Social & Cooperative Learning in the Solving of Case Histories

Human Biology courses are typically offered for non-biology majors who, like students in high school biology courses, have varying degrees of motivation and background. The primary focus is on explaining the biology behind human health and disease, but human ecology, human evolution, and human genetics may also be covered. Hence, Human Biology tends to be a content-rich course, the content overlaps significantly with high school biology courses, and it is usually taught in frontal lecture format. Reading the text may be the only student-directed component of the course. Our goals were to transform our Human Biology course into a more student-directed course with more quantitative problem solving and critical thinking than is typical of science courses for the nonmajor. Frederiksen (1984) points out that development of problem-solving skills may indirectly foster development of pattern recognition and creativity, which are valuable skills for students in any discipline, at any level. We accomplished our goal of fostering more student-directed critical thinking and problem solving by incorporating case study exercises into a discussion section with a social and cooperative learning environment. Social Learning as a Distinct Dimension of Learning Students differ in the sensory modality that stimulates them to learn most efficiently. We often categorize students as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners (Fleming & Mills, 1992; Gardner & Hatch, 1989). In lecture courses, auditory learners benefit most by listening to lecture, visual learners benefit most by viewing drawings on the board or screen and by reading the text. Kinesthetic learners learn more easily by handling and manipulating materials in a laboratory setting and may have more difficulty learning in a non-lab course. In addition to these three modalities, we suggest that cooperative learning activities may activate a fourth modality which draws on these same senses, but may offer an entirely different dimension for learning. The sensory modalities involved in small group discussion of problems are mostly visual and auditory, but as in kinesthetic learning, students are active participants rather than passive recipients of information. Just as kinesthetic learning involves feedback to the student in response to what they do to a model or sample, there is repeated feedback between what the student says and what he/she hears from others in a social, cooperative learning setting. This is consistent with Johnson et al.'s (1993) conclusion that cooperative learning requires face-to-face interaction and an interpersonal relationship among the group members. Different centers of the brain are also activated in social situations than in solitary learning settings (Burton et al., 2000; Bannerman et al., 2001; Ferguson et al., 2000). Although lectures may involve large numbers of students in the same place, they are not social settings in that information mostly passes in one direction unless the students are responding to a question. Student interactions in such a setting are limited (and are rarely in the service of learning). In addition, in small social, cooperative learning groups, students appear far more alert and focused on all forms of sensory input. While students may each best learn by visual, auditory, or kinesthetic modes throughout their lives, we suggest that social learning may be especially valuable for middle school, high school, and college students. During these years students are highly focused on social situations. Rather than social interactions becoming a distraction, we have attempted to channel this social energy to the end of working together to solve case study problems. Cooperative learning settings are also exceptionally useful for learning problem-solving skills (Fogarty &: Bellanca, 1992). The increased alertness that corresponds to the social setting of group activities can help students focus attention on integrating various pieces of information necessary to solve a problem. …