may lead to less robust discussions and groupthink, whereas too much could cause excessive conflict (Barkley et al., 2014). Yet, how the presence (or absence) of diversity in groups affects eventual academic outcomes such as the achievement of learning outcomes is generally not well researched—as an exception, see Curşeu et al.’s (2018) study on the benefits of gender diversity. In this study, I ask whether assigning students to work in groups with diverse views on a divisive topic in Conservation Biology enhances their learning.

 

Today over 42,000 plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. Conservation action is crucial to protect them but many academics and practitioners disagree fundamentally on what kind of action should be taken. Together with the emotional and evocative nature of the problem, this has led to heated arguments, even in the literature. In an attempt to update Soulé’s (1985) original “Traditional Conservation”, Kareiva and Marvier (2012) put forth new ideas which became known as “New Conservation”. These ideas did not sit well with Soulé (2014) who said, “[…] it does not deserve to be labelled conservation” (p. 895), prompting replies from Marvier (2014) “New Conservation is True Conservation” and others. Over the past two years, I have observed a similar (if less vocal) divide amongst my students in the course LSM4262 “Tropical Conservation Biology”, and I ask whether assigning students with differing views on this divisive topic to the same group will enhance their learning over the course of a semester.

Students’ opinions on three issues in conservation—people-centredness, the role of science, and the role of capitalism—can be broadly used to identify whether they prefer “Traditional Conservation”, “New Conservation”, “Market ecocentrism” or “Critical social science”.
Figure 1. Students’ opinions on three issues in conservation—people-centredness, the role of science, and the role of capitalism—can be broadly used to identify whether they prefer “Traditional Conservation”, “New Conservation”, “Market ecocentrism” or “Critical social science”. Adapted from The Future of Conservation (n.d.).

 

At the beginning of this semester (Semester 1, AY2023/24), I will use my students’ opinions on three issues to identify their preferred approach to conservation (Sandbrook et al., 2019; Figure 1). As far as possible, students will be distributed into groups of four students—each with a different preference—and these groups will go through the same learning activities (e.g. class discussions) and assessments (e.g. preparing and presenting a case study) as the cohort from the previous year which was randomly sorted into groups. I will compare these two cohorts based on: (i) their academic performance as assessed by me using rubrics designed to evaluate their improvement in the course’s learning outcomes, and (ii) student self-reported learning using pre- and post-surveys and reflection assignments. These results are intended to inform educators designing collaborative learning activities on whether intentionally introducing diversity to groups can enhance student learning.

 

REFERENCES

Aronson, E. (n.d.). History of the Jigsaw. Retrieved from https://www.jigsaw.org/history/.

Ashman, A. F., & Gillies, R. M. (2013). Collaborative learning for diverse learners. In C. E. Hmelo-Silver, C. A. Chinn, C. K. K. Chan, & A. M. O’Donnell (Eds), The international handbook of collaborative learning (pp. 297-313). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203837290.ch17

Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. John Wiley & Sons.

Bitzer, E. M. (1999). Pitfalls and bridges: Co-operative and collaborative learning in higher education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 13(1), 11-17. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA10113487_892

Curşeu, P. L., Chappin, M. M., & Jansen, R. J. (2018). Gender diversity and motivation in collaborative learning groups: the mediating role of group discussion quality. Social Psychology of Education, 21(2), 289-302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-017-9419-5

Kareiva, P., & Marvier, M. (2012). What is conservation science? BioScience, 62(11), 962-69. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2012.62.11.5

Laal, M., & Ghodsi, S. M. (2012). Benefits of collaborative learning. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 31, 486-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.12.091

Loes, C. N., Culver, K. C., & Trolian, T. L. (2018). How collaborative learning enhances students’ openness to diversity. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(6), 935-60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1442638

Marvier, M. (2014). New conservation is true conservation. Conservation Biology, 28(1), 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12206

Panitz, T. (1999). Benefits of cooperative learning in relation to student motivation. In Theall, M. (Ed.) Motivation from within: Approaches for encouraging faculty and students to excel, New directions for teaching and learning. Josey-Bass Publishing.

Sandbrook, C., Fisher, J. A., Holmes, G., Luque-Lora, R., & Keane, A. (2019). The global conservation movement is diverse but not divided. Nature Sustainability, 2(4), 316-23. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0267-5

Soulé, M. E. (1985). What is conservation biology? BioScience, 35(11), 727-34. https://doi.org/10.2307/1310054

Soulé, M. E. (2013). The “new conservation”. Conservation Biology, 27(5), 895-97. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12147

The Future of Conservation (n. d.). About the debate. Retrieved from https://futureconservation.org/about-the-debate.

 

Constructions Of Community and Diversity in College Applicants’ Admissions Essays

NUS CDTL Paper Presentations , , , , ,

Sixian HAH
Tembusu College
sxhah@nus.edu.sg  

 

Hah, S. (2023). Constructions of community and diversity in college applicants’ admissions essays [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/constructions-of-community-and-diversity-in-college-applicants-admissions-essays/

 

SUB-THEME

Communities and Education 

 

KEYWORDS

Community, diversity, admissions essays, cultural capital, narratives 

 

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

 

ABSTRACT

This paper presentation discusses how the notions of ‘community’ and ‘diversity’ are constructed by applicants in their admission essays to residential colleges at NUS. Given that admission essays serve as an avenue for prospective students to demonstrate their suitability for the college they are applying to, most essays reflect applicants’ perceptions of the college. In a textual analysis of 60 admissions essays from successful applicants, a discourse analytic approach is taken to show how these students make attempts to display membership into a perceived community which they aspire to be part of. This study began by asking the question: How do students construct themselves as potential members of a community in which they aspire to join?

   

Scholars have argued that admissions essay prompts may not be as easily interpreted as thought and that such essays may favour students who have a better grasp of the unspoken rules of the academic game or who are more well-versed in “academic acculturation” (Warren, 2013). In other words, successful essays often come from students who have a greater degree of awareness of what assessors are looking for in their applications. 

 

In positioning themselves as potential members of a community which they aspire to join, students engage with institutional expectations and discourses of what are perceived as valued by a particular community (Todorova, 2018). It was found that students in this study perceived diversity as a valued mindset which they aspire towards, or as a valued attribute of the community which they desire to join and contribute to. Thus, the study also asks the questions: How do students express their desire for diversity or embody the ‘diversity’ that they claim to bring to the college? How are the notions of ‘diversity’ and ‘community’ understood and constructed by students in the essays? Another intriguing finding stemmed from the kinds of narratives that applicants chose to construct in their attempts to express their desire for seeking diversity in their college of choice. Through their positioning, students are seen to display certain knowledge or even cultural capital which has been shown to privilege certain groups of students over others. This builds on Bourdieu’s notions of cultural capital  and other studies which have shown that social class and cultural capital can impact on students’ success in attaining admissions into college (Stevens, 2009), or achieving other academic outcomes such as engagement with authority figures in academia (Jack, 2016). 

 

This paper presentation invites educators to reflect on the following implications arising from the study:  

  • How does the task of writing an application essay privilege students with certain levels of academic acculturation? 
  • What implications are there for the kinds of knowledge and cultural capital that are reinforced in new cohorts of entering students? How may this enact certain barriers for students who did not get selected?  

 

The application essay formed only one part of the admissions process at the residential colleges. Successful application essays are selected to enter the second round of selections, i.e. an interview with Fellows at the college. Hence, the essay is not the only determining factor in an applicant’s successful entry into the college. Rather, it posed the first gatekeeping barrier that students need to overcome to get an opportunity for an interview. The essays analysed in this study had come only from students who had given consent. Thus, there are limitations on the sample of essays that could be studied and to an indeterminable degree, limitations in investigating how the data may be affected by certain propensities in students who are more likely to have given consent. Future studies could possibly investigate implicit evaluation criteria by comparing successful applications with unsuccessful ones. 

 

REFERENCES

Jack, A. A. (2016). (No) harm in asking: Class, acquired cultural capital, and academic engagement at an elite university. Sociology of Education, 89(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040715614913  

Stevens, M. L. (2009). A school in a garden. In Creating a Class (pp. 5-30). Harvard University Press.  

Todorova, R. (2018). Institutional expectations and students’ responses to the college application essay. Social Sciences, 7(10), 205. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100205  

Warren, J. (2013). The rhetoric of college application essays: Removing obstacles for low income and minority students. American Secondary Education, 42(1), 43-56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43694176 

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