Examining the role of group work as an effective instructional strategy when teaching problem solving

Eamonn Clohessy (1) , Patrick Johnson (1)

1 University of Limerick, School of Education, Ireland

This paper reports on a post-primary classroom intervention conducted to investigate the effect that carrying out problem solving in small groups as an instructional strategy has on the problem-solving performance of individual students. Over the course of the 6-week intervention students were introduced to an explicit problem-solving framework and challenged to solve weekly problems both in small mixed-ability groups and also individually during their traditional mathematics classes. It was found that there was a strong correlation between the problem-solving performance of the small groups and that of the individual students which suggests that group work could be utilised as an effective instructional strategy when teaching problem solving.

Mots clés: Group activities; problem solving; secondary school students; secondary school mathematics

Domaines: Mathématiques [math]; Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Eamonn Clohessy, Patrick Johnson. Examining the role of group work as an effective instructional strategy when teaching problem solving. CERME 10, Feb 2017, Dublin, Ireland. ⟨hal-01933485⟩