One Room School-House Effect
What happens to learning when you put a number of people with a variety of skill sets and experiences together in the same physical space over an extended period of time?
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As some of you know, I am interested in what I call the One Room School House Effect, which values collaborative learning across various degrees of expertise and ages because it mirrors the learning environment of the family and the work place.
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Recently, a research opportunity presented itself on campus. During a Faculty of Education meeting to discuss proposed program changes with PhD students, the French and English Education Graduate directors also solicited general feedback from the graduate student population. A number of PhD students observed that the construction in the Education building which had forced them from their offices was alienating them from their peers. It was perceived by other PhD students, as impeding the creation of a collegial atmosphere where ideas could be shared, probed and discussed informally, or where general information could be passed on easily.
The research opportunity presented itself as the following research question: Does co-location of PhD student offices (from multiple cohorts) with faculty professors facilitate collegial collaborative learning in ways similar to the effects we see in school age children in multi-grade classrooms? Because the PhD program is at least four years long, I suspect that parallels exist between PhD students and those of school age children in multi-grade classrooms. I would like to know what the benefits might be of having multiple communal offices, each with 4 -8 students with different levels of PhD experience, and having those offices communities surrounded by the professional research community of the faculty. |
Multi-Grade Classrooms
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Campus Socio-Spatial Analysis
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