David Stern & Gnter L. Huber (Eds.

) '

Active Learning for Students and Teachers

Reports from Eight Countries
OECD OCDE
PARIS

PETER LANG
Franfcfurt am Main Berlin Bern New York -Paris Wien

Preface and Acknowledgement

Much recent analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has focused on human resource implications of current economic trends. In particular, the emergence of a "learning economy", in which continual learning is an increasingly important part of work, is expected to have profound implications for the design of initial education. This study explores some of those implications by examining the work of innovative teachers, who participate in the learning economy in two ways: as professional employees seeking to keep their own practice abreast of new knowledge and changing conditions; and as instructors preparing the next generation for a lifetime of learning. A previous OECD study of exemplary teachers found many of them were preoccupied with developing new instructional methods that would build their students' capacity for active, independent learning. This study now provides more exact descriptions of how teachers are involving their students in more active forms of learning, and how the teachers themselves are learning through their own work. Active learning is a venerable idea, but teachers' current interest stems from new research, as well as from their awareness of the growing necessity to prepare students for lifelong learning. The new research includes theories of "metacogni-tion" and evidence that increasing students' awareness of their own mental processes can facilitate learning. There has also been an accumulation of findings that certain forms of cooperative, small-group learning promote students' achievement. Based on the evidence to date, researchers from eight OECD countries produced a classroom observation protocol to record practices that are thought to represent effective forms of independent and cooperative learning. The observation procedure was applied in 74 selected classrooms in 28 schools, and in one program for students sponsored by a major corporation. Teachers were also interviewed, both about the experience of students in their classrooms and about their own experience as active learners. Results are presented in the form of narrative descriptions and quantitative analyses. Among the major findings are the following:

Students are rarely given much choice about what they are to learn (even in classrooms selected to exemplify active learning), but they are sometimes given considerable choice about the method, pace, and sequence of learning. In the observed classrooms students are often found to be working in small groups, and this practice also appears to be consistent with selfregulated learning by students as individuals. Active learning methods often include the production of a document, dis play, or other tangible result that can be immediately appreciated, and some times even used, by other people.

Although this study was not designed to evaluate the effectiveness or these methods, the involvement of students as "knowledge workers" in creating "knowledge products" does provide a kind of rehearsal for participation in the learning economy. Furthermore, the innovating teachers, in addition to structuring lessons that give students opportunities for active learning, are also providing, in their own practice, a model of continual learning at work. David Stern conceived and coordinated this study while serving as a Principal Administrator in the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) at OECD. Gnter L. Huber was the primary consultant, with special responsibility for the quantitative data collection and analysis. We are grateful to the OECD for its sponsorship, to our co-authors for their stimulating collaboration, and to the teachers in eight countries who shared their creative work with us.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I. Purpose and Method Chapter I.I. Genesis of the study D. Stern Teachers' interest in active learning Obstacles to active learning in classrooms

11 13 14 17 19 19 21 23 34 35 39 40 41 49 51 53 53 54 56 58 59 60 63 65

Chapter 1.2. Definitions and theories of active learning P. R. J. Simons What is active learning? Why active learning (again)? Advances in theories of learning and instruction Some empirical evidence Barriers and conditions Conclusions Chapter 1.3. Study procedures D. Stern Protocol for classroom observation Questions for teacher interview about teachers' active learning Part II. Examples of Active Learning in Eight Countries Chapter II. 1. Australia M. Baum, K. Dohring and P. Eckert National policy context Port Pirie high school students build a data base on smoking Canadian Lead primary school: "Robin Dwarf and the Seven Hoods" Students' responsibility for the various phases of the learning process Groups of teachers as active learners at Port Pirie and Cana dian Lead St. Pius X: electrical connections Reservoir District secondary college: cubes in groups Individual teachers as active learners at St. Pius and Reservoir District

Chapter II.2. Denmark J. Dolin and G. Ingerslev The Danish Gymnasium and HF (Higher Preparatory School) The concept of active learning and metacognition The classroom observations 70 Conclusions 74 Chapter II.3. Finland: Urban school S. Hamalainen and K. Hakkinen Contract work as a basis for teaching: flexible schedule and baskets tasks Active learning activities in Puistokoulu: bus stop tasks and other devices Chapter II.4. Finland: A Rural School E. Kimonen and R. Nevalainen The context of a small school Active learning by students: creating information products Active learning by teachers in a changing school context Conclusion Chapter II.5. Germany G. L Huber and J. K W. Roth Active learning of individual students: writing a newspaper Active learning in student teams: researching hot topics Students and teacher learning together: whose skull is this? Teachers: free to learn Chapter II.6. The Netherlands V. W. Withagen Policy context: basisvorming Partial autonomy for students at a Montessori school Teachers' learning Conclusions Chapter II.7. Spain I. Cordoba Rodriguez de Guzman Policy context Active learning by students: a lesson from violent history How the teacher learns 106

67 67 68

76 76 78 82 82 83 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 95 95 95 99 101 102 102 106

Chapter II.8. United Kingdom D. Hopkins, K. Black-Hawkins, K. Aldrige, H. Lay, P. Jewell, and D. Davidson

108

Images of active learning in recent government policy Examples of group learning in three English secondary schools Analysis of student's active learning Conclusions Chapter II.9. United States: Seton Keough High School
S. Magri

108 109 111 113 115 115 116 116 118 118 118 120 120 121 122 126 128 128 133 135 137 137 140 144 149 155

A science teacher experiments with active learning Schoolwide, students regulate their own work A new course: students manage a local resource Nurturing self-regulated learning in a nutrition course Teacher as independent learner Conclusions Chapter II.10. United States: Motorola Summer Program
R. C. Harris and P. Wangemann

Posing the pager problem Active learning for youth and adults Solving the pager problem: a week of active learning What are we learning? Chapter II. 11. United States: Roots and Wings
C P. Daniels

Roots and wings Classroom observation 130 Conclusion Part III. Analysis Across Countries Chapter III. 1. Self-regulated learning by individual students
G L Huber

Self-regulated learning a tautology? Characteristics of self-regulated learning processes Qualitative images of self-regulated learning in the case studies Conditions for self-regulated individual learning Open questions

Chapter III.2. Co-operative learning among students R. E. Slavin Evolution of co-operative learning Research on co-operative learning 161 Co-operative learning and active learning Forms of co-operative learning in the CERI country reports Conclusion Chapter III.3. Active learning by teachers H. Niemi Teaching as life-long learning The case studies Conditions for teachers' active learning Conclusion 182 Chapter III.4. What are we learning? D. Stern Aims and aimlessness in education Immediacy and continuity: a conflict? Individual self-regulation, classroom groups, and the learning economy 187
List of contributors References

159 159 169 170 173 174 174 176 178 183 183 185

189 191

Chapter I.1 GENESIS OF THE STUDY D. Stern

Economic trends in OECD countries increasingly require individuals to con tinue learning in the context of work (OECD, 1994a). More rapid mobility of information and financial capital obliges enterprises to adapt quickly. Whether working for an organisation that is caught up in continual change, or moving from one job to another, everyone must keep learning. The Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) at OECD published some of the first research on this trend and what might be done about it (OECD, 1973). Preparation for lifelong learning at work necessitates a kind of initial educa tion that fosters curiosity and the capacity to manage one's own learning agenda. Employers say they want workers who can take initiative and solve problems, not only in managerial and professional positions, but also in production and clerical jobs. The fact that a leading global corporation offered to participate in this study (see chapter II.10) is an indication of employers' interest in initial education for lifelong learning. Economic demands on schools thus appear to be growing more consistent with education's traditional humanistic goal of maximizing each student's intellectual development. As Resnick (1987) observed, "Although it is not new to include thinking, problem solving, and reasoning in someone's school curriculum, it is new to include it in everyone's curriculum" (p. 7). To develop the capacity for autonomous lifelong learning presumably calls for a particular kind of educational practice. We will call it "active learning". Un fortunately, no one can yet say with any empirical certainty whether particular methods in schools will be most effective in producing autonomous lifelong learners. There is a good deal of theory and also some evidence, which will be reviewed in Chapter I.2 and in Part III. But for now, the term "active learning" is something that teachers, researchers, and policy makers must all to some extent define for themselves. One kind of active learning strategy gives individual students more control over the pace, sequence, and monitoring of their own work. For example, Chapter II.3 describes how nine-year-olds in an urban Finnish school conduct much of their learning through weekly "contract work". A second strategy for active learning involves students in small group collaboration. For example, primary students in Germany (Chapter II.5) published a newsletter, as did secondary school students in

England (Chapter II.8). These group activities often result in products docu ments, data bases, visual presentations -- that embody and communicate what students have learned. Part II describes these and other examples of active learning in actual class rooms in eight countries, using a consistent definition. That is the first purpose of this book: to benchmark existing practice. Based on previous research, we created a list of specific practices that are likely to encourage the development of independent learners. The list is presented in Chapter I.3. We used the list as a guide to classroom observation, and as the basis for interviews with the students and teachers in those classrooms. The teachers were asked not only about their students' opportunities to participate in active learning, but also about whether and how they themselves engaged in active learning as part of their work. The teachers' reports permit us to accomplish the second purpose of the book, which is to illustrate the connection between active learning for students and their teachers. In Part III, three researchers analyse the practices described in the eight countries, drawing on prior studies of active learning. Chapter III. 1 focuses on practices that involve individual students as independent learners. Chapter III.2 discusses the practice of students learning in co-operative groups. Chapter III.3 then examines the relationship between active learning for students and their teachers.
Teachers' interest in active learning

This study is a direct outgrowth of a recent CERI project on Quality in Teaching (OECD, 1994b; see also OECD 1990 and 1991), which found teachers preoccupied with promoting more student-centred methods. Teachers participating in that study were selected on the basis of distinguished reputation and evidence of effectiveness. Although the focus was on the teachers themselves and the factors contributing to their performance rather than on their actual methods of teaching, the interviews and observations revealed that developing more active and student-centred methods was among their chief concerns. Teachers are interested in active learning for several reasons. They are aware that students must be prepared for continual learning throughout their lifetimes. As mentioned in Part II, educational authorities in some countries have announced policies to that effect. Furthermore, teachers experience the need for continual learning in their own professional lives, due in part to professional development programs that are provided for them. Teachers are also aware of accumulating research on how people learn. As explained in Chapter I.2 and Part III, cognitive psychology in recent decades has been dominated by the constructivist theories of Piaget, Vygotsky, and their followers. Learners construct their conceptions of the world from their own expe-

rience, building on previous conceptions. Advances in understanding come about through confrontation with phenomena that existing conceptions cannot explain. In this paradigm, the way teachers enable students to construct new mental models is by presenting problems and providing support for students until they have achieved independent mastery of the new idea. Abstract information acquired in a practical context is more likely to be incorporated into students' repertory of knowledge and skill that can be applied to later problems. Constructivist principles apply not only to learning about the physical world as in Piaget's early research, but also to social structure and politics, morality and philosophy, science and technology, emotions and the arts. As the constructivist paradigm has come to dominate educational research, educational literature, and teaching in schools of education, it has exerted a strong force on practising teachers. Within their own classrooms, many teachers are also experiencing a greater need to centre their lessons on students' concerns, in order to motivate them. Teachers in most OECD countries are faced with growing numbers of students who resist teacher-centred instruction, whose native language or culture is not the dominant one, or who for other reasons are not interested in didactic presentations - and who are therefore at risk of failure in school. To manage their classrooms, teachers increasingly seek methods to engage students. For these reasons, many of the exemplary teachers in the 1993 CERI study on teacher quality stressed the importance of active learning for students. In France, for example, participants in a teacher seminar conducted for the CERI study devised a questionnaire for colleagues in their schools. The first question was, "For you, what makes quality teachers?" (Qu'est-ce qui fait pour vous "la qualite des enseignants"?). The most common response, given by 99 of the 144 respondents, had to do with ability to motivate students: La passion, amour du metier, des enfants, 1'enthousiasme, developper le desir d'apprendre. (Altet 1993, p. 14, emphasis added) The New Zealand report for the Teacher Quality study described "a distinc tive pedagogic style in primary schools built up over many generations of teachers. The approach has carried various labels at various times, but fundamentally it is child centred with an emphasis on grouping of children for a range and variety of activities, coupled with an individualised approach with a considerable amount of non-directive teaching leading towards independent learners who own their knowledge" (Ramsay 1993, p. 26). A document cited from the Department of Education in 1961 advocated "a great deal of work... in which the child is discovering for himself, with the aid of the teacher and his classmates, the solutions to problems and difficulties encountered in the pursuit of purposes which he accepts as his own" (p. 26). To develop this approach, New Zealand teachers "have been given consider able autonomy at the classroom level" (Ramsay, p. 29). One explained her pedagogy in this way:

My classroom is based on research and problem solving. I'm seeking to develop individ ual learners who are self-starters and completers. I constantly challenge children to find possible solutions. I seldom tell them what it is that I want, although on occasions, to get progress, I will do some direct teaching. I follow the children's initiatives. I will extend the time on an activity if it seems profitable and the children's interest is being held. Capturing the child's curiosity is essential. I encourage them to think, how to reconstruct problems. They have lots of knowledge themselves and I bring that to bear by introducing new knowledge and seeing if we can find a best way to solve a problem. I'm looking all the time for valid learning experiences and I know, because the children and parents tell me, that I use "why" an awful lot in my classroom teaching (p. 47). I am always having to justify what I have done to myself. Whether I should have put a structured approach onto something or whether I should just go with the kids. The kids always win... The learning has to happen inside their heads, and when you are working with their questions you are inside their heads to start and so you go on from there (p. 55)

The theme of active learning was also prominent in the Swedish case report for the Teacher Quality study. Questionnaire data from students revealed that "Pupils in the ninth grade in two secondary schools define good instruction (by which you learn important things) as incorporating a certain kind of pupil's working pattern. This involves independent (sometimes including cooperative) searching for and formulating knowledge aimed at producing some tangible result. They often call it 'making own work' or 'doing research'. Pupils also include good lecturing with instructive explanations, and no haste of time. They also talk about the need of variation and their interest in dramatising the research product or simpler parts of skill acquisition. These are the most important topics in four group interviews made at the secondary schools" (Lander 1993, p. 5). Quantitative analysis also revealed that a pupil's interest in school subjects was the most important predictor of a positive attitude toward school (p. 14). Swedish teachers in a seminar conducted for the Teacher Quality study were asked to write a description of a situation in which they felt they had done good work. The most common feature of these accounts was "problem-oriented and inquiry-base instruction, connected to daily life knowledge" (Almius, Lander, and Odhagen, 1993, p. 6). For example, teachers described pupils investigating in stores how consumers' conception of prices are influenced, analysing how to use newspapers, and doing laboratory work in physics about light, sound, and everyday problems. The Austrian teacher seminar for the Teacher Quality study listed eleven aspects of "pedagogic skill", nine of which are explicitly directed toward active learning: "Teachers allow pupils to assume responsibility for their own learning process. Teachers encourage pupils to perform a selfevaluation of their talents and weaknesses. Teachers dispose of a repertoire of pedagogic skills, in order to

respond to pupils' individual needs (arousing and retaining curiosity; promoting independent and action-oriented work). Teachers promote learning and work by discovery, by research, through processes and the senses. Teachers impart different learning techniques. Teachers grant sufficient time and create flexible free scope. Teachers take up suggestions and allow the finding of solutions and their implementation. Teachers promote pupils' self-reliance. Teachers provide for opportunities of relating theoretically acquired knowledge to lifetime situations" (Ribolits, 1993, pp. 10-11).
Obstacles to active learning in classrooms

Despite teachers' interest in active learning, they are not always able to arrange for students to do it. One obstacle is that some students find it threatening. They do not want the challenge, or they are more comfortable in a more passive role. Research on this issue is described in Chapters I.2 and III. 1. Another barrier is the possible conflict with required curriculum and accompanying examinations. Active learning projects take time. They may deepen students' understanding of certain ideas, but teachers may be concerned about sacrificing breadth of coverage. If students' opportunities for further education depend on broad knowledge of material in the required syllabus, there may be little time for active learning. As pointed out in Chapter III.l, there is a basic contradiction between the goal of developing students' capacity to manage their own learning ~ including the capacity to make good decisions about what to learn -- and the goal of teaching a predetermined school curriculum. Sheer entropy is another impediment. Organising and keeping track of stu dent projects takes a good deal of time and effort. Teachers may have to do their own research on short notice, in response to students' questions that go beyond the prescribed curriculum. Interdisciplinary projects that involve more than one teacher require additional time for co-ordination. On the other hand, some forms of active learning within the classroom can actually reduce some of the routine chores teachers have to do, though this may not be evident at first. In co-operative learning, as described in Part II and in Chapter III.2, students are sometimes given responsibility for checking and correcting one another's papers. This gives the teacher more time to work with students individually. Some teachers also delegate additional responsibility to students, for instance to devise fancy certificates that are used as rewards for high-performing teams. To the extent that students manage their own learning, teachers do less instructing and more coaching, which some teachers seem to prefer. This may account for the apparent popularity of co-operative learning among teachers in countries where it has been introduced. However, some teachers may prefer didactic instruction

because they are more comfortable or competent in the role of informationgiver than in the role of coach, which requires more listening and improvisation. This points to another obstacle, which is the necessity for teacher training. It is not sufficient for teachers merely to be told about a different way to teach. They need the opportunity for active learning! This begins by experiencing the new approach from the position of a student, and progresses to trying out the role of a teacher organising learning processes for others. After supervised practice with the new method, teachers can be ready to use it in their own classrooms, but even then their effectiveness in implementing the new technique will be greater if they continue to receive assistance. This kind of training takes time and resources, which are usually in short supply. Furthermore, it is difficult for individual teachers to make major changes unless there is schoolwide support. A project in the Netherlands, called "All Learners Active", provides an illustration. "In this project some 20 schools for secondary education decided to involve all of their students actively in their own learning. Teachers were trained on a schoolwide basis, both by outside counsellors and through colleague observations and discussions. In the experimental groups teachers learned several instructionmanagement skills (like giving assignments to groups, high level questioning, not reacting to questions of students, and so on). The participation of students and the views of teachers changed dramatically in the experimental schools and not in the control schools. Two lessons from the project seem to be that a schoolwide approach is important and that teachers should learn some basic instruction management skills before they dare to hand over responsibility to students. It was only after they mastered these skills that teachers became interested in learning to learn, motivation and co-operative learning" (Simons, 1993). We will return to some of these issues in subsequent chapters. However, the descriptions in Part II will show that, in spite of the obstacles, some teachers do manage to arrange for their students to experience active learning. Before presenting these descriptions, the next chapter will consider in greater depth what "active learning" might mean.

Chapter I.2 DEFINITIONS AND THEORIES OF ACTIVE LEARNING

P. R. J. Simons

This chapter gives an overview of theories and considerations behind edu cational reforms focusing on active independent learning. Although there have been previous waves of interest in active learning, they were in some respects different from the current one. Learning theories that have been important stimulators of current interest in active learning will be reviewed, with some of the relevant empirical evidence. Several variants of active learning will then be described, distinguishing especially between metacognitive and co-operative conceptions of active learning.
What is active learning?

All learning is active in a certain sense, but some kinds of learning are more active than others. Here, active learning is defined in one sense to mean that the learner uses opportunities to decide about aspects of the learning process. A second definition of active learning connects it to mental activity in another sense: it refers to the extent to which the learner is challenged to use his or her mental abilities while learning. Thus active learning on the one hand has to do with decisions about learning and on the other hand making active use of thinking. What kind of decisions are to be made about learning by the learner? In principle, learners might decide about any aspect of learning. Learners who make all decisions themselves function as their own teachers. The decisions that could be made by learners themselves or by teachers (or in cooperation between learners and teachers) are described in Table I.2.1. Active learning refers to the number and kinds of decisions, as described in Table I.2.1, that are taken by learners themselves (or in cooperation with a teacher). In more active forms of learning, for instance, learners make their own time plan, they choose learning goals and activities they like, they test their progress, they take care of learning and understanding on their own, and they reflect on errors and successes. Active learning, in this sense, has to do with the preparation,

execution, regulation, control, feedback and maintenance of learning activities by learners themselves.
Table I.2.1. Examples of decisions that can be initiated by learners (or teachers)
Category Orientation on goals and actions Choice of goals Relevance of goals Self confidence Planning of learning activities Motivating students to learn Getting started Learner Activity Thinks of possible goals and activities. Chooses personal learning goals. Realises why goals are relevant. Is self confident; promotes own self confidence. Plans and chooses learning activities. Is motivated to learn; promotes own motivation. Has an adequate starting strategy; getting attention. Recalls prior learning. Reads, listens, analyses. Relates, makes a schema. Applies to a new situation, thinks of possible ap plications. Consults own feeling of knowing. Paraphrases in order to test comprehension. Tries a new strategy. Thinks of possible reasons for succeeding this time. Evaluates the process of learning. Uses external feedback possibilities. Judges own performance. Thinks of future rewards. Takes a break.

Comprehension Integration Application Monitoring Testing Revision Reflection Evaluation Feedback Judgement Motivation Concentration management

In the second meaning of active learning (tied to mental activity), it is not so much the number and quality of decisions about learning that count but how much activity is asked from the learner. Are students figuring out things on their own? Are they working without teacher supervision? Are they working together in groups? Are they thinking while learning? Are they doing? In this case, the amount of (mental) activity of learners is the important criterion. The goals and kinds of activities, the control and regulation as well as the feedback and maintenance of the learning may all be under teacher control, in which case the student is engaged in active execution of assignments rather than active decision making about learning. Sometimes this kind of active learning involves co-operative learning in groups; at other times it is purely individual work. In order to be able to distinguish the two meanings we will call the first type of active learning independent learning and the second one active working (individual or co-operative).
Why active learning (again)?

Why is there so much attention to active learning nowadays? Several rea sons have been put forward for greater emphasis on active as opposed to more passive forms of learning. These reasons have to do with learners, teachers, schools and society at large. Active learning can be more attractive for learners than more passive forms of learning because they can become more motivated and interested when they have a say in their own learning and when their mental activity is challenged. Being involved in the decisions about learning they can connect to their prior knowledge and their own needs and interests. In finding out things independently, they can follow their own interests and motivation. In the process they can learn to make decisions and take responsibility. Moreover, active learning is important because of opportunities for learning to learn. Students can learn how to learn by practising how to do it. Giving them responsibility for parts of the decisions that can or should be made is one way to teach them how to learn. In earlier times, one thought that learning to learn and active learning were for the elite. Only the best students were expected to learn actively. For the weaker students highly structured forms of teaching were to be preferred, so was the conventional wisdom. However, in the "learning economy" this picture has changed. Several empirical studies have found that active learning and learning to learn and think are especially important for the weaker students. One reason why they are weak students turned out to be that they are not able to learn actively. When the weakest students learned how to learn and think, their learning performance improved drastically (see, for instance, Palincsar and Brown, 1984).

Active learning is also important for teachers. Motivational and burn out problems of teachers may disappear when students are more motivated and more active learners. Besides, teaching will become more intellectually challenging when students are learning actively and independently. As mentioned in Chapter I.1, employers increasingly value learning abilities and adequate learning attitudes. They need flexible people who are able and ready to learn on their own. Companies are striving to become learning organisations with employees who are able and ready to learn both on and off the job. Those companies will survive that are able to learn quicker than their competitors, and for this they need people who learn easily and rapidly. Finally, also for schools active learning is important. They are confronted with new demands from the labour market to which they can not remain silent. Because knowledge and skills tend to change more and more quickly, the emphasis shifts away from schools to later life and job related learning. Furthermore, higher types of schools demand from the lower schools that they deliver students that are able and willing to learn actively and independently. Secondary schools expect this from elementary schools and higher education expects it from secondary education. Is there anything new in the present wave of emphasis on active learning? In the beginning of this century the traditional school reformers (like Montessori, Dewey, Freinet, Petersen, Parkhurst, Steiner, etc.) proposed new kinds of schools (Montessori schools, Freinet schools, Dalton schools, Jena schools, etc.) all stressing active learning in various forms. Montessori schools, for instance, focused (and are still focusing) on free choices of students in determining the things they want to do and learn. Furthermore, active sensorimotor activities (feeling, touching, etc.) were stressed, especially at kindergarten age. As another example, Dewey emphasized the value of self-discovered knowledge and Steiner the importance of taking the child's temperament into account. The traditional school reformers, however, did not succeed in changing the great majority of schools. They remained elitist schools for only a small part of the population. The next wave of attention for active learning took place in the sixties and seventies. The traditional school-reformers attracted new attention and new innovative schools were founded. Rogers' book "Freedom to learn" became popular, especially in the university context. The project method and small group activities were introduced in many schools, especially at the elementary level. Piagetian schools were started connecting to the developmental stage of the child and focusing on learning to think. After a while, however, interest in active learning died down once more. Effective schools and effective instruction became more fashionable, emphasizing no-nonsense schools with a good learning climate, clear instruction, instructional leadership, and a focus on testable knowledge and skills.

The present wave of active learning in the nineties seems to differ from the previous ones in three respects. First, there seems to be a much broader attention for the role of active learning. Many more schools and teachers are involved. Many governments are stimulating active learning. Employers and their organisations are in favour of it. This has to do with the necessity of lifelong learning and earning organisations, because of the increasing speed of change in economic and social life. Second, the present focus is much more than in the previous cases focusing on the combination of active learning and learning to learn. Active learning is only possible when students have learned how to do it and how to regulate it: enablement before empowerment. We cannot give students opportunities for independent learning and active working when they do not possess the necessary cognitive, metacognitive and affective skills. Integrated learning to learn forms a necessary component of instruction aiming for active learning. Third, the present wave has more than the previous ones a background in the psychology of learning (see below). Constructivistic learning theory and the empirical evidence for it provide new validation for active learning and better guidance about how to promote it. We know now much more about learning competencies and learning motivation than before.
Advances in theories of learning and instruction Recent precursors

Among the recent precursors of contemporary learning theory are Ausubel (1952) and Piaget (1952; Piaget and Inhelder, 1969). Piaget was a constructivist in the developmental psychology of the first half of this century. His theory has often been quoted because of the stages of development he proposed. His learning theory, however, remained relatively unknown until the sixties and seventies. This was due to the fact that Piaget himself, being a pure developmentalist, was not primarily interested in learning until late in his career. Nevertheless, the implications of Piaget's theory for learning psychology, as viewed by Piaget himself at the end of his career, focus on the active role of the learner in interaction with the environment. Specific kinds of mental activities are thought to be necessary for developmental progress to occur. Assimilation is the gradual use and further specification and development of cognitive structures. Accommodation is the formation of new cognitive structures. The equilibrium of assimilative and accommodative processes is central. Newly developed cognitive structures need to assimilate existing information and procedures before new accommodations are possible. Accommodation happens when problems occur in the interaction with the environment that can not be solved through new assimilations. Consequences for learning drawn from these and other Piagetian concepts are, among others, that

active discoveries by learners themselves are important motors of developmental progress and that it is important to create environments in which learners can dis cover new principles when they have assimilated older concepts. Already in the 1930s Bartlett (1932) formulated his famous schema theory. He showed that readers construct mental schemata of texts that are dissimilar to the real text because of their construction processes. Because texts have to be connected to existing mental schemata and because the reader constructs new mental schemata, deviations arise easily. Thus, mental, constructive activity by the reader him/herself is very important for understanding. Ausubel (1963) was another important predecessor of modern constructiv ism. In his theory he focused on the connection between existing knowledge in the cognitive structure of the learner and new knowledge that the learner should learn. New information can be learned and understood when there is a cognitive structure in the mind of the learner to which it can be connected. New examples of a known principle, for instance, can be subsumed under that principle. Existing concrete examples can be joined by a new principle. In learning, so Ausubel reasoned, we always need anchors to which new information can be connected. The more general and abstract these anchors are, the easier it is to learn. When adequate anchors fail to exist in the cognitive structure of the learner, new ones should be created to help the learner. These new anchors were installed through so called advance organisers. General and abstract ideas can become powerful anchors for new information that is to be learned afterwards. Expository organisers present new general and abstract ideas that can become anchors for new information. Comparative organisers emphasize existing anchors in the cognitive structure of the learner that might easily be confused with new information. For example, it is useful to review known information about Christianity before new information about Buddhism is to be learned. Wittrock(1974; see also Salomon, 1972; Simons, 1980) formulated a the ory of generative learning about the way instructors and instructional systems provide explicit help, structure or advice for the various learning functions. Some systems take care of almost all of the functions, leaving only few possibilities for the student. Other systems let students fulfil many of the functions themselves. He described three ways for instructional systems to have an influence on the learning functions of students: taking over, activation, or stimulation (cf. Wittrock, 1974). Taking over a learning function means that the system initiates and fills the learning function. For example, this happens when students are obliged to answer multiple choice questions provided by the teacher, or when a teacher presents information. Activating a certain function pertains to forcing students to use certain functions in a specified way for instance by assigning them to outline concepts discussed in a text book. Stimulating students to use certain functions means either giving general advice to execute certain learning activities and leave out others, or training students in the learning functions. Stimulation occurs, for

instance, when a teacher instructs students on how to use certain learning strate gies or self-regulation skills. There are advantages and disadvantages connected to the three ways to cope with learning functions. Taking over learning activities that students could perform themselves decreases active participation by students. Sometimes even interference effects may occur (see Simons, 1980). A consequence may.be that students work and learn below their current potential: their prior knowledge and intellectual abilities are not exploited as much as might have happened. Furthermore, when this "taking over" happens all the time, students will not develop their learning skills any further. This practice may perpetuate itself because, when students are not able to execute and regulate learning activities themselves, taking over forms the only feasible short term solution. The activation of learning processes tends to increase the effort expenditure by students themselves. Having to execute the assigned learning activities and regulations may develop students' learning and regulation skills better than if the teacher "takes over". However, students do not learn when to use which activities and regulation processes (for instance, choosing and controlling their own learning goals and activities). Furthermore, they may often fail to exploit all the possibilities of integrating preconceptions and advance knowledge with new knowledge and skills. Perhaps self-chosen activities and regulation processes might lead to better results than the activated ones. The stimulation of learning activities and regulation processes, or teaching students how to learn, is likely to lead to the best performance in the long run. However, short-term performance may suffer, leading to frustration and resistance. Contemporary constructivists Resnick (1987b) described distinctions between learning in school and out side of school. Learning in schools differs from learning outside of school because school learning is:

symbol oriented instead of tool oriented; decontextualised instead of context bound; individual instead of group learning; general instead of problem-specific learning. Even in some situations outside of school, e.g. on the job training, the school view of learning sometimes dominates. Resnick favours a different kind of learning, both inside and outside of schools, stressing context-bound, tooloriented, social and problem-specific learning. She and many others prefer a model they

call cognitive apprenticeship. In some societies, apprenticeship is a traditional form of instruction. One became a tailor, for instance, by starting to co-operate with a master tailor, usually together with one or more fellow apprentices. Learning took place in a real life context. The master tailor appointed certain tasks to the pupils. At first the tasks were rather simple, but they gradually became more difficult and complex. In the beginning the pupils had only a few responsibilities, but later on they became more and more responsible for their own work. They learned by doing, by observing and imitating the expert and by getting feedback from him as well as from their fellow pupils. According to Resnick (1987a) and others it may be fruitful to go back to the apprenticeship system. Especially when we want to teach our students how to learn, how to think and how to solve problems, the principles of the old apprenticeship systems should be rehabilitated: hence cognitive apprenticeship. This approach may also be used in computer aided instruction, and more in particular in interactive videodisk systems. Resnick (1987a) in her analysis of the apprenticeship system found the fol lowing to be the characteristics of programmes proving successful for acquiring school learning skills:
1) They involve socially shared intellectual work. 2) They are organised around mutual accomplishment of tasks so that elements of the skill take on meaning in the context of the whole. ... Many of the programs also share elements of apprenticeship: i) They make usually hidden processes overt, subject to observation and commentary. ii) They allow skill to build up bit by bit, yet permit participation even for the relatively unskilled. ... This is often enabled by the social sharing of tasks. Finally, the most successful programs are organised around particular bodies of knowledge and interpretation (subject matters if you will) rather than "general" abilities. They thereby engage students in processes of meaning construction and interpretation which seem to have the effect of blocking the kind of symboldetached-from-sense thinking that I have noted as a major problem in school but not in out of school activity. It is just this kind of self-conscious meaning construction and interpretation that is likely to be needed in conditions of breakdown and transition out of school when it is necessary (probably) to use one's powers of reflection and analysis to craft sensible responses to new -- and as yet ill -- understood-situations (pp. 20-21).

There is in the American instructional psychology a revived pedagogical optimism: many researchers now believe that it is possible to improve self-regulation of learning, thinking, intelligence and problem solving. This optimism stems mainly from the remarkable results of training studies such as those by Palincsar and Brown (1984) on reading comprehension, by Schoenfeld (1985) on mathematical reasoning and by Scardamalia, Bereiter, and Steinbeck (1984) on writing processes. In these three studies and their later replications, durable, generalisable and transferable results of training were realised.

Ann Brown's (1980) theory of metacognition also has relevance for active learning. The concept of metacognition sometimes refers to knowledge about co gnitive processes (e.g. Flavell, 1976). At other places, the concept of metacognition is used in the sense of steering one's cognitive processes (e.g. Brown, 1980). Though these two (knowledge and steering) might be closely related, they are different (compare Lawson, 1984; Garner, 1987). When we refer to the first meaning we will use the term "metacognitive knowledge". Examples are knowing how one is learning, knowing what one knows and what not and knowing when to apply a certain principle and when not. For the second meaning we will reserve the terms "regulation" and "executive control". Then we mean the active monitoring and control of ongoing cognitive processes. Actions like planning how much time one needs to study a certain part of subject-matter, testing one's progress, monitoring the development of one's understanding and predicting the results one will reach are all examples of these regulation activities. Research on metacognitive knowledge and executive control (see for an overview Simons, 1994a) showed that they both have important roles in successful learning. They belong to the most powerful predictors of success at school (Wang, Haertel, and Walburg, 1990). They are correlated with intelligence and learning performance, for instance in reading tasks. They form necessary components of independent active learning. The relations between metacognitive knowledge and executive control skills are not investigated too well. A plausible hypothesis (Simons, 1994a) is that metacognitive knowledge is a necessary precondition for executive skills to develop. Certain kinds of executive control skills, like reflection and evaluation seem to be important for the growth of metacognitive knowledge. In her later research Ann Brown and many others shifted from the study of the role of metacognition in learning and in individual differences to the best ways to teach metacognition. If metacognition is such an important component of learning in general and independent learning in particular, we should try to devise instruction such that metacognition develops in the context of regular domain-specific instruction. A new kind of instruction was invented focusing on metacognitive knowledge and skills (see Simons, 1994b). In reading instruction, for instance, Palincsar and Brown (1984) taught students from elementary schools how to pose relevant questions, how to predict next sections of a text, how to test for understanding and how to explain certain relations. Results of these and other experiments were that students not only learned the metacognitive skills, but also achieved large and lasting gains in reading performance. The Cognition and Technology Group (1990) at Vanderbilt University de veloped another theory of active learning and instruction called "anchored instruction". Pellegrino, Bransford and others reasoned that constructive learning should always be anchored to authentic experiences. This means that a context is created resembling the complex world of real problem solving. Student learning takes place inside this simulated environment. Because the Vanderbilt group believes

that general knowledge is learned in the concrete context and cannot easily be disconnected from it, special measures should be taken for transfer to new situations. For all simulations, therefore, analogous problem contexts are available. The problem anchors can be viewed from multiple perspectives, in video or CDROM based formats. Students are invited and challenged to generate subproblems and to be active in solving the complex problems. All the data necessary to solve the problems are in the video (embedded data design) and are such that links across the curriculum should be made (e.g. mathematics, science, language). For example, in the video series called "The adventures of Jasper Woodbury", one of Jasper's adventures involves trying to save a big bird in the woods. He has to decide how he can travel fastest from the place where the bird is to the animal hospital. Has he got enough fuel for the boat? How about the wind and the falling darkness? Which road will be the fastest? Another contemporary constructivist approach to active learning has been developed by Rand Spiro and his associates. In this theory, called cognitive flexibility theory (see Spiro, Feltovitch, Jacobson and Coulson, 1991), flexible representations of knowledge are thought to be essential for complex problem solving. In beginning learning, knowledge is often connected to one kind of analogy, one kind of example, one kind of prior knowledge, and simple kinds of interpretations. This is done for good reasons, namely in order to make it possible for learners to understand and to keep things as simple as possible. For advanced learning and complex problem solving, however, this can be disastrous. Knowledge representations become flexible when they are built up in diverse contexts and when they get different kinds of interpretations. Various kinds of connections between old and new knowledge should be made and an active constructive role of the learner is a necessity for this cognitive flexibility. Advanced learning processes should be like discovering a landscape, sometimes like a tourist, sometimes like a pioneer. Learning is flexibly crisscrossing through the information on the base of one's own questions, interests and activities. The learner should be revisiting the same material, at different times, in rearranged contexts, for different purposes, and from different perspectives. Twelve characteristics of constructive learning These constructivist and metacognitive theories form part of a growing consensus among learning psychologists. Here we offer an attempt at integration (see also Simons, 1993). In individual long-term memory, there are three kinds of memory represen tations: semantic, episodic and action representations (see Boekaerts and Simons, 1993). Semantic representations refer to concepts and principles with their defining characteristics (e.g. a bird is an animal with feathers). Episodic representa-

tions are based on personal, situated and affective experiences with instances of the concepts and principles (e.g. I love my little bird). Action representations refer to the things one can do with the semantic and episodic information: using the knowledge to solve certain kinds of problems (e.g. birds can carry messages). Constructive learning refers to the active (re)construction of knowledge (Simons, 1993). It has to do with attempts to build rich and complex memory representations showing a high degree of connectedness (see Simons, 1990; Prawat, 1989) and having strong relations between semantic, episodic and action knowledge. Ideally the connections both within and among these three kinds of representations are rich and strong. Furthermore, connections with the three kinds of knowledge representations in other domains are also important. Constructive learning builds on these connected representations. The main characteristics of constructive learning were formulated by Shuell (1988):
... (constructive) learning is an active, constructive (in a narrower sense), cumulative and goal directed process... It is active in that the student must do certain things while processing incoming information in order to learn the material in a meaningful manner. It is constructive in that new information must be elaborated and related to other information in order for the student to retain simple information and to understand complex material. It is cumulative in that all new learning builds upon and/or utilises the learner's prior knowledge in ways that determine what and how much is learned. It is goal oriented in that learning is most likely to be successful if the learner is aware of the goal (at least in a general sense) toward which he or she is working and possesses expectations that are appropriate for attaining the desired outcome (pp. 277-278).

/ Two additional characteristics of constructive learning we would add are that it is diagnostic and reflective. This means that learners should undertake activities like monitoring, self-testing and checking that help them diagnose and judge whether they are still pursuing the goal they had set. Moreover, it means that learners should be or become aware of their way of learning. Though these six characteristics form the core of constructive learning, this does not mean that all constructive learning can or should proceed according to all of these lines at the same time. Sometimes constructive learning is very active indeed, but at other times the amount and quality of activity drops to lower levels. Nobody can stay active all the time: activity levels naturally vary. Perhaps very active learning periods and more passive ones should follow each other for learners to hold on for longer periods of time. In a similar way constructive learning cannot be cumulative all the time. Sometimes prior learning confuses new learning so much that it is better to build a wall between the two. Moreover, if you do not have much prior knowledge in a certain domain it is impossible to learn cumulatively. Of course you may then use prior knowledge of a general nature or from other domains (analogies). Thus also the amount of cumulativity possible and desirable should and will vary across learning situations. Furthermore, learners

cannot learn constructively (in the narrower sense meant by Shuell) all the time. Sometimes you have to concentrate on the specific subject matter that you have to learn without elaborating and integrating too much. As shown by Pask (1976) some learners act as globetrotters, who go everywhere without finding a place to rest or stay: they relate everything with everything else and end in total chaos and confusion because they do not focus on details and procedures. Also, learning cannot and should not be goal directed all the time. Sometimes one should be satisfied with a global, general learning goal and let the learning environment guide discoveries. Sometimes it is even impossible to have clear learning goals: if there is no teacher to help formulate goals reachable in a certain amount of time, one can only know what goals are possible when one has become an expert in the field. Of course learning cannot be diagnostic all the time either. If a learner spends all the time diagnosing her own learning she has no time to learn. Focusing too much on one's state of mind may even hinder learning, as Kuhl (1983) showed. Finally, the argument also hold for our last characteristic reflectivity. In learning reflective periods should occur, but not continuously. The six characteristics of constructive learning thus do not form necessary conditions, that have to be fulfilled in all instances of constructive learning. Instead they should be seen as prototypical in the sense that when they are all present it is clear that learning is constructive. But if one or more fail to occur, learning still can be constructive. Still in our approach they are considered to be so important that they belong to the six core characteristics. Some other proposed characteristics of constructive learning are that learning is discovery oriented, contextual, problem oriented, case-based, social, and intrinsically motivated. Although discovery learning can be very powerful and constructive, re search and debates in the educational psychology of the 1960s has clearly shown that we should not confine learning to discovery learning alone. It is too time-consuming and inefficient (Ausubel, 1963). Discovery learning can have an important place in a sequence of learning processes (especially in the beginning phases to motivate and in the final stages when application is the goal of learning), but it should not be the only learning model. Similarly, contextualisation is not always desirable. It is true that many in stances of school learning are too decontextualised and many improvements can and should be made as to the contextualisation of school learning. Real-life and connections with applications are important aspects of constructive learning. However, contextualising knowledge representations with episodic and action representations are only two of many instances of constructive learning. Building strong connections within semantic, episodic or action representations form equally important instances of constructive learning. Forming connections between different domains of (semantic) is also valuable. Furthermore, sometimes there are problems when learning is too tightly bound to a particular context, as may

happen in job training, discovery learning and simulations. Under these circumstances, learning may remain bound to the context of the simulation, or some job contexts. The key problem is that there should be a balance between contextualisation and decontextualisation. Not the question whether there is contextualisation and decontextualisation, but their interrelations and their timing are the important issues in learning. Finally, we have serious doubts whether the sequence contextualisation first and decontextualisation afterwards, is the optimal sequence for all kinds of subject matter (see higher mathematics) and is the optimal one for all kinds of students (see also Prawat, 1989). Constructive learning often is problem oriented and case-based. Organising learning around problems and cases clearly is good for contextualisation and motivation. Problem orientation strengthens the connections between semantic and action representations. Cases connect episodic and semantic representations. It is doubtful, however, whether all learning should be and can be problem oriented and case-based. / The position that constructive learning is social or even that only social constructions of reality are possible has been strongly asserted. It is certainly true that learning together with other learners can be very powerful, allowing learners to help each other's construction processes (see for instance Palincsar and Brown, 1984). However, social learning can also be very ineffective and inefficient (see also Salomon, 1988). Some teams do not function well. Some people (for instance the author of this chapter) prefer to learn without social support. Some contents and domains do not lend themselves to social learning (see for instance Biemans and Simons, 1991). To some extent, social aspects of learning can also be built into teaching materials and computers. J The last characteristic to be considered is intrinsic motivation. Constructive learning can have some connections with intrinsic motivation, but many times it will not. Convincing arguments were put forward by Brophy (1988). It is not the kind of motivation that comes out of the materials and the environment that is the most important, but the motivation to learn. This means being motivated to find out certain things, to have a desire for knowledge, to like learning and to keep on learning even if its relevance is not immediately clear or when it gets boring. The points discussed before can be summarised as follows. Constructive earning strives for rich and varied memory representations both within and among the three kinds of memory representations and between different domains. Six characteristics are believed to be of primary importance without them being present necessarily all the time: that it is active, cumulative, constructive, goal-directed, diagnostic and reflective. Six other characteristics, being stressed in other theories are considered to be of secondary importance only: that constructive learning is discovery oriented, contextual, problem oriented, case based, social and intrinsically motivated.

Because constructive learning has to do with the building up of certain kinds of memory representations by learners themselves, they must play a very important role in their own learning. Only learners themselves possess the prior knowledge that should be used cumulatively. Only they can elaborate and integrate new knowledge in their own minds. It is up to them to diagnose their own learning. An outsider (like a teacher) can never have access to the inside of the learner's mind. Only a goal that learners themselves strives for counts. One can never force people to have goals they do not want to have. Finally, reflectivity also demands an active role of the learner. Therefore, we conclude that constructive learning presupposes a certain degree of self-regulated learning.

Socio-historical, socio-cultural theories

Separate from the American and Western-European theories treated above, there has been a rich tradition focusing on active learning in the former Soviet Union (van Parreren and Carpay, 1980). It started with the theory of Vygotsky (1978) in the beginning of this century. Vygotsky's most famous principle refers to the zone of proximal development. One should not look at what a child is able to do on its own at a certain moment of time, but what it is able to do with a little help from an expert and what it is able to learn: what can it understand and learn when it is helped by an adult. Education's main task is to help children develop their thinking by offering them help in the zone of proximal development. Mental activities (thinking) develop through internalisation of material activities. Therefore, learning to think is always proceeding from concrete material to the abstract, internal representations. / Vygotsky (1978) believed that mental activities develop in the individual human being as it developed in human evolution (phylogenesis). The sociohisto-rical or socio-cultural theory of the development of mental activities (thinking skills) assumes that they have a communicative origin. In the earliest days of humankind, so he reasoned, our predecessors first discovered the use of tools. Because of this, a division of labour became possible and necessary. Later on, they started to communicate about the tools. Various signs and verbal forms of communication became useful in sharing tools and in dividing tasks. The thinking skills developed further from the use of tools to communication about it. A similar developmental sequence from the concrete tool level via the verbal communicative to thinking skills, assumed Vygotsky, should be followed by human beings in their individual development (ontogenesis). Thus, material actions become verbalised and then internalised into mental actions (thinking). However, there are exceptions to the culturalhistorical developmental sequence. Through teaching experts (adults) can change the sequence of development. Human beings are fundamentally educable. Because of this, ontogenetic development can depart from

the phylogenetic sequence. The dialogue with experts is of fundamental impor tance in this individual development. A later successor of Vygotsky in the 1950s and 1960s was Galperin (1969; see van Parreren and Carpay, 1980), who developed and tested a concrete extension of Vygotsky's theory: the theory of the step-wise acquisition of mental activi ties. The teaching procedure consisted of five steps. First students should orient themselves. They should form a complete picture of the activity in its final form: its goal, the sub-steps involved, and so forth. One important assertion of Galperin (1969) was that orientation should always occur beforehand, that it should be complete and that it is best to build an orientation base in a discovery learning setting. The second step is that students should learn the concrete form of the activity (the material level). Thirdly, they should learn to verbalise what they are doing in executing the material activity. Gradually the material activity is skipped, then the verbalising is diminished and becomes whispering. Finally, the mental level is reached when whispering is skipped. Galperin thought that there are four independent parameters of mental activities: a) the level (concrete, verbal, mental); b) the extent of shortening (from very extensive to very shortened); c) the automaticity (from unsmooth to fluent and automatic and d) the generality (from specific to general). This means that one can practice at each of the three levels (concrete, verbal and mental) both the shortening, the automaticity and the generality independently. Research confirmed some of Galperin's claims but not all. Orientation, for instance, can also and sometimes should occur later on in the process. Complete orientation is not always necessary. The four parameters of mental activities proved not to be totally independent (Boekaerts and Simons, 1993). Engestrom is a recent Finnish successor of Galperin and Vygotsky who studied innovative learning processes in industrial settings. He described four characteristics of ideal learning processes and outcomes. Ideally, learning out comes are complete, holistic, represented in multiple ways, practical and social. Complete learning outcomes are integrated and functional in the sense that they are available for use. Outcomes are holistic when learners reach organised knowledge with strong internal and external relations; when they have a complete overview. Learning outcomes can take different representational forms: verbal, schematic, analogue, concrete, abstract, etc. Outcomes are practical when they can be applied. Finally, social outcomes can be shared with other people; when one can explain to others what one knows.An important concept in this respect is the community of practice. Learning and thinking, in Engestrom's view, are closely tied to the people who use the results of learning and thinking in a similar way. The culture of use determines the value of learning and thinking. Though developed somewhat independently, the characteristics of learning processes as described by theorists in the Russian tradition are similar to the characteristics that emerge from constructivist theory, as described earlier.

Some empirical evidence

Is there empirical evidence for the value of active learning and for the Constructivistic theories discussed before? Yes, there is. It is impossible to review all of that here. We confine our discussion to three classical experiments, which can serve as examples. Palincsar and Brown (1984) devised a teaching procedure, which they named "reciprocal teaching". Learning-disabled children learned how to comprehend texts by discussing text interpretations and text processing strategies in groups. The teacher and the students read text passages together and tried to make sense of them co-operatively. The students had to verbalise their interpretations and their way of thinking and understanding as explicitly as possible. Teaching and student roles were executed both by the students and the teacher, taking turns (that is why the procedure was called reciprocal). In that way the teacher could demonstrate her own thinking processes explicitly (acting as an expert model), at the same time forcing students to make their processes explicit. An important principle used in Palincsar's training was "scaffolding": gradually the students were made more responsible for their own reading comprehension. The results of the reciprocal teaching procedures in reading instruction were dramatical. Even students with severe reading problems improved their reading performance drastically and these improvements showed no deterioration over time. According to Paris (1988) the following characteristics are fundamental in reciprocal teaching: 1) model strategies explicitly; 2) model strategies in their usual context; 3) inform students of the need to use strategies and their utility; 4) make students realise that the strategies work for them; 5) transfer responsibility gradually; 6) gradual and challenging internalisation of strategies; 7) tailored feedback and encouragement. Schoenfeld (1985) also used forms of co-operative learning to teach mathe matical reasoning. Students solved mathematical problems in small groups. Through "naughty" questions posed by the teacher their thinking processes were made explicit and communicated to the teacher and fellow pupils. The procedure proved to be highly effective. In cognitive coaching the following is emphasized (see Paris, 1988): 1) shared goals and affect; 2) assessment and instruction linked; 3) demonstration and explanation provided; 4) responsibility shifted to students; 5) progress is personal and continuous. Scardamalia, Bereiter and Steinbeck (1984) used a direct explanation method to teach children how to write texts. By posing a series of questions to themselves during writing, students were forced to plan and regulate their writing explicitly and publicly. Writing performances improved substantially. Most important ingredients of the approach were: 1) direct modelling of strategies and regulations; 2) explanation of strategies and their utility; 3) emphasis on student's beliefs.

We may conclude that there is indeed some empirical evidence for the value of active learning, although the picture is far from complete. Many other studies have found similar results as the three summarised here. For example, Lodewijks (1981) showed that students learning science concepts in a selfchosen sequence performed better than students learning these concepts in a predetermined sequence. Likewise, van der Sanden (1986) showed that some students (especially the better performing ones) performed better on a practical construction task without instructions than with detailed and explicit advice. Newman and Wehlage (1995) report that students engaged in "authentic pedagogy" achieved significantly larger gains in mathematics and science. Further discussion of empirical evidence is found in Part III. Of course there is some counter-evidence too. Not all training studies were as effective as the ones described here (see Simons, 1994b). Overall, however, a firm empirical foundation is emerging. Barriers and conditions

Student factors impeding active learning

Several impediments to active learning have to do with student characteris tics. The first student factor concerns learning conceptions. As was shown by Vermunt (1987), among others, students differ in the way they see the fundamentals of learning and the division of tasks between teachers and students. Five kinds of conceptions could be discerned, with two fundamental underlying ideas: On the one hand there were students who regard learning as copying ideas and information out of books and the heads of teachers into their own heads. These students tend to see teachers as responsible for structuring presentations and assignments. On the other hand there were students who see learning as the construction of knowledge, which one can only do oneself. Teachers can help in this construction process, but they cannot do it for the student. Students with the first described conception will not engage in active learning on their own, because they wait for the teacher to do this for them. Van Rossum, Deijkers and Hamer (1985) claim that there is an almost perfect correlation between learning conceptions and learning activities. A second set of impediments to active learning has to do with learning goals. Many students do not think about the goals of learning, they take learning for granted (Salj, 1979; Thomas and Harri-Augstein, 1985). Therefore, they do not make their goals explicit, nor do they pay attention to the goals formulated in books. As a consequence of this, as was shown in our experiments, many students fail to vary their learning approach according to task demands and imposed learning goals. A related problem concerns students' perceptions of tests and exam demands. Many students report that they choose to learn on a superficial level be-

cause of the testing customs. Even if teachers value higher level goals, their test ing practices are often perceived by students as stressing lower level goals. Motivational, volitional and affective factors may also impede active learning. For instance, we have found students to be afraid of changing their learning approach. Some students, trying to reduce uncertainty, practice active learning in an unproductive way. Especially in secondary education we have found many instances of students over-learning facts and details many times, or underlining almost every word in a text, or copying translations ten or more times. Furthermore, students may fail to believe that active learning really "works" (i.e. that you can remember information just by thinking about it). Some students also believe that active learning requires too much effort or energy. Students who do not believe that they are able to learn in a active way and reach acceptable or even better results (lack of self confidence), may not even try to engage in it. Students who are too much mind-oriented in the sense described by Kuhl (1983) will not be able to be an active learner. Mind-orientation refers to fixations on certain parts of the regulation process: on previous failures, on previous successes, on goals or on planning. Because of these fixations, students are not able to regulate the whole process, consisting of evenly distributed attention to the beginning state, the end state, the difference between the end and the beginning state and possible ways to get from the beginning to the end state. Simons and Liew-On (1991) found mind-orientation to be correlated with impulsivity and field dependence. A fourth impediment concerns the skill of active learning itself. Students who do not use certain activities will lack the necessary learning skills (elaboration, analysing, etc.). Research on learning styles (Vermunt, 1987) suggests that many students use surface processing strategies. Some students explicitly say they have difficulty with active learning (Vermunt, 1987, 1992). Furthermore, there are some indications that many students lack the necessary metacognitive knowledge: they do not know what kinds of learning activities exist and when to use which ones. Many students also lack regulation skills. As shown by de Jong (1992), de Jong and Simons (1990) and Simons and Lodewijks (1987), students in secondary education often fail to plan or orient themselves. They start to think only when they encounter problems. Few students monitor, test and check their learning activities, in a way that is tuned to the learning goals. In addition, although some students may be ready to benefit from more active learning, there are also who will perform (even) worse when given more freedom and responsibility (Lodewijks, 1981; van der Sanden, 1986). Students who are not used to freedom and responsibility may not (yet) have the capabilities needed for independence. But once they have the capacity, it pays off: the most important result from studies done in our laboratory is that the amount of regulatory activity and especially the extent to which students tune the nature of their selftestings to the learning goals is a powerful predictor of performance (Simons and Lodewijks, 1987; de Jong, 1992).

Teacher factors inhibiting active learning Scardamalia and Bereiter described four teaching models and their corresponding core problems. The first teaching model emphasizes transmission of knowledge. Here the core problem is how to get in touch with the prior knowledge of the students, especially when they have only a small knowledge base. The second teaching model focuses on the acquisition of skills such as classification analysis and writing. The core problem is finding connections of the skills with relevant contexts of use. The third teaching model emphasizes the motivational powers of letting students find their own way and giving spontaneous development a chance. The core problem is how teaching can add value to what grows naturally. The final teaching model focuses on the role of teaching in changing student's fundamental underlying conceptions and mental models. This is very difficult to realise, partly because it is a combination of the forementioned teaching models with the consequence of having to deal with all three of the core teaching problems. For all the core problems, there are sub-optimal solutions, which beginning teachers tend to choose instead of fully solving the relevant core problem. Scardamalia and Bereiter describe seven of these sub-optimal solutions. The prior knowledge problem is solved in three sub-optimal ways. Sometimes, teachers cover the subject matter instead of relating to students' prior knowledge, sometimes they are satisfied when students show a limited kind of understanding without grasping the real world implications (verbalism). Sometimes teachers solve the prior knowledge problem by selecting only a few topics that interest students. The context problem has 2 related sub-optimal solutions: focusing on task goals instead of learning goals and teaching of pseudo skills. In the first case teachers tend to focus on task performance instead of learning. In the second case there is a temptation to convert other, more complex educational objectives to skill learning objectives. Thus, in place of difficult concept teaching, we may see training in "classification skills" or "reasoning skills. Although such skills may sound important, there is often not much behind them except quite trivial exercises" (p. 41). Finally, there are two sub-optimal teaching strategies related to the natural development approach: environmentally driven teaching and giving primacy to activities and interests. In the first, teachers spend (too) much time in arranging the environmental context. In the second, they simplify teaching by narrowing the choice of topics to activities and interests of students with the risk of excluding important educational goals. Although it is perfectly possible to make distinctions between the four teaching models theoretically, in practice there is usually a mixture of all of the models. Therefore, all of the three core problems may play a role in complex teaching approaches. In all cases, learning by students is less active than might have. Thus, sub-optimal solutions to core teaching problems by teachers tend to inhibit

active learning. Borkowski and Mutukrishna (1992) described metacognitive models of learning of teachers that form obstacles to active learning. Many teachers believe that learning occurs when students reach a certain task goal by doing what the teacher says. For instance, one tells a student to solve some problems in a text book. However, this simple belief ignores the development of students' metacognitive capacity and self-regulation skills. Teachers may hesitate to hand over responsibility to their students because the students are not prepared for it but this keeps the students perpetually unprepared. Larsson (1983) found that some teachers would like to give students more freedom to learn, but do not believe that students are able to handle this freedom. For their part, some students believe that only the teachers should make decisions on learning and seem to hand over all responsibility to the teachers. What seems to happen in many instructional situations is that teachers or parents feel obliged to take over learning activities, because they observe that students are not able to execute them on their own. For instance, teachers expecting their students to make their own notes using their schematizing and structurizing abilities, soon discover that many of the students are not able to make adequate notes. Then they feel obliged to take over by literally dictating the notes. Because of this these students never learn how to take notes independently and the circle closes. Other obstacles are lack of teaching materials for active learning, and the pressure of exams. Publishers and text books are, generally not suited for active learning. Teachers, therefore, have to find and develop them on their own, taking much time and energy. Finally, examination requirements may inhibit active learning. Teachers often believe, rightly or not, that material that will appear on exams must be taught through lectures. This is connected with the fact that many teachers consider themselves in the first place expert in a certain field and only in the second place a professional communicator and educator. Especially at the second level, they learn in and about their domain, but much less about how to promote student learning. Other factors impeding active learning Parental expectations can be an obstacle. Many parents do not expect their children to learn how to learn, they expect good grades. They expect schools to be as they were in their own time. They expect certain roles of teachers. Parents also can "spoil" attempts of schools to develop learning competence by helping their children too much or in the wrong way. Schools as organisations can also be potent inhibiting factors. For one thing, schools are often just a collection of professionals working individually. Without co-operation among teachers it is very difficult to change teaching meth-

ods so that students become active learners. The school itself must become a lear ning organisation (see OECD, 1994). Conclusions There are multiple definitions of active learning. One definition emphasizes self-regulation by learners of the various phases of the learning process, which include, among others, goal-setting, planning, monitoring, and assessment. Self-regulated learning leads to construction of new knowledge in the learner's mind. Active learning has been of interest during several periods of this century, but the present wave of attention to active learning differs from the previous ones. Its spread now seems to be much broader, there is more integration of active learning with metacognition and learning to learn, and there is more elaborated theory and supporting evidence. Constructivist learning theory forms a good background for instruction aimed at active learning. American, European and Russian theories and research show that it is possible to teach students how to learn, that this is effective and leads to performance improvement. The spread of active learning in schools can be impeded by many factors in students, teachers, and schools. One way out of the many problems that can occur is to begin by helping students acquire the capacity for self-regulated learning. Encouragement of innovation, professional development of teachers, teamwork and organisational learning seem necessary to overcome the many barriers to active learning. Encouragement of innovation, professional development of teachers, teamwork and organisational learning seem necessary to overcome the many barriers to active learning.

Chapter I.3 STUDY PROCEDURES D. Stern

The study was conducted by researchers in eight countries, convened and coordinated by CERI. In Australia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Spain, the researchers received financial support for this study from their national governments. In Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, researchers relied on their existing resources. Researchers met for two days in February, 1994 to work out detailed study procedures. Since the study's main purpose was to provide a consistent set of benchmarks for describing the practice of active learning in different places, the first objective of that meeting was to develop a protocol for classroom observation, which is reproduced below. The basic idea of the protocol is to record the extent to which students take responsibility for each phase of the learning process, as outlined in Chapter I.2. Students may exercise such responsibility either as individuals or in groups (see Chapters III.l and III.2). Because this research was limited to observation of students' activities, rather than intensive interviews with individual students, the categories in the observation protocol reflect behaviour that is visible (and audible) to an observer in the classroom, but the protocol does not capture cognitive or metacognitive processes that occur silently in students' minds. In most of the study sites, the recording of classroom observation data on laptop computers was done using a data entry program written for the purpose by Gnter Huber, who presents some analysis of the data in Chapter III.l. A brief description of each classroom observation was also written in narrative form, following the categories of the observation protocol. Some of these narratives are excerpted in Part II. The topics outlined in the classroom observation protocol also served as a guide for interviews with students and teachers. Students were asked about their experience in some of the classrooms that were observed, using questions that paralleled the observation protocol. Teachers of these classes were also asked a corresponding set of questions pertaining to students' experience. In addition, teachers were interviewed about their own experience as active learners in their professional lives, applying the same definition of active learning. The guidelines for teacher interviews about their own learning are reproduced below.

Most of the classrooms observed were selected for observation because they were thought to provide examples of active learning in a relatively advanced stage. Since there is no available sampling frame that contains information about the extent of active learning, the resulting sample of classrooms cannot be assumed to represent the whole population, or even to include the most advanced practice in a particular country. Researchers had to rely on their own networks, and on recommendations from various sources. The sample of classrooms therefore represents the result of an informed but informal search for examples of active learning. Data collection took place in the Spring and Fall of 1994. In total, 74 classrooms were observed in 28 schools. (The study also included an educational pro gram in the United States sponsored by a corporation during the summer; see Chapter II.10). There were 27 classrooms in England, 23 in Australia, 7 in the United States (not including the corporate summer school), 5 in Germany, and 3 each in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Spain. Classrooms in Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands were each observed more than once, so the total number of separate observation sessions was 123. Reports from the research teams in each country described the national or local context of the study, presented the data from observations and interviews, and analysed the findings with respect to active learning by students and teachers. These reports are listed among the references at the end of the book and are available from the authors. Names of the authors are given in Part III, which contains excerpts from the full reports. Here is the classroom observation protocol, which formed the backbone of th e study. Items marked by asterisks were expected to be marked for every obser-ation session; others would be marked only if the indicated event actually occurred. Following the observation protocol are the guidelines for the interviews with teachers about their own active learning as professionals.

PROTOCOL FOR CLASSROOM OBSERVATION G: Student involvement in setting goals

(Gl) Teacher asks students to write or state what they would like to learn:

Students are asked individually. Students are asked in small groups. Whole class is asked to discuss.

(G2) Teacher asks students what they would like to do in order to achieve a learning goal:
Students are asked individually. Students are asked in small groups. Whole class is asked to discuss.

(G3) During an activity, teacher asks students what is the purpose of the activity:

Students are asked individually. Students are asked in small groups. Whole class is asked to discuss.

(G4) Teacher tries to discover students' interests by proposing possible activities and asking students' responses. (G5) Student asks teacher what is the purpose of a current or planned activity. (G6) Student asks another student what is the purpose of a current or planned activity. (G7) Without immediate prompting by the teacher, student writes or states the purpose of a current or planned activity. (G8) Teacher explains purpose of current or planned activity. (G9) Discussion includes relevance of new knowledge to a context outside of school. (G10) Other aspect of goal-setting: (describe) T: Task structure (Tl)* Choice of task activity:
Teacher decides what all students do. Teacher decides what some students do, gives others some choice. Students choose task from a set of choices given by teacher: Students choose as individuals. Students choose as small groups. Whole class chooses. Students design their own task: As individuals. In small groups. As a whole class. - Students and teacher jointly design and negotiate task:

Each student individually. Students in small groups. Whole class.

T2)* Choice of task format:

- Teacher decides that students will work individually, in small groups, or as a whole class. - Whole class decides that they will work individually, in small groups, or as a whole class. - Students choose individually whether to work by themselves or in small groups.

(T3)* Task differentiation:

All students work on same task. All students within each small group work on same task, but tasks differ across groups: Some tasks are clearly easier than others. All tasks have approximately equal difficulty. - All small groups work on same task, but individual students have different responsi bilities within groups: Some tasks are clearly easier than others. All tasks have approximately equal difficulty. - Small groups work on different tasks, and individual responsibilities differ within groups (e.g., jigsaw): Some tasks are clearly easier than others. All tasks have approximately equal difficulty.

( T4)* Task activity requires co-operative effort: Among individuals within whole class.
Among individuals within small groups, but not across groups. Both within and across small groups.

(T5) Students are given incentives other than grades or marks. T6) Individual students' grades or other rewards depend on performance of other students:
In small group. In class as a whole.

(T7)* Number of students in whole class: (actual number).

(T8)* Number of students in each small group: (actual numbers, or 0 if no small groups)
(T9)* Duration of small group membership: Zero (no small groups) Less than a day. One day. More than one day but less than a week. One week. More than one week but less than a month. More than a month. (T10)* How members are assigned to small groups: No small groups. Students choose. Teacher chooses. Students negotiate with teacher.

(Tl 1)* How tasks are assigned to students: All students do same task.
Teacher assigns individual students different tasks based on students' level of performance. Individual students choose tasks. Choice is determined jointly by students and teacher.

(Tl 2) Students are expected to work together outside of class time: In same small groups as in class. In other groupings. (T13) Other observations about student involvement in task structure: (describe) I: Accessing information (I1 )* Sources of information that is new to students: Teacher. Textbook.
Supplemental printed materials brought to class by teacher. Movies, slides, video or sound recordings brought to class by teacher. Other teachers or school staff. Computerised data base or CDROM accessible at school. Printed or recorded (including computerised) sources discovered independently by students.

Communication by students with knowledgeable people outside the school: Face to face. By telephone. By paper mail. By electronic mail.

I 2) * Exposure of students to new information: Whole class all at once. Small groups. Individual students.

(I3)

Do students spend time away from school during the school day?
No. Yes, individually. Yes, in small groups. Yes, as a whole class.

(I4) Other aspects of access to new information: (describe)

P: Process of work and learning
(P1)* Students interact with teacher by: No interaction with teacher. Indicating when they do not understand. Asking why they went wrong. Stating what they do not understand. Asking about relationship of current material to previous learning. Stating relationship between current material and previous learning. Suggesting alternative explanations, interpretations, or procedures. Expressing and justifying disagreement with teacher or text. (P2)* Small-group interactions among students without teacher: No small groups. Getting organised. Exchanging information. Explaining or elaborating ideas. Checking other members' answers against answer key. Encouraging other team members. Expressing frustration with task. Expressing frustration with other team members.

(P3)* Individual work:

No individual work. Students read without making marks or notes. Students read and make marks on text or write notes.

Students work on written problems or work sheets. Students check their own answers. Students write. Students work with non-print materials.

(P4)* Degree of engagement by students:

All or most students are actively engaged in the work. Some students are actively engaged, but some are not engaged. Most students are not actively engaged.

(P5)* Teacher's role:

Centre of attention for the whole class all or most of the time. Mainly working with individuals or small groups. Mainly on the sidelines, available when called upon by students.

(P6) Hypothesis formulation and testing:

Students generate hypotheses to answer a question or explain something. Students explore and refine hypotheses. Students discuss how hypotheses might be tested. Students actively test hypotheses.

(P7) Other aspects of work and learning process: (describe)

O: Outcomes of work

(Ol)* Is the product of students' work used for some purpose other than to pro mote student learning:
Yes, by students themselves individually. Yes, by students themselves collectively. Yes, by students' families. Yes, by someone other than students or their families. No, the product is not actually used but it could be used potentially.

(O2) Other aspect of work outcomes: (describe)

A: Assessment of learning and learning process
(Al) Teacher asks students to write or state what they have learned: Students are asked individually. Students are asked in small groups. Whole class is asked to discuss.

A2) Without immediate prompting by the teacher, student writes or states what has been learned. A3) Teacher asks students to write or state how what they have just learned relates to what they learned before: Students are asked individually. Students are asked in small groups. Whole class is asked to discuss. A4) Without immediate prompting by the teacher, student writes or states how what has just been learned relates to previous learning. A5) Range of learning outcomes discussed by students: Cognitive. Affective. Social. A6) Discussion includes learning outcomes that were unpredicted:
Cognitive. Affective.

Social. A7) Range of learning outcomes on which teacher gives feedback to students:
Cognitive. Affective. Social.

A8) Range of learning outcomes on which students give feedback to one an other:
Cognitiv e. Affective . Social.

A9) If students work in small groups, assessment includes identification of each student's contribution to result for the group. A10)* Performance standards are: Not used.
Defined by students themselves: Individually. Collectively. Determined by agreement between students and teacher. Defined by the teacher. Set by authorities outside the classroom.

(Al1) Students reflect on causes of success or failure to achieve learning goals: Individually. In small groups. As a whole class. (A 12) Students write or talk about how to improve their performance: Individually. In small groups. As a whole class. (A 13) Students discuss effectiveness of task structure orjearning process for achieving goals. (A 14) Students discuss how the task structure or learning process might be made more effective. (A15) If students work in small groups, assessment includes whether the group functioned effectively. (A16) Other aspect of assessment: (describe).

QUESTIONS FOR TEACHER INTERVIEW ABOUT TEACHERS' ACTIVE LEARNING

Involvement in setting goals During the current or previous school year, have you been involved in intro ducing any new teaching methods or materials in your classroom? Please de-rcribe. Who initiated these efforts? What was your own role in taking this initia-tive? What was the role of other teachers? Administrators? Others? Task structure Once the decision was made that you would learn something new, who decided how the learning activity would be organised? How are decisions made about release time, meetings, use of the school's budget for staff development, or work during the summer? Are other teachers, administrators, or others involved decisions that affect you? How are your learning activities tied to shared teaching responsibilities, if any (describe)? During the current or previous school year, what are the most significant professional development activities in which you have participated? What was significant about them? When and where did these activities take place? Who else was involved? What are the main motivations for you to learn new teaching methods or develop new materials? Are there any external incentives? Accessing information What are your main sources of information for developing new teaching methods or materials? Give specific examples, if any, of information obtained from other teachers in the school, administrators, in-service activities, courses or conferences, friends or networks outside the school, community members, professional journals or other publications. Process of work and learning What is the most significant change in your teaching that you have made in the current or previous school year? What was significant about it? How did you

find out about the new practice? How did you decide you were ready to make this change? Did anyone else participate in your decision? What kind of support, if any, did you receive? Was this change related to any of the professional development activities you described earlier? Does your method, style, or philosophy of teaching differ from other teach ers in this school or district? If so, how is your way of teaching perceived by other teachers, and by administrators and parents?
Outcomes

In addition to yourself and your students, do other teachers in this school or any other colleagues benefit from hearing about what you have learned and the changes you have made? Are you and your students engaged in projects that benefit the community in any way?
Assessment of learning and learning process

How do you assess the effects of new teaching practices or materials on students? Are any assessment criteria given to you, or do you develop your own? Cognitive, affective, social? Short-term results in class, or longterm results (e.g., examinations)? Do you work with other teachers on this? Do you discuss how to improve the results? Thinking about the changes you have made during the present or previous school year, were the results what you expected? Did you learn anything that surprised you? Please explain. Has your theory or philosophy of education changed in the past year or two? How? Is there any assessment of the process by which you and other teachers in your school learn to develop new teaching methods and materials? Please describe. If you work with other teachers, do you discuss how your teamwork could become more effective?

PART II EXAMPLES OF ACTIVE LEARNING IN EIGHT COUNTRIES

Chapter II.l AUSTRALIA

M. Baum, K. Dohring and P. Eckert

The research into Active Learning in Australia, undertaken in six schools, focu sed predominantly on the operation of groups of active learners rather than on individuals' active learning. The research was premised on the view that active learning involves students actively participating in groups, teams and partnerships for a shared purpose which has meaning and some immediate significance for the learners within their particular social context. In all, a total of forty five lessons were observed during the period of the research. To provide an image of active learning in Australia, four classroom lessons will be described here, along with the active learning engaged in by the teachers of these lessons. National policy context

At a national level the government's intention to develop Australia's international competitiveness through the linking of economic restructuring with workriace reform has placed education at the forefront of the national reform agenda. In the years since 1989 when all states and territories completed the negotiations to achieve the Common and Agreed National Goals of Schooling (the Hobart Declaration), two key national education initiatives have emerged: the Statements and Profiles for Australian Schools and the Employment Related Key Competencies. Both initiatives have directed educational thinking and resourcing towards ensuring that education and training assist in developing an intelligent and flexible workforce (the "clever country") which can readily adapt to the fast changing world of the technologically oriented twenty-first century. While the States and Territories of Australia differ in the manner by which these intentions are achieved, the desired outcomes are the same. To achieve such educational and workplace reform strong emphasis is given t o the use of collaborative learning approaches for both students and teachers. Active learning methodology is seen as one of the keys to ensuring a successful transition from school to work for our current generation of students.

Other national initiatives which have assisted in promoting active learning approaches have originated from the National Project on the Quality of Teaching and Learning (NPQTL). These included: National Schools Project: involving approximately 300 schools across Australia which engaged in school review, reform and restructuring pro grams to develop more effective ways to deliver teaching and learning. Australian Teaching Council: conducting regular vacation schools for teachers, with workshops that encourage participants to question their cur rent teaching and learning practise. National Professional Development Program: encouraging collaborative professional development ventures between schools, education authorities, unions and tertiary institutions to explore more productive and efficient in-service education and training delivery for teachers. Port Pirie high school: students build a data base on smoking Pt. Pirie is an industrial city of 15 000 people situated 226 kilometres north of Adelaide in South Australia. The major economic activity of the city is lead smelting. Pt. Pirie High School has an enrolment of 480 students from year 8 to year 12 and is currently amalgamating with another secondary school in the city, to form a secondary college. Pt. Pirie High has been a National Schools Project School for the past three years. Approximately 54 per cent of the students are on government assistance and significant ethnic minority groups are Greek students (6 per cent) and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (4 per cent). The school has focused on restructuring its Junior Secondary section with the grouping of its 38 teachers into Learning Teams. Continuity of teachers and class groupings across years 8 and 9 is encouraged. The development and training of teacher learning teams is a school priority. A feature of these teams is the strong emphasis given to teaching students the strategies for collaborative learning at the beginning of each school year.

Class: the lesson described here was given to a year 9 mixed ability and gender class of 20 students, aged 14-15 years. The class has been together for almost 2 years. Teacher: Glenys Whalley, an experienced teacher of 20 years, who has been at Pt. Pirie High for 5 years. Glenys was teaching Health and Per sonal Development, Technology Studies, Computing and Business Educa tion and has been working with this class for nearly two years. During this time all the Learning Team members who have taught the classes have

placed considerable emphasis on teaching strategies to support collabora tive learning. Lesson Objective: the class was to develop a set of computerised data bases containing information elicited from group discussions on the topic of smoking. This Health and Personal Development lesson was undertaken in two stages. The lesson was conducted in a school computing centre with group discussions taking place in an adjacent corridor area. Lesson Outline: the lesson was timed to coincide with a national "quit smoking" campaign. It was a topic in which students were keen to contrib ute their views. The lesson began with the teacher outlining the task, the computing arrangements and the time available. Groups had been preselec ted by the teacher and each group had to nominate leaders and recorders for their initial discussions. During the first group activity the teacher moved among groups, monitoring their understanding of the topic. Students sought clarification on the topic when required. In every group, discussion centred around how they could obtain reliable and honest information from their peers. When the whole class reconvened, a quick report from each group identified six specific categories for the data base. Small groups collated details from group members on each of the data base categories. The whole class group then moved to the computing room. Each group nominated students to take on data base entry and data base designer roles. Students then split into pairs to work on the computers and eventually completed data bases containing information from the small groups. Following the topics in the classroom observation protocol (Chapter I.3), students' engagement in active learning can be described as follows:

Goal setting: whole class discussions were held early each term to establish topic outlines for their term's work in this course on Health and Personal Development. Task structure: although the topic for the lesson had been negotiated earlier with the students, the format of the task was initiated by the teacher. Group membership was determined by the teacher for this task, though she indi cated that friendship groups were used at other times. Each group selected leaders and recorders for the lesson. When the whole class reconvened each time, students were able to comment on group contributions. While no grades or marks were awarded during the lesson, the teacher used posi tive reinforcement to recognise achievement consistently throughout the lesson. Accessing information: in this lesson the teacher planned for students to use information which was relevant to their daily lives: their existing be-

liefs, knowledge and association with smoking. The use of small group activities enabled students to share ideas and experiences. New information from the teacher was generally presented to the class as a whole group unless small groups or individuals requested clarification. Students were encouraged to share information freely with each other. Process of work and learning: the class was well practised in strategies to undertake group activities successfully. Group skills instruction for students had been a priority for the teacher Learning Team. The teacher in this lesson continually moved from group to group, listening to their discussions, providing responses when requested and in one instance giving firm guidance about the task students were expected to complete. Only when the class came together as a whole group did she take a central role. Due to students interest in the topic there were lively small group discussions about peer and family views on smoking. The teacher actively encouraged this form of debate. Outcomes of work: a feature of this lesson was the preparation of a data base on "smoking" which would be used by other Year 8/9 classes. Assessment of teaching and learning process: during the lesson, the teacher observed the interactions and output of each group. These observations form part of her assessment of each student's social learning skills. At the conclusion of the lesson students were asked to make some comments about their group's effort and achievements and about the areas where they could improve their group work skills. When students were working in pairs on data base preparation, interaction and sharing of ideas with other pairs was encouraged. No assessments were made by students about how the task and its structure could be improved for future lessons. On completion of the data base, the final assessment was based on the joint effort of each working pair, not on individual work.
Canadian Lead primary school: "Robin Dwarf and the Seven Hoods"

The second school described here, Canadian Lead Primary, is located in Ballarat East, about 100 kilometres north of Melbourne in the State of Victoria. Ballarat has a population of 78 500 and the school serves a community which has high unemployment and over 60 per cent of families on government support. The school was formed in 1992 after the amalgamation of three local primary schools. The current student population of 375 is spread across 2 school sites which are 4 kilometres apart. The school has a teaching staff of 22. Canadian Lead has been a National Schools Network school for the past three years, and in this time has focused on organisational and structural issues associated with the establishment of the amalgamated schools. This has involved

the formation of five teacher work teams across the school and the grouping of c lasses to enable team teaching and shared teacher release time for cooperative planning. A decision making structure has been established which supports the " work team" structures. The operation of a series of specialist teaching programmes in Physical education, Science and Technology, Computing, Music and Japanese enables teams of teachers to be released together each week for cooperative planning. Class: the observed lesson took place in a class combining kindergarten with years 1 and 2 in a mixed gender group of 25 students, aged from 5 to 7. The use of multi-age classes in the early years of schooling is common practice across most states in Australia. The class includes a student with severe physical and learning disabilities for two days each week. Teacher: Kerry Skewes, an experienced lower primary teacher who has been at the school for 3 years. Kerry was teaching the class three days a week in tandem with another teacher. Lesson objective: the development of class/group co-operative skills as part of a language activity. Lesson outline: earlier in the day the class had seen a visiting arts troupe perform a play, "Robin Dwarf and the Seven Hoods". This was used as the basis for an activitybased language lesson. The lesson was structured to ensure students used group collaboration skills which they had been taught regularly throughout the year. The lesson began with the whole class group seated on the floor in front of the teacher as she described the task on which each small group would work. Students were asked to restate the skills required to work effectively in groups before they began their tasks. Class comments about the significant parts of the play were encouraged and the class was obviously excited by the performance. The tasks for each group were to discuss the play and agree on what they thought was the best part, write a sentence about this and then as a group decide what illustrations they would use to depict that part of the play. Members of each group were actively working, talking and sharing ideas. Older students were observed encouraging the younger ones at various times. A Year 2 student commented to the other Year 2 students as they moved to their group area, "When we are in our group we will need to sit next to the preps (Kindergarteners). That way we can help them to cut out and if they get stuck." Another group was having difficulty in reaching consensus over what theme they would use to illustrate their display due to differences of opinion between two older students. A group member said, "You know that the teacher won't help us if we are arguing so we better work it out quickly ourselves." As a result the group agreed to incorporate all their ideas and illustrations into their

display. This result was assisted by the comment, "We have to finish this by 10.00 am and we only have 15 minutes before recess. Let's get on with it." At the conclusion of the lesson each group displayed their work to the rest of the class and commented on how they worked as a group. Each group was asked to identify something which they could improve in the area of group work skills. Comments included, "We took too long to decide what we were going to do and who was going to do what part." "Two of us wanted to do the same part (Robin Dwarf). It took a long time to sort it out." In response to the teacher's question about how they resolved the issue they replied," We decided to do it together so we asked the group if it was OK."
Students' responsibility for various phases of the learning process

Goal setting: while students were not actively involved in goal setting in this lesson, both teachers of the class use student interests as the basis of their daily programmes, as this lesson based on the performance shows. Topics to be taught in the classroom will change direction and focus de pending on students interests. Task structure: students worked in "table groups" which were made up of Prep, Year 1 and 2 children. These groups are determined by the teachers and form the basis for most of the group work within the class throughout the year. The tasks for this lesson were selected by the teacher, and chil dren's choices were deliberately limited to choosing the part of the play to write about and the style of presentation the group would use. Students allocated the tasks within their groups, (drawing, pasting, cutting, etc.) ac cording to ability and a sense of supporting each other was evident to the observer. The presentation of each group's work to the class was used as the assessment of the group's effort. No marks or grades were given. Accessing information: a whole class discussion to review work from a previous lesson and to explain the new tasks preceded the group activities. A parent and a school support staff member were in the room to provide assistance to groups and to work with the integrated student. The students regularly used these visitors to clarify ideas. Younger students used the older students in their groups to gain assistance. Process of work and learning: the students were highly motivated by both the topic and the task structure. Questions and discussions readily flowed between students and to the adults in the room. During the lesson, Kerry moved between groups giving assistance only when it was essential to stu dents' understanding of the task. Students were encouraged to work out

problems and differences of opinion between themselves. Students were clear in their understanding of group collaboration strategies. Outcomes of work: the work prepared by students was displayed around the classroom. Assessment of learning and teaching process: each group was responsible for completing, explaining and displaying their work to the class. A spokesperson from each group commented on their product and spoke about how their group operated and where improvements could be made. A self assessment scaled 0 to 10 was sought from each group on their effort and product. Kerry was monitoring student learning as she moved around the room; in this instance in particular she was observing the motor skill development of the younger children. Kerry commented that "sometimes in a group the younger less co-ordinated children are left out or given the unimportant tasks. The group needs to be encouraged to be more inclusive of each other and sensitive to their needs. I suppose my role is to monitor this and provide encouragement to groups that display such processes".
Groups of Teachers as Active Learners at Port Pirie and Canadian Lead

In these first two examples of active learning, both teachers were members of teaching teams. These teams had been established as a result of each school examining its current practice and designing more creative ways for teachers and students to work effectively together. Both Glenys and Kerry believed that their own learning increased as they became active partners in these change processes. School leadership, in both cases, provided structures and support which encouraged new learning. In each case senior staff modelled collaborative practices which reinforced teachers' work in the use of group processes in the classroom. Opportunities to attend professional development courses were available and attendance was encouraged by senior staff. For Glenys the opportunity to multiskill herself in a new teaching field I Technology Studies) proved challenging and allowed her to work more intensively with students in Year 8 and 9. Her increased opportunity to learn and use new technology skills was shown in the use of data bases in the lesson described above, and contributed to integrating the curriculum. Glenys commented that rnultiskilling had given her the confidence and drive to use a range of teaching methods in her lessons. This was shown by taking a computing lesson,integrating it with the Health program and incorporating group activities as part of the lesson format. "Previously I would have sat students down at the computers and taught the lesson. Now I look for ways to build in other subjects and use practices that engage students more in their learning."

For Kerry the school's commitment to encouraging teachers as researchers was a significant event in her professional learning. The area of research chosen by Kerry was in collaborative learning approaches with a mixed-age class. Aided by a collection of books and articles on her desk, Kerry was able to explain a number of approaches and ideas she had instituted to assist both herself and the class in developing collaborative learning behaviours. These approaches and outcomes would form the basis of her small scale classroom research. Kerry commented that, "the ability to choose your own area of research is exciting. It certainly has added a new dimension to my daily teaching." For both teachers, the opportunity to work alongside their teaching team peers for planning and reflecting on their teaching was vital in reinforcing their beliefs about the value of collaborative learning practices. This was shown by their continual interest in searching out current literature, training options and opportunities to observe collaborative learning. Both teachers were emphatic that their own teaching had benefited and changed through this collaboration with peers. Lessons were structured differently, the teachers were no longer the center of the class, and students were given a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning and assessment. These teachers enjoyed the challenge of continuous improvement.
St. Pius X: electrical connections

St. Pius is a Catholic primary school, located 8 kilometres north-east of Adelaide in South Australia. It has a teaching staff of 25 with an enrolment of 370 students. The school is located in area with a predominance of government housing and high unemployment. St. Pius was established in 1962 when the local community was a thriving middle class, largely Italian population, but in recent years the school community has grown significantly in cultural diversity 46 per cent white Australian, 23 per cent third generation Italian and several non-English speaking background groups Vietnamese, Polish, Filipino, Lebanese, South African and Iranian. The Catholic ethos is central to the school's operation. Parents who choose this school are choosing an education for their children "for participation in the church and world communities today." (Catholic Schools Vision Statement).

Class: the lesson described here was given to a year 4 mixed gender class (ages 9-10 years) of 27 students. Teacher: Jo Brennen, a teacher of 5 years experience. Jo has been at St. Pius for one year. Her previous 4 years of were spent in contract teach ing appointments in a variety of schools.

Lesson Topic: electricity and Currents. This was the third lesson in a series on this topic. Lesson objective: students working in small groups were to choose a task from a prearranged set of topic goals, complete the task and explain and record the processes used. Lesson outline: in a previous lesson, the students as a whole class group had negotiated a list of goals to achieve in this topic area and the criteria they would use to assess this understanding. The goal for each class mem ber was to: construct a circuit to a light bulb; make a mind map about electricity; construct a switch; explain what a conductor and insulator are; make something using a circuit with the group; design four different circuits; learn to record information as you go with drawing informa tion. The criteria to demonstrate an understanding included: explain in writing how to make a circuit; explain what are conductors and insulators; explain the function of electricity; list five types of electricity; design a pamphlet -- due Monday week 9; demonstrate co-operative skills. For this lesson, students in groups of three selected a common goal from the class list. Students allocated themselves roles - Occupational Health and Safety Officer (safety), Experiment Documenter (recorder), Hypothesiser and Commodities Co-ordinator (resourcer). Using the materials already set out by the teacher, the groups enthusiastically began work. The lesson was one of high energy with students on task all the time. Often cries of, "We've got it!" or "Hey, that's it!" were heard as they achieved success. The lesson was videotaped by the teacher as she moved from group to group. The video was to show students what other groups were doing and to show parents at a later stage. Students were observed, in particular the hypothesiser in each group, asking questions like, "Why did this work?" and "How can we alter or improve this?" Midway through the lesson the teacher reconvened the whole class to review progress and to remind the class of the time and tasks. An assessment of group processes on a 10-point scale was sought from each group. Students were clear about what had worked and the reasons why others hadn't worked. To assist groups a negotiation chart was displayed on the wall. These negotiation processes had been agreed upon by the class in a previous les-

son. One group used the chart to resolve an issue during the lesson when it was unable to reach agreement over their task. Students' participation in active learning can be described as follows:

Goal setting: the class established learning goals and criteria at the begin ning of this series of lessons. Each of the lessons gave students the oppor tunity to complete and assess one or more of these goals. The goals related to both instructional content and collaborative processes. Task structure: group membership was determined by the teacher to ensure that heterogeneous groups were always in place throughout this seriesof lessons. The students were very proud of their work in groups and ex pressed great satisfaction at being able to work in this manner for about 70 per cent of the time. The initial work on establishing class learning goals for the topic allowed groups to operate on different tasks. Within each group students allocated responsibilities. The teacher monitored the distri bution of these roles so that all students had turns at different roles. Groups were asked to ensure that individual accountability was evident for all members. When allocating equipment, only enough for each group to work co-operatively was provided. No grades or marks were to either groups or students, but positive feedback and the ability to review their efforts on video were seen as suitable feedback options. Accessing information: the teacher, printed resources and other students were the main sources of new information. As the topic was into its third lesson students commented on gaining new information on electricity when talking to parents about their work at school. Process of work and learning: throughout the lesson students showed they had a very positive view of themselves as learners. They were able to ask questions and seek help from the teacher and peers. The teacher resisted answering too readily and used reflective questioning techniques with stu dents to enable them to explore the topic more fully. Outcomes of work: the videotaping of the lesson enabled the students to reflect on their efforts, as individuals and in groups, as well as allowing parents to view their children's work. Assessment of Learning and Teaching Process: students were actively in volved in their own assessment in both the cognitive and social domains. The use of learning logs to record achievements and the opportunity to measure their learning against a set of criteria the class had established was viewed by students as "real learning".

Reservoir District Secondary College: cubes in groups Reservoir District Secondary College is a multi-campus state secondary college formed in 1992 through the amalgamation of three neighbouring secondary schools. The college is located 16 kilometres north east of the city of Melbourne, near La Trobe University in the state of Victoria. The community served by the college has a high unemployment rate, high proportion of single-parent families and has approximately 48 per cent of students from non-English speaking backgrounds, representing 18 different language groups. The major language groups are Greek, Macedonian, Italian and Arabic. About 54 per cent of students currently receive government assistance. The campus involved in this study was Kingsbury campus, with a student population of 415, Years 7-10, and a staff of 40. As a member of the National Schools Network, the school was focusing on the development of Year 7 teaching teams and more effective student/teacher relationships. This had led to a reorganisation to reduce the number of teachers with which Year 7 students had contact by having a team of teachers responsible for the core subjects. It was anticipated that the team of teachers would move with the students to Year 8. All classes in the school operated in self contained classrooms.

Class: the lesson we observed took place in a year 7 mixed gender class of 24 students, aged 12-13 years. Teacher: Kerry Franklin sub school Co-ordinator. An experienced Math ematics teacher of 16 years, Kerry has been at Kingsbury campus for 5 years. Lesson Topic: mathematics volume Lesson Objective: to use cube shapes in constructing and determining cubic measurement of a variety of given shapes. Lesson Outline: the class of 24 students were well versed in working in groups. It was obvious that in Mathematics this was a common occurrence. Students moved to form table groups which had been previously nominated by the teacher. The movement into groups and the organisation of group roles and tasks was quickly and enthusiastically achieved, demonstrating that students were clear about how they should operate. The teacher out lined the task to the class and went through their previous work on volume as a revision activity. Students responded to questions using examples of everyday functions that demonstrated the concept of volume: swimming pools, tanks, confined air spaces, concrete etc. One student reminded the teacher about the 3-D constructions they had made and displayed in the room during a previous lesson.

Following the allocation of the new set of tasks, groups collected the neces sary materials and set to work. Students worked in pairs within their groups and readily exchanged ideas across groups. This discussion was encouraged by the teacher. In a few cases, students moved to other groups to assist with solving problems. On a few occasions resources were shared to enable a table group to solve a problem. In one group where students were comparing their constructions they noticed they had different answers. In turn they explained to each other how they achieved their answers and why they believed they were correct. In the end they agreed, "Let's start again and compare how we work out the problem and see where differences occur." As a result of this reconstruction and observation the groups were able to notice where they had erred. During the lesson the teacher reconvened the whole class twice to seek stu dent comment and response as to how problems were being solved. A set of supplementary tasks were made available to groups who completed their work. After completing each task the students had to note and illustrate how they had achieved the result. At the conclusion of the lesson students were able to mark their work as the teacher sought answers from each group. Throughout the lesson there was a high level of student participation and enjoyment in solving each problem. When degrees of frustration were evident group members would assist their peers. In one group the leader, frustrated with a member who was not participating sufficiently, admonished, "Look, I'm responsible for this group today. If you don't want to help us complete the tasks then you can go and work on your own. We've all got to finish this and be able to write it up.'The student complied, and the group was able to complete the tasks satisfactorily. Students' participation in active learning can be summarised as follows:

Goal setting: students were given an outline of the work programme for each term. Changes occurred when student interest faltered. There was limited involvement of students in setting goals although individual achievement goals were set in one-toone discussions with the teacher. Task structure: students operated in table groups for Math activities. These groups, predetermined by the teacher, stayed together for the term or lon ger. Changes could be initiated by the students or by the teacher if they were believed to be necessary by either party. Group activities were a regu lar feature of math lessons and occupied more than 50 per cent of the time. In nearly all cases the teacher initiated the task format with students being able to choose the order of work. All groups received similar tasks and were encouraged to finish work and undertake extension. Students were free to move and assist each other at all times and were highly supportive of their peers. Accessing information: the teacher and other students were the regular sources of new information. The teacher would avoid giving direct answers

to problems in the first instance and encourage students to solve them where appropriate. Process of work and learning: the teacher constantly moved between groups, observing, commenting but not directing. The student/teacher relationship she had established allowed easy communication. While the teaching of group skills was not an ongoing part of the class program, students were able to organise themselves in groups and to resolve group process issues. Positive encouragement occurred consistently within the class, both teacher to student and student to student. Outcomes of work: in this lesson the only product of students' work was students' learning. Assessment and learning process: students were encouraged to check their work with peers and to seek out reasons if answers differed. The assessment process was teacher controlled. Internal assessment by the teacher occurred on students ability to function in groups. No student/group self assessment processes were in use. Individual Teachers As Active Learners at St. Pius and Reservoir District For both Kerry and Jo the stimulus to maintain and extend their learning as teachers came about individually rather than as active members of a group or team within the school. Both were searching on their own for ways to improve their teaching. Jo was not happy with her class organisation and believed her students could achieve more. Her work as a contract teacher had meant regularly changing schools and she had not been able to establish a stable network of peers. She began to search for conferences or workshops that she could attend in her own time. After reading some material on co-operative learning she attended workshops on collaborative learning and became a student of Reality Therapy and Controlled Group Theory. This enabled her to establish a network of peers with whom she has maintained regular contact, meeting to exchange ideas about teaching. To further assist her learning, Jo is currently enrolled in a B.Ed, course during which she aims to research in more detail collaborative learning strategies in the classroom. This need for self improvement, to search out new learning and to be able to share with peers her teaching experiences has meant that Jo has transferred this enthusiasm and motivation to her teaching and as a result to the way in which her students learn. Likewise, Kerry, as a senior staff member at Reservoir District Secondary College was keen to find effective ways to develop better staff-student relationships at the secondary school level which would increase students' motivation to learn. While the school's participation in the National Schools Network provided

some impetus for Kerry, she was keen to see a greater use of group collaboration practices, especially at the Year 7 level. A highly energetic person, Kerry invests considerable effort in her teaching and the development of a positive working relationship with students and their parents. The issues of effective group work and problem solving approaches to teaching mathematics were crucial to her day-to-day operation as a teacher. The opportunity to achieve promotion to the position of sub school Co-ordinator encouraged her to enhance her own learning by taking greater initiative in establishing class and school structures which were built around effective student-teacher relationships. This was evident in the way the Year 7 teaching team operated. Much of Kerry's learning over the years had been driven by her participa tion in curriculum and policy writing generated by the Education Department's initial Curriculum Frameworks documents. This participation challenged her thinking about teaching and learning and directed her learning towards enabling students to take greater responsibility for their own learning. In addition, Kerry's long term participation in schools located in low socio-economic areas reinforced her beliefs about the value of strong teacher/student/parent relationships. These views, together with support from school leadership teams have allowed Kerry to develop, experiment and learn as a teacher. The current Year 7 and Feeder school programmes at Kingsbury campus are a reflection of this learning. For both Jo and Kerry, the pathway to becoming active learners was self-discovered. Both have a commitment to teaching which encourages and challenges their thinking about their own practice.

CHAPTER II.2 DENMARK

/. Dolin and G. Ingerslev

The Danish Gymnasium and HF (Higher Preparatory School)

The Gymnasium offers a three-year course for students from the ages of 16 to 19, with the aim of providing both a general education and a preparation for further academic studies. Higher Preparatory School is slightly different from the Gymnasium and offers a two year course for people who have been away from the educational system for some years. This course also provides a general education and a preparation for further academic study. Almost 50 per cent of the 16-year-olds join the Gymnasium or HF. (Parallel options for students of this age are commercial and technical colleges.) At the Gymnasium students follow a curriculum biased either towards science or languages. The difference between the science and language routes is largely in emphasis, since all students study both science and languages at least in the first two years. When the class is not divided, except for one course in the second year. Danish and History are statutory subjects throughout the three years of Gymnasium for all students, and in the course of the three years all students will have studied a wide range of subjects. At least two subjects must be studied at an advanced level and these are examined summatively by written as well as oral examination. Students are examined in other subjects on the basis of random sampling. This enables the curriculum to be kept broad and equally valued, without overburdening it with assessment procedures. In all, students must pass ten oral and written exams in the three years. Teaching conditions The conditions for Gymnasium teachers include preparation time for each lesson taught and correction time for papers. A full time teaching job consists of about 20 periods of teaching a week, and this is often arranged so as to allow for at least one day without teaching to correct essays, prepare teaching, or engage in professional development. For many people in the profession, teaching is not sufficiently sustaining, but given the opportunity to develop their interests in peda-

gogical matters or areas within their subject, people are able to teach with energy and enthusiasm. Before 1994 there was a lack of formal hierarchy within upper secondary schools. The "flat" structure, with the headmaster above on top, was in 1994 expanded with the addition of a leading inspector and two or three other inspectors in various fields of responsibility. Each individual school has ample opportunity, however, to adapt the management structure to the traditions and wishes of that specific school. Since teachers are largely free to devise their own materials within broad guidelines (such as the number and range of texts to be studied), the need for an organisational structure is minimised. In most subjects, students can participate in setting goals for a substantial part of the curriculum but in advanced subjects student participation is usually limited to decisions concerning organisation and planning of teaching sequences. If a (group of) teacher(s) want(s) support to implement some experimental teaching, an application can be sent to the Ministry of Education, which will decide whether to grant the teacher(s) some released time to work on the project. Ten years ago most experimental teaching was based on local initiatives. The experiments could be parts of interdisciplinary projects including entire schools resulting in revised timetables and final exams. Or they could be less comprehensive including interdisciplinary teaching in just a few subjects. Within the last couple of years The Ministry of Education has supported selected areas in experimental teaching, e.g., the use of computers, and the writing process. Recently the Ministry has encouraged experiments in teaching according to the students' individual requirements. This theme has allowed for a wide range of different experiments, including several emphasising metacognition and active learning. Teacher teams from approximately 100 schools have participated in this work and they have had the opportunity to meet at regional seminars three or four times a year to exchange experiences.
The Concept of Active Learning and Metacognition

As a coarse description we can distinguish four successive stages in the process of learning:

Preparation: goal setting, planning, realisation of individual starting points and requirements, discussion of relevance, motivation. Implementation: contents study, write, remember, understand, integrate with other knowledge, seek information, etc., individually or in groups. Presentation of results. Evaluation: of product and process, self-evaluation/ teacher-evaluation/ mutual evaluation.

Active learning or self-regulated learning, means that the student and the class are in control of the successive stages in the process of learning. In this connection one must emphasize the importance of the class interaction. One often tends to focus on the individual student as the center of active learning, but doing so the significance of the class culture is underestimated as a significant basis for individual learning. Metacognition is the basis of active learning. Without metacognition, no active learning will take place. Metacognition consists of:

Awareness of the process of learning which can be achieved by a number of evaluations (of one's own learning habits among other things), discussions, writing processes, log books, focused reading, etc. Knowledge of the learning process which can be achieved by conscious work with different ways of organising the teaching and learning (practis ing ways of working in groups, rules for working in class) and conscious work with learning techniques (underlining, taking notes, asking questions, methods of studying, concept maps, planning). Monitoring of the learning process which can be achieved by practising according to one's knowledge of the learning process so that every student will be able to internalise her own learning style through conscious choices.

In order for active learning to take place, the students must have a feeling of challenge. Evaluation processes that result in careful planning according to the wishes and level of the individual student ensures that the student is challenged according to her or his abilities. The experience of challenge can be achieved by the proper balance between affective and cognitive factors in the teaching and learning situation. "Certainty" vs. "uncertainty" oriented students However, not all students like to be challenged. Huber et al. (1992) distin guish between two different types of students: uncertainty-oriented and certainty-oriented students. The first type is interested in finding out about the self and the environment, and will be motivated by dealing with controversial issues and conflicts in the learning situation. They will be challenged to find the "correct" answer, to resolve the uncertainty about their own ability. The opposite seems to be the case for the certainty-orientated students. They are not eager to find new insights about the self or the environment as long as these insights shake their own opinion and demand that they question fundamental values or standards. The point is that the two types of students are motivated by different learning processes and different issues. While the uncertainty-oriented students will welcome

active learning and a constructivist approach the certainty-orientated will prefer a more traditional learning process.
The classroom observations

The observations took place in 3 Gymnasium classes, one first year grade, two second year grade. The schools are all fairly large by Danish standards (500- 700 students). Two are located in the suburbs of Copenhagen, one in the countryside 30 miles south of Copenhagen. The classes were selected exclusively because of their teachers who are known to work consciously and specifically with active learning and metacognition. We have, however, selected teachers who have different approaches to the concepts of metacognition/active learning. They all use some form of active learning, but they differ in how much they stress the metacognitive aspect in their teaching. Consequently their lessons differ markedly. Class 1: The teacher as conductor This was a class in Physics, 19 students, second year (age 17-18). One lesson: The teacher starts by setting the goal and content of the lesson. The Teacher lectures. Many comments from students. The teacher asks questions. The students put up their hands and answer. The teacher leads the class through more and more difficult problems until they reach the highlight of the specific subject after 30 minutes' work. After this the whole class works on problem solving in groups for the rest of the lesson. Another lesson: The teacher shows a curve (from the textbook) as a starting point for class discussion. Many students participate actively. The teacher poses questions to everyday situations (for in stance: "How does a propeller-driven airplane advance?", "How are you able to move on ice?"). The students answer and the teacher's corrections and summa rising lead to the formulation of the wanted laws of physics. The last 20 minutes is group-work where the groups are asked to give of the physical laws in everyday-life.

The restrictive curriculum in physics does not have much room for involving students in goal setting. Furthermore, the observed lessons were part of a re fresher course with a fixed goal. The lessons were carried by the professional skill of the teacher and her interest in the subject combined with her ability to involve and engage the students. This last ability is a result of hard-todefine qualities of the teacher's personality. This teacher had an obvious respect for the students; she listened to them, and they to her. Thus, despite the fact that one could hardly characterise these lessons as active learning, the students were active participants in the work, and they actually learned. The teacher commented afterwards -- "I find it difficult to let go of the teacher's control with everything the students do."

Class 2: Some small groups work well, others do not

Danish literature, 22 students, first year (age 16-17). The observations took place in a literature class at the end of the year. The class had been working with the process of writing and creative writing throughout the year. Furthermore, they had been working in groups, so that everybody in the class was familiar with the difficulties and advantages of co-operative learning and everybody knew the people with whom they worked well. The students had the choice between 10 novels, of which they had chosen 4, and the class had been divided into 5 groups according to their choice (two groups working with the same novel). They had a scheduled programme for three weeks, and the groups were asked to plan their homework individually from lesson to lesson. The report consisted of summaries of their group work and a final interpretation of their novel. After having finished their report, each person was asked to evaluate their working process by answering the following questions: What did you think of the way the group worked? How did you feel in the group? How was the co-operation in the group? How was the activity in the group? How much did you influence the group work? What new things did you learn? One group of 5 boys worked reasonably well, because they did not expect too much of their work or of each other. They enjoyed the fact that they were responsible for their working process, they did their homework and planned realistically. Another group of 3 girls worked very well, because they were absorbed in the assignment, and knew each other well. One of the girls in the group wrote in

her logbook after the three weeks that she was a bit ashamed that she had been talking so much, but on the other hand she felt that the two other girls in the group had been quite happy and they had some good and fruitful discussions. Her realistic self evaluation is confirmed by the fact that the two others were very satisfied with their working process and the equality in the group. A third group (3 girls, 3 boys) had more mixed opinions and a more disor derly working process. They claimed some of the people in the group were lazy, never read the novel and did not participate. Still, they also had lively discussions during classes, took notes and finished their work when it was due (though not up to the standards of some of the group members). A fourth group seemed to be in trouble, as one person in the group acted as the leader, and the others seemed rather passive. They never had a real discussion and never finished their report. One of the members of this group blames the tea cher for not having seen what went wrong in the group at an early stage. Despite the fact that the class and the teacher worked openly on joint goal setting, apparently something went wrong. The teacher had tried to help students make a realistic choice of tasks and amount of work. She had planned carefully, and as the groups started their work, she was an attentive supervisor. When she was asked a question, she seldom answered directly, but led the students to realise how and where they might find their answers, and in the well-functioning groups the process was inspiring and challenging. A paper was handed out at the beginning of the period, every detail in the working process. The groups or group members who worked well benefited from these instructions, but others never read the paper properly and never realised what the assignment was all about. They never decided to participate. The last group (2 boys, 2 girls) had a variety of complex problems. Their novel was Isabel Allende's "De Amor y de Sombra" (Love and Darkness). One boy was very well prepared. He had read and discussed all the novels proposed in class with his mother. He found this novel most interesting because of the complicated plot, the political intrigues, the insight into the historical background, and the psychological web among the numerous characters. He expressed all this in a lengthy discussion which he had with the group halfway through the period. He is what Huber et al. would define as an uncertainty oriented student. In contrast, the two girls were passive, dismayed, and grumpy. They had chosen this novel because of the word "Love" in the title. They liked love stories very much but they had expected a completely different novel. One of them said during discussion, "But this book doesn't deal with anything. It says "Love" on the cover, but it is all about politics and history, and you cannot talk properly about things like that. "The other girl - arms and legs crossed, no books or papers in front of her on the table, her chair pulled away from the group and the table declared, "This book is difficult and boring. In fact I doubt whether this is a novel at all"! These two girls could well be described as certainty oriented. The work in this group was

slow and troublesome. The boy persevered and in the end one of the girls pulled herself together, read the book and these two worked hard to get things written down on behalf of the group. Class 3: What to do with a resistant class This was a class in Danish Literature, English, Physics and Geography; 28 students, second Year (age 17-18). Two teachers, working as a team, had given the class practice with group work and had focused on metacognition through a wide range of evaluation techniques. However, when we started observing the lessons and groupwork in the class, the teachers were discouraged. They had worked with the students for one year, but noise in the classroom was still a problem. The students worked well in small groups, but as soon as they were assembled they seemed to feel no shared responsibility. To diagnose the problem, the teachers gave a questionnaire to this class and also to another class at the same level which was functioning well and considered by their teachers the best class they had ever had. Here are the most significant results (problem class = A, well-functioning class = B): Why did you choose the Gymnasium? A the exam can be used for many things 12 % to get a good education 42% 50% the alternatives were not attractive 46 % 6 % a positive reason offered by the student 0 % 31 % spontaneously B 13 %

The differences indicate that many more students in the observation class did not actually choose the Gymnasium, they are there because they did not really know what else to do. This helps explain why students' sense of responsibility seems to be weaker in that class. In addition, the students in this class felt less successful in school. These results prompted the teacher of English and literature to try a different approach. In English she chose a subject (Terrorism) in cooperation with the class. She asked every student to write answers to three questions:

how long do you want to work with this subject? which way do you want to work? what aspect do you want to concentrate on?

The answers resulted in a division of the class: for three weeks three groups of four worked with individual aspects which they had chosen themselves. Altogether they read about 50-150 pages. At the end they presented their results to the rest of the class orally, and handed in a report (from 5-20 pages). Another 10 students worked in the class with the teacher reading aloud, translating, stopping at and discussing grammar, pronunciation, and how to find the right translation when using dictionaries. Altogether they read about 20 pages. The remaining 6 students had chosen now and then to do some pairwork, discussing in English, working on a special theme within the main theme. The rest of the time they were in the class where they presented their results and joined the other class activities. Altogether they read about 30 pages. In Danish Literature the teacher introduced a drama and the students chose along the same lines as in the English lesson. The resulting student activity during the three weeks was high. Students felt that their individual requirements had been taken into consideration. They were all quite absorbed, working on their own levels. In the class room it was easy to find time to go into depth with grammar, translation, phonetics whereas the small groups discussed highly philosophical matters and enjoyed it more because they had been listened to. One of the teachers in this class commented, "By far the most difficult thing is to change the set code of what a teacher and a pupil are supposed to do in the teaching situation. Both parties have built up expectations during their school lives and they are the major barriers to change in the classroom. I find it so difficult as a teacher to let be! NOT to formulate the final con clusions, but let the students find their own way and structure their knowledge themselves." Conclusions Active learning has many faces. There is no simple connection between the organisation of classroom activity and students' learning. Even if the students are formally engaged in goal setting and decision making, or are engaging in small groups discussion, there is no guarantee that they will learn anything. Conversely, effective learning can take place in whole-class instruction where the teacher keeps center stage. It seems crucial to take into consideration the degree to which students decide to participate. They might not make that decision unless the teacher is able to communicate with them. One way to secure the students motivation is to involve both the cognitive and the affective sides. If the students have an emotional connection to the subject, engagement is more likely.

In addition, metacognition is a necessary condition for active learning. Helping students become aware of their own role and possibilities in the learning process is the first step to increased students' responsibility and a way to reduce students' frustrations. In sum, unless students have decided to learn, and unless teachers plan lessons based on accurate knowledge of students' individual requirements and moti vations, no active learning will take place.

Chapter II.3

FINLAND: AN URBAN SCHOOL S. Hamalainen and K. Hakkinen

Puistokoulu is an urban lower level comprehensive school situated in the town of Jyvaskyla in central Finland. The school enrolls 184 pupils primarily from the local area representing a wide range of social classes. Pupils commence their lower level comprehensive (primary) schooling at the age of seven and move to the upper level after six years. The school currently comprises seven classes with two parallel classes in the second year. At present the staff consists of seven class teachers, two special teachers and four peripatetic teachers. The head teacher also has part-time teaching res ponsibilities. The teaching staff has changed almost completely over the past five years following the retirement of a number of teachers.
Contract work as a basis for teaching: flexible schedule and baskets tasks

Here we describe the schoolwork of the third year group during one week. The class is composed of 32 children, most of them 9 years of age. The focus of our description is the "contract work" activities in which pupils were engaged. Contract work tasks are common to all pupils, and they are completed each week by Friday, when the evaluation of the week's work is carried out. On Monday the school work commenced with a discussion about weekend activities. The teacher was positioned on a pupil's chair in the middle of the class, surrounded by the children. The discussion was followed by an "info" session, which was an introduction to the week's school work. After the info session the teacher handed weekly plans to the students. These included a timetable for the week, a list of contract work and basket tasks, and also pupils' self-assessment forms for the week's work. The timetable for this particular week is shown in Table II.3.1. The weekly lesson schedule did not include individual subjects except for those taught by peripatetic teachers: English, handicraft, religion and moral edu cation. Teachers favoured integrating other subjects into larger entities because they regarded the fixed timetable as disruptive to the continuity of pupils' work. Only the timing of the lunch break was fixed. Otherwise, pupils were free to

choose their own break time provided that there was a member of the staff in the playground. The weekly plan also included "basket tasks". These tasks usually involve further voluntary activities that are carried out in pairs or small groups. During the observation period these activities included tasks such as problem exercises connected with fractions, the conducting of an interview, participation in musical activities, the writing of an individual story, and the reading of a fairy tale in English. Baskets containing the material and instructions for each task were placed along the classroom shelves. Table II.3.1: Timetable
MON. 8-9 TUE. Religion/ Moral educ. Weekend News and Info Handicraft WED. Contract work Handicraft English, 1/k THUR. Religion/ Moral educ. Outdoor Sports Reviewing The week's work and presentations 11-12 LUNCH Contract work English, 1/k LUNCH Contract work Music LUNCH English, 1/k LUNCH Contract work Joys of Art LUNCH Music FRI.

9-10 10-10.45

Outdoor Sports and ...

12-13

Contract work English, 1/k

13-14 14-15

Contract work

The last part of the weekly plan covered students' self-assessment. It aimed to direct students' attention towards their behaviour in the classroom, in the dining hall and in the playground. Emphasis was placed on care and tidiness with regard to work, and on the completion of the contract work tasks. Statements indicating these educational aims were accompanied with blank boxes for each week day and pupils monitored their own behaviour by colouring the boxes. The colouring of

boxes also enabled students, teachers and parents to monitor pupils' progress in their work. Active learning activities in Puistokoulu: bus stop tasks and other devices During the observation period, the main contract work activities included three main elements: mother tongue reading exercises, mathematics tasks and bus stop tasks on the topic of "Finnish waterways". This water project involved pupils selecting six out of nine possible bus stops. Each bus stop included a set of wall mounted task instructions. Positioned below the instructions on chairs or on the floor of the school corridor were other relevant materials (maps, text books, pictures, pens, etc.). Most of the bus stop tasks were based on the learning material designed by Luostarinen, Palosaari and Sihvonen (1990) Luonnossa. Opiskelukokonaisuus (Nature. Integrated Learning Materials). With the aid of a booklet a teacher was able to organise pupils' project work and also to integrate learning contents from mother tongue into biology and geography. The unifying theme in the project was water, and this was tackled from a variety of perspectives: water protection, the exploitation of waterways, water animals, water plants, the local area's waterways and the characteristics of water. In the following pages the water bus stops and other contract work activities are examined from six perspectives: goal setting, task structure, access to information, the process of work and learning, outcomes of learning, and assessment. The general learning goals of the weekly theme were addressed during the Monday info session when the week's work was discussed. When circulating around the class during the week, the teacher also made the specific learning goals of the task explicit for students individually. Each bus stop task instruction was accompanied with learning goals. For example, the learning goals of the bus stop 1 (Water and Landscapes) were (see Luostarinen, Palosaari and Sihvonen 1990): finding new concepts from the text; perceiving causal relationships; discovering equivalence between the landscape and the map; cardinal points of the compass on the map revision; common nouns and proper nouns; the use of the comma in lists. A feature of Puistokoulu was the varied nature of its learning tasks. The following examples of the bus stop tasks illustrate the integration of a number of subject areas within the tasks (see Luostarinen, Palosaari and Sihvonen 1990):

1.5. Find all the lakes on the map. List them from north to south. Write the names of the lakes in block letters because they are proper nouns. 1.7. On the map you can see the Saarela and Salmiranta houses. Plan together with your classmates a road between them on the map. Try to think why you chose to build the road where you did. 3.3. Draw pictures of alder, cat's tail, yellow water lily and pondweed into your notebook. If necessary, use the pictures in the exercise book as models. 5.9. Write a story about the round trip of a water droplet. Start from a cloud. 6.3. Study the picture in field B and do the following exercises. But first, read the whole task instruction very carefully. Take two water basins, a jug and a meter long plastic hose. Fill one basin with water and put one end of the hose into the basin. Place the other basin at a lower level. Take a strong suck of the hose end and put it quickly into the empty basin. What happens? Lift slowly the lower basin until the flow of water ceases. To which level did you lift the basin?

During the observation period, the progress of teaching typically involved students choosing their tasks and working at their own pace. Students from the class worked in small groups, some of them engaged in bus stops tasks, some in mother tongue exercises, some in mathematics exercises, and one part of the class participated in rehearsals for the spring festival. The sources of information for pupils varied according to task. Text books were used in the teaching of mother tongue and mathematics. Only in mathemat ics were pupils given books of their own. There were four different series of mother tongue books available in the classroom and pupils were aware from the weekly study plans which of the books would be used. The aim in having several books was to develop in pupils a critical attitude towards knowledge through the comparison of several information sources. Pupils interviewed revealed that they had occasionally noticed conflicting facts:
...Sometimes you see in another book the same words but they mean different things, for example the same fish is described differently in another book, then you start to wonder which book is right, this one or that one? (Maritta).

Students frequently bring to the school toys and books that are employed in projects. During the period of observation teacher pupils brought plastic buckets and spades for a class picnic on the beach. This excursion was also integrated into the natural sciences water bus stop project as it tackled beaches as recreation areas. Co-operative learning seemed to form the basis for the teaching at the school. The bus stop tasks were tackled by the third and fourth years at the same time and although the tasks were mainly intended to be individual, children appeared to co-operate while doing them:

Maritta and Helena approach bus stop 6 together. They draw pictures of a house in their notebooks and colour the places containing water in blue. After that they start to invent compound words associated with water. When finished the task the girls move on to the next bus stop. There are a number pupils at each bus stop, both third and fourth years. Students seem to concentrate in their work although there is a great deal of movement in the corridor when pupils are changing bus stops. The first task in bus stop 7 requires the naming of places. Once they have finished it, Maritta and Helena decide to read the text aloud to each other in order to finish the reading faster. Maritta reads her part first, and as she reads more fluently, she also corrects Helena's pronunciation.

The teacher acted as a tutor, only coming to offer help when it was needed:
The teacher comes to give advice to pupils working at bus stop 2. Maritta writes the title "Water Runs and Forms Waterways" into her notebook. As she does not find the right chapter in the text, she asks for the teacher's advice. The teacher tells her that the chapter numbers are accurate although the title of the chapter would be incorrect. Maritta reads chapter 2. She asks other pupils how they have done the task. They advise her without giving the direct answer to the task. After listening to their advice she makes a drawing her notebook. Helena at the same bus stop has drawn a picture in which a river is running into the middle of the lake. The teacher tells her that this situation is an impossibility. After this both the girls continue their work. The teacher moves on to the next bus stop.

Students' activities also included connections with the surrounding environ ment and work that benefited other people. Examples of such connections were the class picnic to the beach and the cleaning of the school environment by students and teachers. Earlier the third and fourth year pupils had an extended joint project aimed at producing teaching packages which could be used for teaching future students. According to the task instructions the teaching package was to include the following: an info session, relevant video or audio tapes, a reading of a fairy tale or poem, a picture of an animal (including notes about its distinguishing features), a piece of music, games, some expert advice and a test paper. In total the project took three weeks to complete. As the completion of the bus stop tasks would take one activitie more week, the Fri day evaluation session we witnessed included s: only mother tongue contract work ties:
The evaluation involved pupils correcting one another's notebooks. A volunteer situ ated in the center of the classroom read the task instructions aloud. Other pupils offered responses from one anothers' notebooks, and the volunteer indicated whether she thought they were right or wrong, with the silent support of the teacher who nodded when answers were correct and shook his head where they were inaccurate. Pupils marked in one anothers' notebooks which tasks were correct and which of them needed revision.

Pupils regarded the correction system as very demanding, but they also stated that it was a good method in helping them learn from their own mistakes:
...It is a good thing that you can't cheat saying "I've done this right" although you haven't done it right. Then it's also good that you learn to read another pupil's handwriting. So that you take care that if you've got bad handwriting, you can improve it. You don't easily notice it yourself if you've got bad handwriting. For example I've written many times such a curious "R", and I've learnt to do it right when I've been reminded of it (Maritta and Helena).

The teacher also used a formative test in monitoring pupils' progress with fractions. The date of the test was not announced as its purpose was to assess the current state of learning:
Of course then you have to test [pupils] and see how it's all gone. If they've studied the thing I like to leave a long time until I test it. Of course you get the best results if you test it immediately afterwards. Ha! But it doesn't really reveal what's under your hair's roots (Teacher F).

In conclusion, in the Puistokoulu Comprehensive School the major princi ples of teaching were:

flexible timetabling allowing students to regulate the pace and sequence of their work; varied sources of learning materials; student-centred learning; the development of students' knowledge processing skills; students' and teachers' self-assessment; a shift in the focus of teachers' work from presenting information to plan ning and guidance; the integration of teaching facilitated by teachers' joint planning.

Chapter II.4 FINLAND: A RURAL SCHOOL E. Kimonen and R. Nevalainen

In this chapter we describe active learning in a small rural school in Finland. The aim is to illustrate the nature of active learning by students in project work as well as in contract learning and process writing. In addition, active learning by teachers in a changing school context is examined. The context of a small school The case study school, the Suvila lower level comprehensive school, is located in a village community in central Finland The school building was constructed in 1922 and repaired in 1989. Teaching facilities, equipment and learning materials are modern and appropriate. There are two class teachers, a peripatetic English teacher, and a peripatetic special teacher. The school has 25 students who are divided into two basic teaching groups. These combined grades, as they are known, comprise nine students from grades 12, and sixteen students from grades 3-6. From 1992 the case study school has been following its own curriculum. In spring 1994 the curriculum was revised to correspond to the new national curriculum. The school aims to foster the mental growth of its students, to help them to develop the ability to face future challenges and also to provide them with general education and qualifications for further study. A key policy is to emphasize the interaction between the school and the surrounding society, allowing students to learn from their own environment. The acquisition, processing and application of knowledge, as well as the production of new knowledge are also underlined. Co-operative work and respect for student diversity are major elements in the school's approach. The working plan of the school follows the goals and action principles out lined in the school curriculum. The school year is divided into teaching periods of approximately three weeks each, according to different themes. Key subjects, including Finnish, Mathematics, and English, are delivered according to the guidelines set out in the curriculum. The contents of subjects, such as Biology, Geography, Religion and History, are studied as topic units. Part of the instruction in

Finnish and in practical and aesthetic subjects takes place in the form of work shops. Every month, students can select a workshop, for example, a video, modelling, music, or computer workshop. Part of the Art and Music lessons as well as Handicraft occupy a place on the schedule. Students have Physical Education every day.

Active learning by students: creating information products Project work

Here we describe the different phases of the learning process in the project work that was undertaken during our observation period. We observed the final week of a threeweek study period, when students were completing their final product on the topic of "communication." The purpose of the week's project was for students to prepare co-operatively a commercial and a bulletin. The teacher introduced the students to the topic on Monday and then student groups planned and carried out their work. The outcomes of the project work were evaluated on Friday at the end of the school week. Initially all students gathered in the largest classroom of the school. They were seated at their desks in groups of five, each group including students from different grade levels. The teacher announced to the students that the purpose of the final week on the topic of communication was to plan and prepare, as a group, a video commercial for a product invented by the students themselves. Motivation for the project work was generated by looking at television commercials. After the viewing, the essential features of the commercials were discussed as a class. The teacher also explained the aims, schedule, and organisation of the work and the necessary equipment. As a separate product, students also had to draft a bulletin during the week, whose purpose was to inform future first graders about affairs related to the school, or to offer information about the opportunities provided by the village to new inhabitants moving into the area. The text for the bulletin was to be planned as a group work task and typed out on a computer. The teacher emphasized the importance of successful task allocation in the working of the groups. Two groups of students started to work on the commercial and three groups on the bulletin. In the following we examine the planning, practice, and production phases of the learning process in one group producing a video commercial. We observed one of the small groups working on the commercial. This group consisted of one student from the sixth, two students from the fourth, and two students from the first grade. After the orientation phase, the group started planning. The sixth-grader acted as chairperson and also recorded the proposals made by group members. In addition to the chairperson, most of the ideas for the

planning were presented by the fourth-grade girl in the group. The youngest stu dents mainly listened and gave only a few ideas. The chairperson directed the discussion and frequently went to check with the teacher, who gave feedback and encouraged the students to continue with their work. As planning proceeded, students discussed the clothes they would wear in the commercial. The teacher also gave suggestions regarding clothing.
Girl, 6th grade: Do you have any summery skirt with flowers, for example? Girl, 1st grade: I don't, but I have flowery shorts. Girl, 6th grade: Well, bring the pants... Where are we going to do it? We must solve these problems, so that we can start practising. It ought to be summer-like... Let's show it to the teacher and say that...

After the planning phase, students began rehearsing and producing the com mercial. Students first rehearsed without the video recorder. By this stage, the group members' roles had already become differentiated. On the second day of our observation students continued the dramatisation. The older girls of the group also prepared props and sets needed for the commercial. When the necessary paraphernalia were ready, the group started to practice, using the video recorder. During the filming process, the teacher gave students instructions about the use of the recorder and ensured that the events were on the video tape. After the filming, students cleared up the space, dismantled the sets and returned their role costumes to their appropriate places.
Girl, 6th grade: I got those sodas in the picture all right. Matti, you don't have to turn the camera. Just film the kiosk. Now the camera is at the spot where you can start filming. This red starts the recording. Teacher: Remember now to speak up. Leena, check the distance. Remember the breaks between the shootings. Boy, 4th grade: Where does it shut off? Girl, 6th grade: Same place as you turned it on. Teacher: Leena, show a sign, when the filming can start.

The group we observed started planning their bulletin after finishing their commercials. Students began by voting on the subject of the work. They then discussed the content, illustration, and method for realising the bulletin. In the group they also allocated the necessary tasks. The project work was carried out on the last day of the week, students drawing pictures and writing the text using the publishing program of the computer. When problems emerged, students, however, relied on the teacher's assistance. Here is how they decided which of the two proposed topics to choose for their bulletin:

Girl, 6th grade: Which one do we take? The one for the first graders or the story about the village? Who wants to do it for the first graders, put up your hand? Who wants to do the village thing, put up your hands? [Students raise hands]. Girl, 6th grade: Let's do it about the village. The majority won. Boy, 1 st grade: I could draw some pictures. Are they drawn by computer or by hand? Girl, 6th grade: They are drawn by hand... What are we going to write here? Let's go and ask the teacher how this is done. Wait a bit, I will go...

On the final day of the school week, students came together to evaluate the outcomes of the project work. The teacher led the discussion. First the class viewed the commercials produced by each group. The students were instructed to notice how the commercials affected them. After the viewing, the teacher inquired which product students could remember especially well. He also asked about the difficulties that had arisen from the activity and drew conclusions regarding the significance of commercials and the methods they employed. Students reported that it had been difficult to estimate the duration of the commercial. Performing their scripts also had been problematic. In addition, the special effects used in commercials and the truthfulness of commercials were briefly discussed. The bulletins were also evaluated. They were posted on the blackboard and the problems that had emerged in their construction were recalled. Finally, the pictures were examined, and there was a brief discussion as to what attracts the individual's attention, when he or she looks at such bulletins. During the joint compilation of the project work, the teacher directed the discussion through questions although only the oldest students participated ac tively in the discussion. The teacher gave positive feedback to the students. Later on, however, he gave a more critical evaluation of the activity and outcomes of each student in written evaluations entered into their personal study-books. Students and their parents also evaluated the learning process and its results in the study-books. Learning contracts in mathematics According to the school curriculum (1994), the mathematics syllabus is studied in an order of progression that does not depend on the grade level. This allows students to move individually from one level to the next, once they have mastered the content of the previous level. In their mathematics study, students worked with weekly learning contracts. At the beginning of the week, the teacher gave the students instructions concerning the contract, then students followed the work plan they had constructed for themselves for the week's duration. Students were grouped according to grade levels in different parts of the school to work on problems in the mathematics book or the handouts prepared by the teacher. Third

graders practised multiplication and fourth graders did decimals. Fifth graders solved problem tasks using computers and sixth graders did percentage calculation problems. The teacher moved from one student group to another, giving individual counselling. The students also received feedback from the check-up hints in Mathematics books. The learning contracts were checked on Friday by students in pairs, and the number of correct solutions was accorded a percentage grade. Process writing in Finnish In the case study school, creative writing is often practised by means of process writing in Finnish. During our observation period, the students worked on a play for the spring festival. At the beginning of the writing process, the teacher gave instructions to the students and handed out the necessary materials. He presented the theme, oriented the students to write the play, and reminded them to emphasize the plot. Then the students discussed the characters of the play. Next the students wrote individually for about half an hour. Some students also constructed plans in the form of a concept map. The co-operative group work that followed the individual work phase proceeded as follows:

Instruction. The teacher gave instructions: "Choose one text from the group or form a combined play from all the texts". He also emphasized co-operation. The students started their work in groups in different parts of the school. Co-operation. The group we observed consisted of five students, of whom one was in the sixth, two in the fourth, and two in the first grade. The sixth-grader acted as chairperson. The students first read aloud their own writings. They voted on the working method, discussed the number of roles, and planned the duties of group members in the play. After this the students combined the texts into a joint play. From time to time, the teacher guided the group. Control. When the work was finished, the chairperson read the plot of the play aloud and showed it to the teacher. Presentation. Finally all students came together in one classroom. The chairpersons read aloud the proposals of their groups. The teacher handed out pieces of paper on which students could vote for their preferred play.

Active learning by teachers in a changing school context

Next we will examine the function of the teacher as an active learner in the small rural school. We will focus on the contextual factors related to the nature of the teacher's own learning process. In the case study school, the process of change from a traditional school to a school applying the principles of active learning proceeded in phases, by means of the experiences gained by the teachers in their practice and on discussions held about these experiences. During the first phase of the change, the teachers began working with topic units lasting for 1-2 weeks. At the same time, they dismantled the system of teaching based on contact hours. During the second phase, the teachers increasingly stressed the need for activityoriented learning in their teaching. The duration of the topic units was extended, in order to allow more time for the students' own project work and to allow them to go into greater depth. During the third phase, the teachers extended the school day. Changes in the teacher's process of work and learning arose inductively through analysis of individual experiences. During the first phase of the change process, the teachers designed changes and tried out different approaches. Experiences gained during the implementation phase were analysed with the school board, and the most essential features of the changes were outlined in the parents' meetings. The models of action were compared and their success was evaluated. Over a period of approximately five years, observations and experiences were thoroughly discussed in teachers'joint meetings. Finally, the new curriculum of the school was constructed. This innovation process was, of course, facilitated by the proposals of the central educational administration regarding the schoolbased curriculum. The teacher in the case study school has been an agent of change beyond this school, primarily through reporting to the teachers of the municipality and the whole province about his own experiences and observations implementing a school-based curriculum. The school has also been open to teachers and university students who wish to become acquainted with the co-operative project work in combined grades. The teachers in the case study school annually evaluate the functioning of the school together with parents and members of the school board. The teacher emphasizes the procedural features of learning in his evaluation. According to the teacher, the new activating methods of work have increased students' responsibility for their own work. They have learned to value project work as an important part of school work.
Responsibility for one's own work has increased. The appreciation of the project work has increased and it has grown to be an ever more important part of this school... If we

think only about the final results, these products aren't so terrific. But some pearls pop up among them, more and more often (Teacher, male).

Conclusion Students in the case study school worked on their projects in small, mixed- age groups where they co-operatively solved problems that emerged from the task. Activities were goal-oriented and self-assessed. Students' sense of responsibility and co-operativeness were emphasized. The challenges and problems of the school activity formed the basis of the teacher's learning motivation and encouraged him to develop his own work.

Chapter II.5 GERMANY G. L. Huber and J. H. W. Roth

Promotion of individual development towards self-determination and self- responsibility is almost totally agreed upon as the supreme goal of education in Germany. However, because this goal is not questioned, it may simply be assumed that educational practice supports the development of lifelong active learners: schools are obliged to promote active learning, therefore they do. The names of models of teaching that facilitate active learning are indeed well-known in discussions of German curricula. Every teacher has heard about "Gruppen-Unterricht" (group learning), "entdeckendes Lernen" (discovery learning), "Pro-jektunterricht" (project method), "Freiarbeit", and "offener Unterricht" (open learning situations). Thus, all doubts about the contribution of schools to higher educational goals are confronted with allusions to the broad spectrum of instructional methods recommended in the curriculum. Needless to say, however, a label does not necessarily guarantee the indicated content, neither in cans nor in classrooms. During pre-service teacher training for elementary grades, student teachers are introduced to the methods of active learning mainly by descriptions in traditional seminars and lectures. Although student teachers may learn co-operatively in seminars, they may still have only rare occasions to observe co-operation in classrooms during their weekly school practice ~ to say nothing about chances to organise team learning during their teaching assignments in these classrooms. However, we found among the 80 experienced elementary school teachers serving as "mentors" in the preservice training of student teachers at the University of Munich, around 20 readily accepted the suggestion to implement co-operative learning in their classrooms. The following images of active learning in elementary school are reproduced from our observations in three of these teachers' classrooms. These classrooms are all part of regular schools, which are distinguished from other schools only by the fact that there are principals and teachers motivated to make optimal use of the degrees of freedom which the common curriculum offers.

Active learning of individual students: writing a newspaper

The following observations were made in a second grade classroom. This teacher distinguishes "serious" teaching and "student-oriented" teaching. When learning "seriously", the students work in particular disciplines (for instance, mathematics) according to her orders and assignments. When learning on their own, the traditional seating order is no longer used. Instead, students meet at a "round table", discuss their questions and tasks with the teacher and continue to work independently. To promote this situation, the teacher starts from the first grade on to replace more and more teaching functions by her students' learning activities. An outstanding example for the success of her approach could be observed after the return of the class from a one week stay at a "Schullandheim" (a sort of rural boarding school for short term group experiences) during the second half of the second school year. The students decided to publish a newspaper, to report about their experiences and adventures which were focused around the topic "We lived like Indians". The teacher moderated their discussions, took notes and assisted the students in establishing an organisational framework for the project. Two groups of tasks emerged from these discussions, contentcentred and process-centred. Students interested more in content questions started to find more information about customs of the Indians, about their clothing, and about their habitations, while other students wanted to find out what the tasks of the chief editor of a newspaper are, how production flows, and who in the classroom was responsible for which article. One week was devoted to the preparatory work. First the students tried to get the information necessary, in the second half they presented their results to each other. Again, the teacher kept in the background. She monitored the flow of events and only assisted her students in finding possibilities where to get information: in the school library, by asking parents, in dictionaries, and ~ very successful in the community library. A suggestion to visit a "real" publishing house was postponed. When the students presented their findings, they followed strict regulations: Each student had a specific amount of time to present his/her work to the class. Afterwards the audience had an opportunity for reactions to specific aspects. For instance, the others said "I liked that you ...", "I would have done it in another way, because ...", or "I don't believe this is true, because ...." Each contribution was terminated "ritually": the speaker patted his or her shoulder, saying "I did really well!" Then the other students patted their shoulders saying together "We did really well!" During the following week, the individual articles were assembled the newspaper was copied and distributed to parents, students of other classrooms, student teachers and teachers.

The teacher commented on "I would not have believed that the students would keep up. I really am astonished about what children are able to achieve if only the teacher trusts in their abilities. I myself learned a lot from this episode; my way of teaching changes."
Active learning in student teams: researching hot topics

After an excursion to a farm, a student teacher suggested to the students of a third grade classroom to get more information about ecological farming. However, this was a topic only the student teacher was interested in, not the children. They expressed this and started to explore what they were really interested in. The teacher assisted in organising these discussions. In pairs and in small groups the students tried to find converging lines of interest. Preliminary results were written to the blackboard. After a final vote, two attractive topics remained: "Famous people in our neighbourhood" and "Volcanoes". The "celebrity" group started to plan their interviews with a pop singer, a minister of the state government, and with the manager of a national-league soccer club. Consequently, they split into three sub-groups. The "volcano" group decided to browse through the community library and to get an expert geologist involved. The first step in both groups was to find phone numbers and addresses, and to debate how to approach the potential interview partners.. After four days, an intermediate report was scheduled. The "minister" team succeeded in obtaining co-operation of the police guards to negotiate a meeting with the minister. The "soccer" team had a hard time making telephone contact with the club manager. Finally, with some help from the student teacher, the manager was persuaded to come into the classroom for a talk with the students. Only the "pop" team had no luck. The agent sent a fax saying that the singer was not available for a long time. But those students did learn to operate the fax machine, and sent a letter back asking for a later appointment. The "minister" team role-played their interview in front of the whole class to get critique and support for their interview guidelines. The students were inter ested in aspects like "How did you become a state minister?", "What was your dream job as a kid?", "Do you have hobbies?", "How long have you been in this position?", "Do you have pets?" "Do you have children?", "What do you like most in your job?", etc. The "volcano" team prepared carefully for their talk with the expert; they even borrowed some movies on vulcanism and discussed them together. Everybody except the "singer" team was happy and excited ~ neither the singer nor his agent answered any more. So the teacher had a long talk with this team about personalities created in magazines, real life, and its frustrations. Next the students did their interviewing, now totally on their own. The student teacher afterwards assisted them in typing the tape-recorded interviews.

All groups then reported to the class. There was no indication of boredom and not a single incident of disruption during this whole period. In a final discussion of the whole project the students stated how exciting this way of learning had been. The teacher noted that she had discovered many aptitudes and skills in her students, which would have gone unnoticed during "normal" lessons. She was astonished at how well and how purposively the students were able to collaborate. At the end, the students composed from their texts and photos a comprehen sive report and wallpapered the main aisle of the school with it. Thus, students from other classrooms, teachers, and parents could become aware of possibilities and effects of active learning. A reporter from the local newspaper was invited, and he wrote a detailed article on this learning project. Students and teacher learning together: whose skull is this? During an excursion to a nearby wood, students from a second grade class room found the skull of an animal, and were eager to find out from what kind of animal it came. The teacher herself could not identify it. Thus, she was in the same situation as her students. Therefore she provided time and space for further investigations. The teacher had taught this class already from first grade on and had the students both encouraged and trained to explore interesting problems on their own. Now she invited the students "to enter the living room". This was their signal that regular seat order and teacher-centred discussion were no longer demanded and they could start to investigate the situation on their own. During the next two hours the following learning activities could be observed: After a first visual impression all students got their hands on the skull, touched it, and told each other about interesting details. The teacher reinforced their intention to find out which animal's skull this was. The students continued their investigation according to obviously well-known rules in this classroom. They took a big sheet of paper, assigned two "writers" and had all their brain-storming ideas noted: "This could be an elephant, because ...", "It could be a giraffe, because ...". Many ideas and reasons were written down. During this process new topics emerged, about which the students wanted to learn more. These topics were noted, too, and students volunteered to gather information and report to the class later. Examples of these topics were "Do young animals also have milk teeth?", "What are the names for young goats, sheep, dogs, cows, horses, and sharks?", "Do these animals also lose their first teeth?", "How are mothers and fathers of these animals called?" Very important for many students became the question, whether their own lost milk teeth would really be replaced. At the end of this period the students organised teams according to their particular interests. One team decided to look for further information in the community library, a second team, assisted by the teacher, explored the school's col-

lection of teaching media, a third group scheduled a meeting at a classmate's home whose father was radiologist ("He knows all about skulls!"), other teams wanted to share what they could learn from their parents or from dictionaries. The next day the students came to the classroom with such an amount of materials that at first they and the teacher had to work out a process for analysing it. Before reporting their findings, the teacher asked each group to describe the team process ("When did you meet?" "How did you do your work?" "How did you get along with each other?"). The groups then presented their results through a designated speaker or they took turns quoting from their notes. The "radiology" group distributed photo-copies of skulls of various animals, which the radiologist father had prepared for the students. After each presentation or report the students could asked for details, which they did extensively in some cases. Critique was invited, too, but it had to be qualified, that is, the students had to give their reasons. Throughout this session, the students followed strictly the rule "While somebody is speaking, the others listen!" A student "moderator" structured the discussions, and two "writers" took a protocol. Each group report was reinforced by applause. Most convincing for the students was the argument of a team that brought a huge map showing various skulls; they tried to exclude negative instances and to prove that the found skull could only be of a horse or of a cow. In order to clarify these remaining alternatives, the students started to investigate the skull's teeth intensively. Suddenly they realised that there were no teeth in the front part of the upper jaw. The first hypothesis that they had found the skull of a very, very old animal was rejected, because there were no holes of lost teeth. This was really puzzling for all. Finally, a student remembered having watched cows as they graze: they do not bite the grass, but they tear it off with their tongue. This information surprised everybody in the classroom, and it helped to solve the puzzle. The next day brought a test of the new knowledge: a student came with another skull which her father had claimed to be of a wolf. Within only a very short time the students demonstrated that this was impossible. Instead, they proved that the skull was of a quite ordinary pig. The project was terminated with a feedback session during which the students could also exchange their feelings about their work, what they had liked particularly, and what had maybe annoyed them. All information and experiences from the project "cow skull" where finally gathered in a report, which was distributed to other classes, teachers, and parents.
Teachers: free to learn

The classrooms described here are unusual because the teachers serve vol untarily as mentors for student teachers' classroom practice. Besides additional work load for preparing once a week a for this practice, they expose themselves

permanently to new ideas the visiting student teachers bring from their university seminars, and they may expose themselves to criticism. These challenges help motivate the teachers to keep looking for information and feedback in books and participating in professional development programs. The contribution of other teachers or of school administration is seen as negligible, though projects are discussed with other staff members. For organisational and financial decisionmaking, the teachers depend on the principal and the "teachers' conference" as gremium for school relevant decisions. Assessment is experienced as integrated into their task; they feel permanently assessed by their student teachers, but also informally by other staff members. One teacher commented about this:
I applied "free work" already at a time when it was officially almost "forbidden". My colleagues laughed at me, at my 'anti-authoritarian 1 teaching, at my efforts for a social integrative educational style, at student-centred teaching, at 'bringing reality' into the classroom. As nothing was available, I had to develop my own syllabus ... which supported my flexibility. Today, my colleagues take many of these approaches into their own classrooms, convinced by the success and by positive reactions of students and parents. Now that I serve in special functions and that I am older, my influence in the staff has strongly grown.

Introducing active learning to their students has prompted these teachers to reflect on their implicit educational theories. They describe how they became more and more aware of neglected topics in everyday education, for instance, children from underprivileged homes, victims of divorce, etc., and they started to search for pedagogical information. One teacher became so excited about being a learner again that she decided to share her insights and her new experiences with other people interested in education and she founded a parents' discussion club focused on educational questions. As the most important principles for activating learners, these elementary school teachers mention periods of free work, student-centred teaching, and situation-specific instruction, that is instruction that starts with students' problems. Over the years the teachers found that applying these principles did not interfere with the topics in the official syllabus, though these topics were organised in very differing sequences. The examples from these teachers' classrooms demonstrate that active learning is possible within the context of regular elementary schools. However, we will find such examples only in classrooms whose teachers are as interested in active learning and motivated to find appropriate niches within the curriculum structure as our mentors are, because school organisation and curriculum demand that the topics of the syllabus are covered but they do not demand active learning. If active learning is wanted generally, schools have to be reorganised to invite and promote selfdetermined activities of students and teachers.

Chapter II.6 THE NETHERLANDS

V. W. Withagen

Policy context: basisvorming

In the 1993-1994 school year all secondary schools in the Netherlands be gan the basisvorming curriculum reform for students aged 12 to 16. The philosophy behind this reform includes a stronger focus on the acquisition of practical skills and on learning how to apply the acquired knowledge. For individual subjects, the Ministry of Education has developed new core objectives (kerndoelen), but the schools and teachers have considerable freedom to decide how these are implemented. Basisvorming involves an instructional reform of the Dutch education system, where the stronger focus on practical skills and the application of knowledge also demands the use of new instructional methods and materials. The reform is going to be introduced in phases with the second forms of the secondary schools starting in August 1994 (Van der Wal, 1992; Project-management Basisvorming, 1994). In the teaching of English the main changes can be summarised as follows (De Jong, 1992; Hoeflaak, 1992; Wijgh, 1992; Westhoff, 1992; Weststrate, 1992). The core objectives strongly emphasise the communicative function of language, with less emphasis on grammar and vocabulary as ends in themselves, and more attention to speaking and listening skills. Second, according to the core objectives, the language curriculum will place great emphasis on three new areas: compensating strategies and skills, socio-cultural competence, and "learning how to learn". This implies changing only the curriculum but also methods of teaching. For instance, in order to practice speaking skills students will have to work in pairs or groups more frequently. A consistent emphasis on communication goals also will require development of new materials and adapted tests (from: Willems, Withagen & Oud-de Glas, 1994).
Partial autonomy for students at a Montessori school

We observed in a comprehensive school which uses the Montessori concept of education, attaching great importance to the students having an independent

work attitude. Because of a merger with three other secondary schools in the previous school year, the number of students had increased to 1500, and the students are now more diverse. As a result of the merger and the basisvorming curriculum reform, a num ber of new changes were implemented at the school. The school timetable was altered, so that each day now consists of four 70-minute classroom sessions and one 40-minute "option time" session. Furthermore, a policy plan was drawn up for the 1994-1995 school year. Independent learning was to be the spearhead of the new policy. A Co-ordinator for "educational development" was appointed to animate the change. His main assignment is to carry out activities that lead to the advancement of independent learning in the classroom and in the school organisation. His activities include training, providing support to the administrators, attending various meetings at the school as well as outside conferences. In addition to independent learning in the classroom, another goal is inde pendent learning in the school organisation. In order to promote this objective and to give teachers greater responsibility, school administrators have delegated some tasks and responsibilities to 15 "core teams", each of which consists of four teachers of different subjects, who are responsible for a particular policy or practice in a number of classes. For example, core teams are occupied with educational progress, the Montessori concept or independent learning. Lessons observed We observed two English lessons in a heterogeneous second form class comprising of 25 students from "senior general secondary education" and "pre-university education". The first lesson started with a short vocabulary test. Before the test the students were given the opportunity to ask questions about the vocabulary they had learned from the textbook. The teacher explained that the students did not have to worry if they did not pass the test, because they could try again some other time. After they had completed the test, the teacher asked them to indicate if they thought they had passed the test. The children then looked in their textbook to find the words they did not know. In the next 15 minutes the students did their individual work or checked the answers with the answer card. They worked either individually or with their neighbour. The teacher was available when called upon. For the last 20 minutes the children all listened to a spoken text on audio- cassette about flying. The students answered questions about the tape and completed several assignments.

In the second lesson the students again had to complete a test, after asking questions about the relevant chapter in the textbook. After about 40 minutes the first students had finished the test and they went on to work on another chapter on their own. When all of the students had finished, the class discussed the assessment procedure with the teacher. During the last ten minutes the class discussed things they did in their leisure time. Students' involvement in setting goals In the two classes we observed the teacher did not actually involve the stu dents in setting goals. However, during the interview she told us that all of the teachers had made a assignment book for the subject they taught. The students know exactly what will be discussed during the year and which assignments they will have to work on. The children have to plan their activities by themselves and the teacher assists them in setting these shortterm goals. The assignment book is divided up in periods of four weeks. Students check the assignments themselves with a "check card" and ask the teacher to sign. In addition, the students also work on individual assignments. They can for instance read a book and discuss this with the teacher or they can write a report about the book. During option time, 40 minutes a day, students are free to choose the sub ject and teacher they want. They can prepare or repeat a test, prepare the work for the following day or ask their own teacher, or someone else, for some extra instruction. In these lessons the children set their own goals, or discuss them with the teacher. Task structure In the lessons we observed, the teacher decided whether and when the chil dren were going to work as a whole class and or work on their individual assignments. During the first lesson the children spent 15 minutes on individual assignments. The teacher was available when called upon. The students decided for themselves whether the work was going to be done individually or in small groups (pairs). The aim of the administrators of the school is to spend at least 60 per cent of students' time on independent work. The policy of the school is further to promote work in small groups. During the mother tongue lessons for instance, students are given special assignments that have to be completed in small groups. In the English lessons students can sometimes choose whether to work on their own or in pairs. The choice is left up to them. In the lessons we observed, students were working on different assignments. Students in the pre-university program complete extra assignments. One

student's achievement in an assignment does not depend on other members of the same group or other groups. As far as we know, the pairs are not expected to work together outside class. They are not given any homework to do as a pair. Accessing information Within the classroom the students are exposed to new information individu ally and as a whole class. In the first instance, the children read the instructions written by the teacher, and work on the assignment individually. Students decide for themselves when they are ready to take in new information. The teacher explained, "Even though I may think that it is time to give some instruction, it does not necessarily mean that the student is ready to take in new information as well. It is much more effective to write the instructions down, so that the children can decide for themselves when they feel like reading them". When the students are exposed to new information as a whole class, the teacher discusses the new topic with them. When the students are working on their individual assignments they seek out sources of information other than those the teacher provides in the classroom. During the first lesson the teacher pointed the students on their way by showing them several books by Roald Dahl. They can also use the library to look for books. Assessment of learning and the learning process The students themselves assess what they have learned with the check card. Further, when the students complete a test the teacher also asks them to give an indication of how well they think they have done on the test. Performance standards are defined by the Ministry of Education, but the teacher implements them on a day to day basis. Sometimes she only marks the mistakes the students have made. On other occasions she gives some of the students a grade, while others have to repeat the test. She also has discussions with the children on how they could improve their performance, and the students also reflect on their performance after every test. An example of a student learning to learn occurred during the first lesson when one student asked the teacher the best way of learning the vocabulary they had to learn for the test.

Teachers' Learning

Involvement in setting organisational goals and task structure The English teacher we interviewed, who is also a deputy head, was closely involved in the introduction of the new teaching goal "independent learning in the classroom and in the organisation". The initiator of the effort was one of the other heads, who expanded on what was already being done under the Montessori approach. The new teaching goal had been discussed at several meetings and the administrators had formulated a policy: they wanted the students and the teachers to accept their own responsibilities. Next the organisational structure was changed. In the previous school year all teachers were given the possibility to express their wishes: for instance which subject they wanted to teach (if they were trained to teach more than one), which classes they preferred and what kind of position they wanted to fill (e.g. a core team member, tutor, section leader). In response to the inventory that was drawn up, the administrators talked with the teachers about their wishes. The teacher we interviewed was responsible for the discussions with the teachers who taught in the upper school. The responsibilities were divided up in accordance with the outcomes of these discussions. Half of the teaching staff now belongs to a core team, where they are responsible for developing a particular policy or practice in several classes. For the English teacher we observed and interviewed, the most significant professional development activity during the past year was "the training of the core team co-ordinators at a meeting where they worked on counselling. During these meetings the core team co-ordinators' responsibilities and new role in the organisation were pointed out to them". It was a significant event, because "a group of people had to think about their new role in the organisation. For many teachers this involved a radical change and they could not fall back on their previous role". The administrators, too, had to get used to the new roles. They have to allow others to take over part of their responsibilities now, even though they still have the ultimate responsibility. Teachers9 access to new information The main source of information for developing new teaching methods was the new Co-ordinator. One of his tasks is to support the administrators and the core teams in the development of curricula and lesson plans. In order to be able to draw up these plans, he attends conferences and meetings about independent learning and the learning organisation. The teacher we interviewed also visits and

organises conferences and workshops. In addition the school is a member of a network of schools in the Netherlands that have adopted the Montessori concept. Members of this network are now also discussing independent learning, specifically in the upper school. The process of work and learning The teacher feels that it is very difficult to describe the most significant change in her classes, because she gradually keeps developing and changing her teaching method. She thinks that compared with previous years the students are now working more independently and are more often taking initiatives. The teacher still feels however that she controls the lessons too much. She would like to leave more up to the children and only address them when they fall behind. Scaffolding to support students' independent learning is provided by the assignment books and the instructions she wrote. Teachers' assessment of their own learning and learning process The teacher believes that it is much too early to be able to assess the effects of the new policy on the students. Nevertheless, she has noticed that the students who plan their own assignments are much more motivated. The effects of the new teaching practices will not be assessed: "the school is convinced of the fact that it is on the right track". Of course there are noticeable effects which the teachers do assess, like the assignment books the students have to fill out. The new policy has had a striking effect on the teachers: "In other school years the teachers stayed at home in order to enjoy their holiday as long as possible, while in the meantime the administrators were already developing new plans for the following school year". But this year core team members all came back early and were actively thinking about their new tasks. "When teachers are given responsibilities, they take them. The involvement of the teachers is much greater now". Yes, her own theory or philosophy on education had also changed, the teacher said. Probably this is related to the change in her position at the school: from an English teacher to a deputy head. When she started teaching, her philosophy was mainly geared towards the teaching of English, although she did feel that the subject of English had to link up with social themes. Now, "I believe we work in the context of a much broader education". In the future the teacher would like to go beyond traditional school subjects and offer the students a different and much broader education. For instance, this year the school started with the op-

tional subject of "philosophy" and plans have been developed for offering sub jects like "future education".
Conclusions

This school can be considered as an example of "best practice" of active learning among students teachers in the Netherlands. Active learning by teachers occurs in the context of a complex school-development effort aimed at increasing active learning for students. In order to involve teachers in goal setting the organisational structure of the school was changed: most teachers belong to "core teams", which are responsible for promoting the policy across classes. The English teacher we interviewed, who is also the deputy head of the upper school, was closely involved in the introduction of the new teaching goal. A Co-ordinator for "educational development" was appointed and was to be the main source of information for developing new teaching methods. Students in this school have some choices over learning goals and assign ments and also some opportunities to experiment. In the lessons called "option time" they can decide which subject they would like to do and with which teacher. They are also involved in deciding which assignments to engage in. Most students either work individually or in pairs with their neighbour. Although the curriculum content and standards are still set by the Ministry and implemented by the teacher, students have an increased amount of control over their own learning.

Chapter II.7 SPAIN /. Cordoba Rodriguez de Guzman

Policy context

National policy in Spain supports active learning. We are in a period of im plementation of the Reform in the Educational System. This Reform, established in 1990 through the General Law of the Spanish Educational System, has brought several changes including extension of statutory education from the age of fourteen to sixteen, free education up to age sixteen, and reorganisation of the system by stages over a ten-year period. The basic aims of the 1990 law are the achievement of quality and moderni sation of the schools. The law also stresses the importance of training teachers and considers permanent teacher training to be a right and an obligation of the teachers, and responsibility of Education Authorities. Under the law, individual schools have greater autonomy. The Ministry of Education and the Autonomous Communities offer to schools the basic curricu lum, general objectives and contents for each stage, and criteria for assessment, but these are flexible enough to allow teachers to create an individual school curriculum, which must be adapted to the students' characteristics and educational possibilities at each school. One of the principles that the new law espouses is student involvement in the teaching and learning process. Active learning is therefore the main focus of new programmes schools are developing. At the same time, the law stresses the importance of an overall education in all areas of personal, family, social and professional life. As a consequence of this, many teachers are increasingly concerned about teaching procedures and strategies to allow students learn to learn. They also be lieve in the need for social change as a responsibility shared between parents and schools, so they attack importance to the teaching and learning of moral values and attitudes. The whole staff of a school are obliged to reflect on what kind of person they hope to "make". In contrast, under the former law, enacted in 1970, the State set the curricu lum and teachers carried it out in class without taking into account either the personal needs and characteristics of students or the particular conditions of schools.

More importance was given to the learning of concepts than to thinking processes, skills and attitudes. Teaching methods were mainly repetitive or passive (read and memorise) in order to get concepts, and the objectives were given in a behaviour-istic way. Usually the only place of work was the classroom. Assessment was considered an instrument to select and classify students, evaluating only the results on the part of the students and not to reflect on the whole educational process for the purpose of adapting or changing some aspects of it (activities, aims, resources, etc.). Teachers did not make decisions, they had to follow the legal prescriptions of the state.
Tab. II.7.1: Sequence of teacher's and students' activities
TEACHER PHASE ONE: GOAL SETTING He proposed a topic to the whole class: the Spanish Civil War. Then he asks questions to detect what ous children already knew about it. He commences with them what they are going to learn. Trying to discover students' interests, he asks them what they would like to learn, and encourages them to bring words of songs from this historical period. He writes on the blackboard the aim and final objectives of this curriculum unit. STUDENTS

They elaborate a concept map (with previ- ideas), and copy it in their notebooks. Several children say what they knew about it, or what they have been told.

Three or four students ask him some ques tions about the topic. For instance: what are the Republican ideas? Everybody copies them in his/her notebook.

PHASE TWO: TASK STRUCTURE Now teacher explains and clarifies some aspects of the topic, and he suggests to students to start the research. The majority of them listen and five or six ask some questions related to the topic or to The organisation of the project.

He also decides that they work in groups. They choose the members of

the small small group. Each group includes boys and girls, with four or five students. activity in the the group, they elaborate an outline. Each member of the group does a different task, one selects slides, another one summarises the information, etc.).

But while students work he goes around from group to group suggesting, giving oral incentives (you are right, very good, etc.) or giving advice if they have problems. After they plan their own

PHASE THREE: ACCESS TO INFORMATION

He offers them a collection of slides, and mentions bibliography, films and TV series he has recorded, to use them as resources, and he even suggests them to talk with their parents or grandparents.

students a hand-out with a summary of the topic and resources. They borrow books from the public library from the school library.

A girl comments "My grandmother told me..." and some of them have seen a film or series about this topic. Several children have brought words of songs to comment and learn them in the Language classroom. Nevertheless he gives the This time they read teacher's hand-out.

PHASE FOUR: PROCESS OF WORK AND LEARNING

In the group work phase he guides and advises students. Everything is planned, then they start the research like homework (group work also outdoors) going to the library He gives them a questionnaire to complete during the exposition.

and selecting information resources. Next they continue the research in the class room, discussing, making decisions about the way they are going to present the papers to the class. Two groups ask for the slides and watch them. Small groups start the exposition.

Other groups fill in the questionnaire that each group must present. When children are motivated enough he leads a Then they give their opinions and come to debate, asking questions and moderating. some conclusions. Hours later he explains that they will visit the Reina Sofia Museum, to see Picasso's painting of Guernica. He prepares and gives them a hand-out with information and a questionnaire. In the Plastics Arts class they have also to work on different aspects of the picture: colour, plans, lines, etc. "Oh good, that sounds like fun". He has a talk with the teacher of Language about how they are going to treat the words of the songs. PHASE FIVE: OUTCOMES OF WORK The museum is in Madrid, half an hour from Getafe by train. During the visit in the museum, they fill in the hand-out, analysing the picture by Picasso. Children also reflect their impressions.

He listens and notes down the outcomes of each group project. Small groups expose their papers for fifteen minutes.

Two groups use transparencies for the exposure and another one slides. The projects outcomes are available for other students' use.

PHASE SIX: ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING PROCESS

Teacher asks students to write what they have learned. Ten or fifteen minutes later he asks the whole class to talk about the outcomes of work, their functioning of the small groups (co-operation, commitments, etc.) and how they could improve their performance. He reminds them of the importance of being critical and change moral values (solidarity,

tolerance, etc.) underlying this topic. So they compare the concept map construc ted earlier in the motivation phase, and write what they have really learned. They do not discuss how they could improve performance. Three or four students only suggest to ex change some members of small groups, because they are not involved enough.

Then he suggests that they complete the ment of all the students involved in process. Now the teacher has a lot of information: effort and attitude, commitment in the group work, presentation of the papers, accuracy of ideas, etc.

In this way they are ready to give a assess feedback to the other members of their the group (co-evaluation) and to themselves (self-evaluation) using a record prepared by the teacher, from which card he also can get feedback about his own practice,

Active learning by students: a lesson from violent history

The lesson described here was taught at the C.P. Miguel Hernandez State Primary school, one of the oldest schools in Getafe, with 320 students and 25 teachers. It is a mixedability and co-educational school, located in the quarter "La Alhondiga", a low-income area with much unemployment and social conflict. In the last three years large numbers of immigrants from North Africa and Eastern Europe have come to this area. The school is located between a motorway and the railway line, therefore is a very noisy area. Nevertheless, thanks to the good reputation of this school formed over many years of these teachers working as a team, many higher-income families bring their children to this school by car. The class we observed contained 24 students, 13 boys and 11 girls, most of them 14 years old. The subject was Social Science, and the teacher was Miguel Lancho. The classroom was pleasant, with comfortable furniture. Maps and posters decorated the walls. A mini library in the classroom contained text books, articles from magazines, newspapers, an atlas, students' papers and special readings for this subject. During three weeks of observation we could see how this teacher had cre ated an environment that involved students in an active process of learning, based on dialogue, group problem-solving and shared reflection, close connection with real life, and promotion of critical thinking skills. We will describe one sequence of lessons by listing the teacher's and students' activities alongside each other (see Table II.7.1).
How the teacher learns

This teacher introduces new methods and teaching materials on his own initiative, though supported by other colleagues and the school's administrative team. As far as professional development is concerned, the most outstanding activities have been those related to the planning of School Educational Projects as

well as those activities related to his own subject. The main sources of information on new teaching methods are books and journals, other colleagues, teachers' training centres, and the Escuela Abierta, an innovation network in which he is an active member. He has been influenced by constructivist conceptions of knowledge and learning, so he tries to carry out meaningful learning, developing strategies to help students "learn to learn". The year before our observation he prepared an innovative curriculum project for the school, and he is continuing to co-ordinate it. He has also been giving courses in the (teachers' training centres) for years, about the use of audio-visual methods in the classroom. This teacher has always followed his own direction. Accordingly, he has encouraged his students to take an active part in their own learning process. This teachers' attitude towards teaching has not been imposed by the reform of the educational system, but has been based on his own day-to-day experience in the classroom. "I learn from my students", he says.

Chapter II.8 UNITED KINGDOM

D. Hopkins, K. Black-Hawkins, K. Aldridge, H. Lay, P. Jewell, and D. Davidson

Images of active learning in recent government policy

Over the last decade there have been a number of national educational de velopments in England and Wales which support the idea of more active learning for students. Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI). This was introduced in 1983 by the Government as a pilot project, with the specific aim of encouraging links between schools and the workplace. Central funding was made available to support numerous and various initiatives. This move over the last decade towards a more vocationally based approach to the curriculum has also encouraged changes in teaching and learning styles, encompassing much which would be recognised as "active learning", there was also a strong emphasis on work experience in years 10 and 11 as part of TVEI (see Eraut et al., 1991; Hopkins, 1990; Waterhouse, 1990). Flexible Learning Projects, (e.g. Flexible Learning, 1990 and Flexible Learning Development Project, 1991). These Government funded projects developed out of TVEI learning. Their aim is to provide evidence and/or materials which will encourage teachers to approach their students' learning in a more flexible manner. They highlight the features most likely to ensure that successful learning occurs and in doing so place particular emphasis on aspects of "active learning". Records of Achievement. This scheme, available nationally and presented in a variety of guises depending on local circumstances, is mainly used with secondary-aged students. Its aim is to provide them with an opportunity to reflect with their teachers upon their school work in terms of their successes and difficulties and to negotiate future learning objectives. Personal accomplishments, other than those which are specifically academic, are also acknowledged. An individual file is maintained which - as its name suggests acts as a "Record of Achievement" for each student. Integration of students experiencing learning difficulties. Contemporary attempts to integrate students with special educational needs into mainstream

schools and classrooms may over time support the idea of active learning. Inclu sive schools, by their very nature promote a more innovative and differentiated approach to curriculum and institution. The recent Code of Practice, for example, encourages schools to involve children/students in "any assessment and intervention" in such terms as: understanding goals, personal responsibility for progress, regular feedback, and so forth. The 1988 Education Reform Act and beyond. Whatever impact the above developments may have had they must be set in the context of recent government legislations which have brought about fundamental changes in the state education system. Perhaps the most radical of these is the introduction of a national curriculum. It could be argued that aspects of this support a more collaborative and active model of learning (see, for example, DES, 1992). However, many teachers feel that it restricts such opportunities. Within the context of a National Curriculum teachers are seen as responsible for imparting a set body of knowledge and skills, and thus unable to allow students any real control over their own learning.
Examples of group learning in three English secondary schools

During the Spring and Summer term 1994 a team of three teachers, who were senior managers in three secondary schools and also part-time students working towards a Masters degree in Education at the University of Cambridge Institute of Education, produced case studies of their own schools. At each one a number of lessons were observed and the teachers responsible for those lessons, plus some of the participating students, were interviewed. Particular attention was given to students working together in a collaborative or co-operative manner on real problems with some immediate consequence. The three State schools were very similar; in size, 800-1 000 students; in ethnicity, almost all pupils came from an English speaking background; in examination scores, all had around the national average in GCSE scores; and were all innovative and proactive in disposition. The active learning observed was initiated within the schools rather than being part of a nationally supported project.
Producing a newspaper in English class

Tabor High School is a co-educational comprehensive school with approxi mately 800 pupils aged 11-16 from rural and urban backgrounds situated in an Essex market town. The pupils in the study were in Year 9 (1314 years old). The observed lesson began with the whole class together for a brief registration and introduction to the lesson to set the tasks. Pupils were compiling a newspaper in groups of 5 or 6. They had a generic task with two compulsory subjects of a

Leader article and "Letters to the Editor" leaving a free choice for the majority of the articles and items. The groups had split the work according to their own pref erences and were working individually or in twos or threes, as they chose. They were drafting articles by word processing, editing, proofing and formatting their work using three areas of the school. The teacher moved between areas, providing or offering advice or monitoring the work done with no intervention. At no time was any pupil seen "off task". There was a buzz of conversation, all work related, in all rooms that sometimes lapsed into silence apart from the noise of typing and printers. Pupils were clear that their individual contributions and the whole newspaper would be assessed so individual achievement and progress was as important as the group achievement. Building circuits with capacitors The Samuel Whitbread Upper School and Community College is a 13-18 comprehensive whose catchment area covers a large area of countryside in east Bedfordshire of several villages ranging from tiny hamlets to small towns. The lesson described here was given in Year 10 Science. The lesson began with a register being taken. The teacher and students reviewed the work on capacitors as a whole class. The teacher then explained the new task including the new information needed to help students in their inquiry, and the context of the exercise within the Science National Curriculum. The students collected their equipment and set up the required circuits in groups of two or three, while the teacher circulated among the students, helping, discussing and advising them. The students were all on task and discussed the work within their groups, solving most problems for themselves but occasionally asking the teacher for help. The students within a group had different tasks such as, recording, timing with a stop-watch, reading the voltage etc. Having cleared away their apparatus the groups discussed what they would do in the next lesson. The teacher offered a solution to a problem of lack of sensitivity of their meters to the whole class for the next lesson. Designing and building a gear box Samuel Ward Upper School is a mixed comprehensive and draws on a mixed catchment blue collar London overspill and mixed middle class. Active learning is deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the school. Instruction is organised on a departmental basis and students are assigned to teachers according to department policy ~ either setting or mixed ability. The lesson described here took place in a Year 9 Technology class. It began with a register being taken. The teacher explained to the class that they would be working in small groups

designing and then making a gear box. He explained how to plan, resource and manage the task over a period of 4 weeks and also placed the work in the context of the Technology National Curriculum. The students divided into groups and began to discuss and write action plans. They worked in different areas of a large open plan technology suite and the teacher circulated offering advice and support. Some groups decided to begin with the making task before going back to the design stage, others planned more carefully and methodically. The students tended to solve problems for themselves and only occasionally asked the tutor to intervene. They also divided up tasks among themselves. The class was drawn together at the end as the teacher explained the purpose of keeping to an action plan and also showed them some practical ways of assembling a gear box.
Analysis of students' active learning

In each of these lessons, the teacher explained the purpose of the current or planned activity. However, in these and other lessons observed at these schools there was little evidence of student involvement in setting goals. Reference was made by some teachers to the constraints imposed on them by the national curriculum, although 7 out of 12 said they did try to involve their students when possible. Their response to the question "How?" indicated, however, that this involvement is not of a high order (e.g. explaining expected standards; deciding what level to aim for; and so forth). Students themselves when questioned said their involvement was minimal. In these and other observed lessons the teachers decided at some point what task activity students should work on, although in just over a third of the episodes students were also given an opportunity, for part or all of the time, to design their own tasks. Teachers rarely allowed students to decide whether they wanted to work individually, in small groups or as a whole class. Some small group work was noted in most of the observations, with group sizes ranging from 2 or 3 to 5 or 6 students. On the whole the duration of these groups was for more than a month and up to a whole school year and their membership was determined largely by the students themselves. Small group interactions among students were generally of a positive nature with little evidence of frustration with the task or other group members. About half the teachers said they prepared their students to be effective team members, the rest offered them no particular strategies. Students said that conflicts were mainly dealt with in the group, and if not, by reference to the teacher. One student reported, "We agree with what we want to do. If we didn't we'd have a vote". In terms of task differentiation a variety of formats was observed, although in just over half the episodes observed all students worked on the same task. The

rest either involved all groups having to complete the same task but individuals within them having different responsibilities, or tasks varying across the groups. Students were rarely expected to work in their groups outside class time but the notion of co-operative effort during class time was generally accepted and expected by both teachers and students. Most of the students interviewed acknowledged that their work depended on the contribution of others in their group. We read it through and say, "why don't you put that bit with this... You sometimes miss bits and if you give it to a friend, they can go through it more carefully; you miss it as you've spent a lot of time on it" (English student). The use of rewards other than grades or marks for students was prevalent at all the schools, and included stars, merits, commendations and so forth. Some students also noted the importance of teacher praise and/or personal satisfaction. One commented, "The teacher and friends tell you that's good, and you feel good yourself. In the learning episodes observed the most common source of new informa tion for the students was the teacher although a wide variety of other sources was used (for example library, CD-ROM, computer network, etc.). Only one instance was noted of communication by students with people outside school although two-thirds of the teachers interviewed stated that they did use outsiders as a resource on some occasions. Students were exposed to new information as a whole class, in small groups or individually. Some teachers used two or even three of these formats within the same learning episode. As regards the process of work and learning, during all the observations students interacted with their teachers and for a variety of purposes. Most of the students interviewed said they were encouraged to ask questions in class and to disagree with their teachers, although there were very few examples of the latter noted. Most of the teachers acknowledged the importance of trying to create an atmosphere where students felt confident to question and to argue. Generally teachers chose not to be the centre of attention in the learning episodes observed, although when interviewed the amount of time they spent in this position varied tremendously. In most cases the role they were seen to adopt was that of working with individuals or small groups. In terms of outcomes of work there was little evidence that student's work was used for any purpose other than promoting student learning. The main exception to this was that of displaying student's work in the school. There seems to be little evidence from the observations to suggest a coher ent pattern across the sites in terms of assessing students' learning. The students themselves make use of a wide variety of strategies to determine whether or not they are learning successfully, e.g. from checking their work against their friend's to asking their parents and from waiting for test results to a sense of growing confidence in the subject.

About half of the teachers interviewed thought their methods of teaching and learning were unlike those employed by the majority of staff in their school. In contrast nearly all the students said these particular teachers were different. They described their classes as being generally more open, with greater choice, more discussion and stronger encouragement to work things out for themselves. While some students said they always preferred these approaches, others argued for a variety. Very few experienced any problems when moving from one style of teaching and learning to another.
Conclusions

First, teachers and pupils seemed most involved in the processes of trans mitting and receiving information, rather than setting goals, organising tasks or assessing what is learned. However, students could often control whether they worked in groups and how they distributed the tasks between group members, and this appeared to be motivating. The goals and the tasks set tended to be imposed by external organisations such as the National Curriculum and exam boards and these also determined the type of assessment used. A clear finding was that the National Curriculum and other Government initiatives set constraints on teachers' and students' choice. Second, it was apparent in all three schools that pupils enjoyed "active learning" and were on task during all the lessons observed in the study. On a number of occasions they were reluctant to finish their lesson at the allotted time. They said they enjoyed their co-operative group work because it gave them confidence, was non-competitive and more relaxed. One student explained:
People help each other in groups because it's not a competitive thing... which is good as you don't get to hate anyone. It's more relaxed. When you compete all the time you tend to feel uncomfortable, you have to get this done ... in a certain time but now it's more relaxing,... it's fun because it's not so tense. (English student)

However some pupils also expressed the view that a variety of learning styles was important to give them change of pace. This study was not designed to test whether there was better retention or recall of the material learned during active learning compared to traditional teaching. Third, the teachers who were involved in promoting active learning among their pupils appeared flexible and willing to experiment with more co-operative approaches to learning themselves, sharing their ideas with other colleagues. These staff were highly motivated when they could control their own learning and methods of teaching, but were demotivated by the imposition of outside con-

straints which they interpreted as being introduced for political rather than sound educational reasons.

Chapter IL9 UNITED STATES: SETON KEOUGH HIGH SCHOOL

S. Magri

Active learning is being promoted at many levels in the U.S. school reform movement. It is a key component of recommendations made by national teachers' organisations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Teachers Association, which have been influential in standard-setting activities currently under way in many states and at the federal level. Several states are developing high-stakes assessments in which students have to show that they can solve problems working collaboratively, set up and carry out experiments, comprehend extended text, and write in several genres. These assessments encourage schools to make more extensive use of active learning, project-based learning, and/or inquiry learning approaches. Maryland, where Seton Keough High School is located, has been developing the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), a performance-based measure given at grades 3, 5, 8 and 11 that rewards active learning. In various ways, therefore, students and teachers are being encouraged to take more responsibility for their work and to make choices to guide their own educational process. This is evident in the spread of practices such as co-operative learning, open-ended experiments, numerous hands-on activities, and greater student autonomy in selecting topics of study and strategies for organising their learning.
A science teacher experiments with active learning

I am a science teacher at the Seton Keough High School, a Catholic school for girls in grades 9 through 12. Approximately 500 students are currently enrolled. Students come from the city of Baltimore and four surrounding counties. Student population shows diversity in socioeconomic, religious, ethnic and ability groupings. Ninety-four percent of graduates continue their education after high school. While the school is not directly affected by the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program, it has been engaged in active learning since well before this became a state or national focus.

Schoolwide, students regulate their own work

The Seton Keough High School uses a flexible, modular schedule. There are 18 to 20-minute "frames" during the day. Classes are either two frames (40 minutes) or three frames. There are six days (A-F days) in a learning cycle. If "A" day is Monday, the next Monday is "F" day, and Tuesday begins the next "A" day. Students spend some time each day in self-contained classrooms (called structured time), and the remaining time in resource centres or laboratories (called unstructured time). Unstructured time is used by the student to go to the library, computer lab, language lab, science lab, art lab and/or resource centres in other academic areas. The ratio of structured to unstructured time varies from about 80: 20 to 50: 50. Each course issues learning guides which contain performance objectives, related activities, and evaluation method to help the student direct her learning. The student must choose among various options offered, or sometimes create her own options, and decide how best to use her time to fulfil various requirements. Course material is divided into two parts. Students are capable of learning some material and skills on their own or in small groups (done in unstructured lab time). More difficult concepts are explained by the teacher during class. In Science, students are required to come to lab during their unstructured time and attendance is taken. During any given lab time, there are students from several courses. Some students work in groups which they form themselves, and some work individually. Students choose which of the learning guide activities they will do. Materials for each activity are provided in trays. There may be up to 7-10 different activities going on at the same time. The teacher circulates among the groups to answer questions, examine data being collected and question student comprehension. The room may appear chaotic; everyone is talking and working. Visitors sometimes have trouble finding the teacher, as she/he is often seated with a group of students.
A new course: students manage a local resource

During the 1993-1994 school year, I implemented a new, one semester elec tive course called Chesapeake I ~ Chesapeake Watershed Reforestation Action Project, or C-WRAP. This grew out of a joint project suggested by Mr. Walter Orlinksy, Director of Tree-Mendous Maryland of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The project was developed to reforest an urban site and restore a small urban stream which crosses our campus. Biologists, soil scientists and foresters of the Department of Natural Resources and Maryland Department of the Environment developed the basic plan for the restoration. The students are

involved in stream monitoring, reforestation, and development of some specific solutions to run off problems on our site. Eventually they will conduct community education. The C-WRAP course is a project-centred, problem-solving course which intends to lead students to identifying some environmental problems, how to find information, and solve some of these problems. In Unit I ("Is Crusader Gator Run Healthy?"), initial habitat assessment and bioassessment were done, results were discussed in class and problems identified. The students then developed additional learning guide objectives based on the poor quality of the stream and a need to investigate the problems. Excess run-off and sediment were identified by the students as two of the problems affecting the stream. In Unit II ("How Can We Measure Run-off?"), background information relating to a specific objective identified by the students was provided to the class, and teams of 3-4 students had to develop an experimental procedure to investigate a problem, such as, "On a slope, which type of surface has the least amount oi run-off?" Background information included a prior studentdesigned experimenl on erosion and a definition of run-off. Teams had to develop a hypothesis about the effect of surface type and degree of run-off, and develop an experimental procedure to test their hypothesis. Once approved by the teacher, the teams conducted their experiments and presented their results to the class. As a response to a question concerning how to measure the water level in the stream, I gave the teams a 1.5 meter section of PVC pipe, 6 centimetre diameter, and said, "You can figure it out." Holes were drilled, caps added and a measuring stick placed inside. The students were impressed when I showed them a journal article illustrating a crest gauge, identical to the one they had just built. The crest gauges were installed in the stream and measurements taken after rainfall. Unit III was on "Wetlands". There is a small cattail marsh near the stream which the class had seen during our many outside trips. With appropriate resources, the students identified some of the wetland plants, investigated the role of the plants as a natural filter, and compared wetland soil to non-hydric soils. Class discussion concluded that wetlands played an important role in the hydrologic cycle. Unit IV was "Planning a Wetland." Responding to a need to evaluate run off patterns, the teams learned to use topographic maps and identify watershed boundaries. Each team prepared a ground plan to restore a wetland to an area of stream bank. Active restoration efforts included expanding the stream buffer zone (plant ing trees along the stream bank) and cleaning trash out of the stream valley. The students also went on a field trip in Baltimore Harbour conducted by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The class could see how the problems of our stream were affecting the harbour and the Chesapeake Bay.

Nurturing self-regulated learning in a nutrition course

The Nutrition course for 1994-1995 also utilised active learning principles. This is a one semester elective course for juniors and seniors. At the beginning of the course, students gave input in the form of questions they had about nutrition issues. They were also asked to list 10 chapters in the text in which they had a particular interest. Five students in the class analysed this input and prioritised the information. I developed the first three units, covering basic information such as nutrients, food pyramid requirements, and reading food labels. The last three units were on topics chosen by the students. Unit 5 was completely student-designed. Teams of 3-4 students designed their own learning for two chapters. Each team developed a plan for learning (some wrote their own learning guides), often dividing the work among the team members. Each member taught the rest of the team, so that everyone got the same information. Some teams did short demonstrations to the rest of the class (e.g.. food preparation tips). Each team turned in their work. Every student kept a journal about her learning process and how effective it was. Each student also completed a team evaluation form. The class decided to take a teacher-made test on the material. The test results were similar to results of other tests taken during the course. My role during class and lab time was only as a consultant.
Teacher as independent learner

I have received considerable moral support from the school administration for my efforts to improve my teaching and develop new approaches. At The Se-ton Keough High School, faculty members have freedom to develop curriculum and choose texts, although we are limited to some degree by requirements of the Maryland State Department of Education, the admission requirements of colleges and universities, and the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Increasingly, I adapt material from sources outside education, such as Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Maryland Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Association, and others. If I want my students to be independent learners, I must do it too.
Conclusions

Science students spend between 40 and 50 percent of their allotted time for science courses in lab situations working in small groups or individually. Most of the time, the students choose their own work groups, and most feel comfortable discussing difficulties in their groups. Teachers assist, but do not direct the entire group. Students choose which activities they will do during any given lab time,

and can also create their own activities. Most students do spend some time in school answering their own questions. All students can and do use the library and computer information systems. The students enjoy doing things. They like being involved, being able to get up and move around, working with equipment and seeing real world application of science information and solving real problems, as in the stream restoration project. A common comment from freshmen is that they never had the opportunity to do many experiments. Their previous science lessons consisted mostly of reading the text book, but now they like doing things much better. The students can be "like real scientists." All students interviewed preferred hands-on activities, and all respondents felt they did have input in setting their learning goals. There are a number of advantages of our program. The lab time, small class size and enthusiastic faculty provide an environment which can nurture initiative in students. Students assume responsibility for at least some of their learning. They learn how to work with others. They learn problem solving strategies. The older students can help the younger students in lab. The lab setting allows a teacher to meet more individual needs of students, and there is more opportunity to know each other as persons, teachers and students. Involving students in the process can help with discipline in the classroom, increase motivation, and improve self-esteem. It is intellectually challenging for teachers as well as students. From discussions with college admissions personnel and alumnae, we find that our graduates have few problems adjusting to college. They know how to manage their time, set priorities, work independently and how to get help. Active learning requires time for the teacher and resources for the students. Both of these are often in short supply in school settings. Another factor to contend with is the balance between content and process. But, the results make the efforts worthwhile.

Chapter II. 10 UNITED STATES: Motorola Summer Program R. C. Harris and P. Wangemann

Posing the pager problem

You could feel the rising anticipation. A room full of lively 12-14 year olds had just finished going through a problem solving simulation affectionately called the "Big Oil Spill". The energetic adolescents assumed stakeholder positions normally occupied by environmentalists, police officers, oil company executives, and news media reporters in dealing with a tanker truck accident that left oil running into valued wetlands. The culminating activity for this problem was a simulated news conference in which some participants spoke for their particular stakeholder positions while others role-played as members of the press. Their appetite for engaging in the problem solving process had only been whetted. These young people were anticipating a genuine opportunity based on their facilitators' promise that the simulation would be replaced by a real problem. They would soon be participating in a "briefing" from Christopher Galvin, the President and Chief Operating Officer of Motorola Inc. Mr. Galvin would be addressing them for the purpose of engaging them in an actual company problem to solve while they served as honorary "employees" during the week-long Explorations 1994 program. The time had arrived. A facilitator held up a Federal Express box that was just handed to her by a company mail clerk. "It says rush. It's from Chris Galvin," she blurted out. The three facilitators feigned surprise at the Fed Ex package but immediately opened it and found a videotape from Chris Galvin right on top. Mr. Galvin on video tape: "This summer's problem has to do with pagers. It is important to us and we think you will find that it is important to you. Recently legislation has been introduced by lawmakers across the country that would at your access to pagers. 'Why1, you ask? ...." Mr. Galvin's briefing continued, "Members of the marketing department have discovered that, of all of our target audiences, teenagers are the most difficult for us to reach, though they may be the most important target audience. If teenagers could show the public they were capable of handling the responsibility of having technologies like pagers without abusing them, then the need for the laws would disappear...."

Mr. Galvin gave the participants their charge, "Your assignment is to de velop prototypes of strategies you think will be successful in combating this problem. The prototypes will be sent to our paging centre in Florida at the end of the week to be reviewed by our marketing consultants...." He concluded the briefing, "I look forward to receiving their {marketing department's} report about your thoughts on this problem and how to approach the teenage group. Good luck!"
Active learning for youth and adults

For participants (students aged 12-14) in the Motorola Explorations summer programs, active learning was defined as the process of collaborating with their peers in solving a real Motorola problem. The collaboration process included learning to: clarify and work from their own stakeholder position as teens; collaborate with other youth in small teams of three to five people; access information from a variety of sources; voice preferences in how the work is accomplished; separate what is known from what needs to be known; frame a problem and ask appropriate questions; explore possible solutions, and present the possible solutions in a persua sive manner to the appropriate decision makers with the corporation for evaluation. Facilitators teachers from local public schools ~ were hired as private contractors by Motorola University to prepare for and implement the active learning experience. Although the facilitators were recognised as outstanding in their public school roles, the nature of the public educational system often has limited their opportunity to fully implement an active learning model. For these facilitators, active learning was defined as learning how to:

guide participants in clarifying their stakeholder position as teens; assist youth in working with their peers; provide some real-world information while responding to participants' re quests for other information; act as cognitive coaches in assisting participants to frame problems and ask critical questions; open opportunities for participants to voice their preferences in how they accomplish the work;

allow possible solutions to emerge from participants while influencing the process so that time and other constraints are accounted for; and support participants as they create presentations for Motorola management.

Solving the pager problem: a week of active learning

The Explorations program was not only a week-long adventure in problem solving. While the pager problem gave context and focus to the week's activities, there were also other important components. These included learning to work in teams, enjoying group sports activities, cognitive mapping, using laptop personal computers, determining information needs and sources, writing newsletter entries for sharing with other programmme sites across the country, visiting company manufacturing plants, preparing proposals and multimedia presentations, and making a formal presentation to a panel of company employees for evaluation of their ideas to solve the pager problem. In brief, here are the more prominent activities for each day of the programme:
Day 1. Team building, activities which reveal superior results when team members collaborate, eliciting ideas from participants about processes and outcomes, sports breaks, representing the group's thinking in cognitive maps, emergent leadership, identifying problems Motorola is dealing with, and writing about the program experiences in a newsletter to be shared each day by fax with other program sites. Day 2. Pushing the limits of creative thinking, practice working as teams and thinking through situations through a simulated problem solving exercise, sports breaks, introduction to the real Motorola problem having to do with teenagers and pagers, and the second edition of the program newsletter. Day 3. Facility tour to see how company problem solvers do their work, making group decisions on how to use provided information related to the pager problem, sports breaks, exploring ways to access available experts, forming new teams based on interest in particular aspects of the pager problem, formulating preliminary outlines for presentations to the company's marketing department, and the third edition of the program newsletter. Day 4. Team preparation of specific presentations to a company panel of experts, use of visuals and multimedia in presentations, sports breaks, presentation runthroughs with feedback, revision and refinement of presentations, team presentation to the live panel, the panel providing evaluative feedback, and the fourth edition of program newsletter. Day 5. Processing of the live panel presentation experience, team decisions about using panel feedback to improve the presentations, work within teams to improve and finish presentations, sports breaks, video taping final presentations to be sent to the company marketing department in Florida, and preparation for meeting with parents. 122

Day 6. Recognition for each participant, meeting with parents where the week's activi ties and accomplishments are shared, and dates set for program alumni meeting about midyear for feedback from the marketing department about the solutions presented.

It becomes clear how deeply the Explorations program used the active learning model when six active learning variables are examined: participant involvement in goal setting, task structure, access to information, process of work and learning, outcomes of work, and assessment.
Goal setting

The most prominent feature of the week's goals was the emphasis on rele vance of the program activities to a context beyond the immediate program experience. That larger context was the Motorola pager problem explained by Chris Galvin on video tape.
Task structure

Many of the decisions about which activity would be engaged in were made by the facilitators or program designers. However, participants had much latitude in determining how they would engage in the activity and for what purposes, as illustrated by the following interchange between a facilitator and participants at one site during an activity:
Nine participants were standing in a circle passing a tennis ball from person to person in a given sequence. The facilitator used her watch to see how long it took to move the ball so each person touched it at least once in the proper, sequence. The young people were nonplussed and appeared to find little challenge or interest in the activity. Facilitator: "That's your personal best at this time. Do you think you can beat that?" Participants: "Sure. Yeah." Facilitator: "What's your strategy for beating your current time?" Participants: "Pass the ball faster. Who has the stop watch?" The youth showed a little interest when the stop watch was made available but contin ued halfheartedly while moving the ball slightly faster. Facilitator: "OK, ready, go! Twelve seconds." Participants: "Let's really go fast." Facilitator: "What's your goal? How can you do better?" Participants: "We can beat twelve seconds. Let's stand closer together." The youth were now warming to the activity. Each time they modified their strategy a little and cut a second or two off their personal best.

Facilitator: "Alright, 4.7 seconds." Participant: "Now this is what we should do. just line up in order and pass the ball along in the right order." Facilitator: "4.0!!!!" Participant: "We can't stop now!"

Now all participants were laughing and making suggestions. All were ani mated. The facilitator was screaming out their improved times and the youth were totally involved and responded with laughter and numerous ideas. One participant suggested that instead of every person handling the ball, one person just move the ball around and touch each person's hand. That strategy produced their best time, less than one second. Access to information Most information was provided by the facilitators. Some of the resources available included facilitator explanations, booklets, printed materials such as technical reports, copies of magazine articles, brochures produced by the company, and drafts of legislation from several states on proposed laws to restrict pager use by teens. Some information came from video and computerised data. On a few occasions participants were able to speak directly to resource people who were invited into the setting and worked directly with the participants. Process of work and learning The interaction of participants with the facilitator team was characterised by participants suggesting alternatives or modifications to ideas and activities presented by the facilitators. Facilitators often invited participants to express their ideas on how things should be done or alternative ways in which a given problem, question, or proposed solution could be viewed. For example, after the pager problem was introduced to the participants, they were asked leading questions by facilitators in an effort to involve them in deciding what should be their next steps. We pick up the discussion after a number of participant ideas had been listed on the board under the categories of WE KNOW and WE NEED TO KNOW:
Facilitator: "What do you suggest we do at this point? Where would we want to go from here?" Participants: "What do you mean?" Facilitator: "We have a list of what we think we know and what we want to know, so what should we do now?"

Participants: "Let's break into smaller groups." Facilitator: "What would we do in those smaller groups?" Participants: "We would make room for more views to be expressed." Facilitator: "What do you mean more views?" Participants: "Share views." Facilitator: "I am having some trouble with that. We already shared in the larger group. What would we gain by doing this in small groups? Help me out." Participants: "We will know more by sharing. Facilitator: "1 know all the ideas are not up here yet." Participants: "In a small group we will have more people participating." Facilitator: "By a show of hands, how many want to work in small groups?" Participants: (most vote for small groups) Facilitator: "What I want to know is what will these small groups be doing?" Participants: "Do we have any resources?" Facilitator: "That is a good point. Remember, Chris Galvin said in the video that he would be sending a packet of material to you."

The facilitators then brought out the materials and further discussion ensued to decide how the materials should be used. Outcomes of work The emphasis of the Explorations programme was on creating a marketing plan that could be used beyond the scope of a week's activities. The marketing plans that were submitted had the possibility of being used by the marketing department if an idea was creative and original enough. The important point here was that actual employees who "owned" the problem received the proposals and could judge them in the appropriate context. The marketing department did send letters to the participants a few weeks after the programme adjourned, giving their appraisal of the participants' ideas. During the week of the programme, most of the work in the final two days was devoted to preparing a presentation for a review panel of company employees who provided critical feedback on the usefulness of the participants' proposed solutions. Here is how one presentation unfolded:
The room fell silent as four professionally dressed people, three women and one man, walked in and sat down in the middle of the room where chairs had been reserved for them. Facilitator": I would like to ask the panel members to introduce themselves." Panel Member 1: "I'm____________and I'm involved in marketing activities for the wireless division." Panel Member 2: "I'm and I am in Human Resources."

Panel Member 3: "My name is____________ and I am what they call a contract trainer. I help people learn to program. I help robots." Panel Member 4: "My name is____________and I am in the corporate legal depart ment."

The first team of participants immediately began their presentation using an overhead projector to project some graphics. The team members read from a script they had created that was displayed on a laptop computer screen they pass around. Each member of the team had a part to play in making the presentation. Assessment Most assessment was informal. No objective or standardised examinations were used. Facilitators asked numerous questions of the participants in both large and small settings. Further, participants' presentations to their peers and facilitators, the review panel, and ultimately to the marketing department all constituted a kind of informal assessment strategy. Occasionally participants offered information about what they were learning without being prompted. The following is an example of reflective informal assessment immediately after an activity. Nine participants were sitting on the grass along with their facilitator for a processing session after they have finally got their ball-passing time down to less than one second.
Facilitator: "Did you feel like you worked as a team on this one? What did you do well?" Participants: "I gave a little advice and everybody listened." Facilitator: "The second thing you said was very important. Everyone listened." Participants: "And everyone tried it." Facilitator: "Did this feel better than the Blind Polygon?" Participants: "Yes, this felt better. More team work." Facilitator: "Remember perseverance? Some of you said, "Let's do it again." or "We can do better than that." If you rated this activity from 1-10 on team work, how would you rate it? Participants: "Ten!!"

What are we learning?

We have learned something about ourselves, about the institutions we work in, the youth we wish to serve, and about learning itself.

Ourselves: We are creatures of our past environments. To step slightly to the unnatural for us as teachers and adults declining with youth. We are predisposed to tell and direct rather than invite and question. Our institutions'. Large businesses, school systems, and universities are the sum total of the people who run them. When we change the institutions can change. We must create learning environments where all who participate are are the sum total of the people who run them. When we learners and the responsibility for learning is accepted by each participant. Youth: They are used to being told. When they are invited to help create goals and processes, they are at a loss at first, but with some support and encouragement they quickly see the vision and learn to help create their present and future. They will respond faster than adults. Learning: Learning is always taking place. Whether it is pleasant and meaningful or painful and irrelevant, people will and do learn. If joy accompanies learning, it will become the centre of the future generation's lives. Active learning brings promise to making life-long learners of us all.

Chapter II.11 UNITED STATES: ROOTS AND WINGS C. P. Daniels

Recent federal legislation (Goals 2000 and re-authorisation of Chapter 1/Title 1) are prompting school systems across the country to seek out innovative alternatives to traditional elementary school programmes. In the state of Maryland, additional incentive for reform comes from the newly instituted Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), a performancebased test which goes well beyond measuring basic skills in social studies, science, math, writing, and reading; MSPAP assesses how well students use critical and creative thinking to solve a problem.
Roots and wings

Roots and Wings is a collaborative project of the Johns Hopkins University, the Maryland State Department of Education, and the St. Mary's County Public Schools. The New American Schools Development Corporation (NASCDC) provides the funding for the project. Roots and Wings is one of nine projects awarded a contract by NASDC, a private, nonprofit group, to design "break the mold" schools. It is a research-based programme designed to restructure elementary schools. Roots and Wings' mission is to provide the best instruction possible to pre pare students for their lives in the next century, and put this within the reach of every child. The goal of Roots and Wings is that virtually every child will be achieving world-class standards. Not only will students become competent in the basic skills of reading, writing; mathematics, science, history and geography, they also will become confident problemsolvers and decision-makers. We believe that the best way for students to achieve this is to immerse them in real-life situations, systems, and dilemmas. We believe that children learn best when they actively pursue knowledge that is meaningful to them. The "Roots" of Roots and Wings is a co-ordinated, comprehensive and relentless effort to ensure that every child, regardless of family background or limi tations, becomes a competent and confident learner. The "Wings" of Roots and Wings is designed to let children "soar". In a series of integrated, thematic, sci-

ence and social studies units collectively known as Worldlab, children engage in simulations that help them build higher-order thinking skills. This report describes the WorldLab component of the Roots and Wings programme. All the partners in this project regularly discuss and agree upon goals, and the strategies employed to reach them. County and school administrators, teachers and students are all in a circle of collaboration with WorldLab developers. Discussions take place before units are written, and feedback provided during piloting of first drafts supply important information for revisions. NASDC provides financial support and evaluation, and the Maryland State Department of Education waives regulations whenever possible that might hinder the restructuring effort. Developers use national curricular standards, Maryland State Outcomes and Indicators, and St. Mary's County's Benchmarks to guide development. Roots and Wings is being piloted in four elementary schools in St. Mary's County, a rural school district in Southern Maryland. Students come from middle class, working class, and lower class families. All four schools receive Chapter 1 federal funding for highpoverty schools. Three of the four pilot schools have the highest levels of federal funding for high-poverty schools in St. Mary's County.

RACIAL COMPOSITION OF STUDENT BODY

Ethnic Group Carver Elementary Lexington Park Elem. Green Elementary HollyRidge Elementary

AfricanAmerican Caucasian Hispanic

43% 57% 0%

35% 63% 2%

28% 71% 1%

20% 80% 0%

The classes described in this account vary in size, averaging twentyfour to twentysix students. Most are self-contained class rooms, with some exceptions. Schools randomly assign students to homerooms. Teachers place students in co-operative, heterogeneous, four or five member teams. Homerooms remain together for one year, and teachers rearrange teams approximately four times per year.

Classroom observation Inventors, grades 4-5

Four design engineers are huddled around their newest prototype. "Look ing at our data so far, I think the rear spoiler has really made drag go down." "I think so too, but we have to make sure the extra weight doesn't make it tip over. It might change the centre of gravity. I think we need to run some more trials." It is time for lunch and the engineers carefully place the model inside a case to keep its design secret. Is this a glimpse inside General Motors or Chrysler? No! It's a WorldLab classroom where fourth graders (age 9-10) are designing vehicles as part of a unit called "Inventors". This class of fourth graders are working co-operatively, simulating engineering design teams. Their goal is to design the most efficient vehicle they can. They complete experiments about forces, Newton's laws of motion, aerodynamic shapes, friction, and balance with the help of an engineer from the local Naval Base. They learn the scientific method because they need to use it everyday. Designing the vehicle is only one part of this integrated unit. The students also read biographies of famous inventors and investigate the effect great inven tions have had on their lives. They understand the inventive process that these famous inventors used because they are writing plans for an invention of their own. From rebellion to union, grades 4-5 Walking down the hall where fifth graders are learning about the American Revolutionary War period is not easy. There are entire classroom sets of desks in the way. Inside the classrooms, students are sitting on the floor in small groups, working on a writing project. There is a mini-revolt going on in these rooms. The students are boycotting the use of their desks because a tax has been levied on them to pay for the WorldLab program. The students are writing letters to the principal to express the unfairness of taxation without representation. This is the beginning of a simulation in which students take on the roles or patriots or loyalists, with families and occupations of the period from 1763-1791 (including African-Americans and Native Americans). Students understand the issues of those times because they have experienced some of them first-hand. They write their own Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Students compare and contrast their revolt with the revolt of the American patriots. Subsequently they act as a more broad-based Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention in deciding the contents of a U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Science is incorporated through the study of disease, such as smallpox, which had a devas-

tating effect on revolutionary armies. Students create a slide-tape show or video tape with appropriate music of the time and art work to depict key events in the Revolutionary War and the writing of the constitution. Trees, grades 1-2 In the primary wing, young botanists (aged 6 and 7) are busy classifying leaves they collected at home and on the school grounds. These students are going beyond the usual first grade activity of sorting autumn leaves by colour. They are interested in how much green is left in their leaves. They are learning about chlorophyll and its role in producing food for the tree. Each team of scientists has "adopted" a tree and is keeping a journal to record any changes they observe throughout the school year. They not only need to know that leaves change colour in the fall; they would like to know how this affects their tree. These first graders will measure their tree, plant bulbs around it, and conduct experiments to help them answer questions they have about plant life. Students build thinking, reading and writing skills as they compose lab reports, investigate trees in other parts of the world, and produce plays for their parents about the importance of trees. BayLab, grades 4-5 A legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly is taking place in historic St. Mary's City, site of the first Maryland General Assembly over two hundred years ago. The unusual thing about this session, however, is not the location, but that the average age of these Delegates and Senators is ten years old. This is the culminating event of the WorldLab unit called "BayLab". The prototype for all future units, BayLab involves students in a complex simulation of a community near the Chesapeake Bay. Teachers assign students jobs, families, and incomes. All aspects of their lives are affected either directly or indirectly by the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Many make their living on the Bay as watermen. Others sell its bounty in restaurants or stores. Some students make their living from tourism. Some students are builders and farmers with incomes affected by government regulations. They are all important producers and consumers in the local economy. They are all dependent upon a scarce natural resource. Students investigate the local economy and how their job fits into it. Stu dents prepare "family albums", budgets, and keep a balanced chequebook. As the simulation progresses, students draw life event cards that impact their income. Incomes rise and fall from week to week along with the watermen's catch. The world becomes their laboratory as students conduct group investigations and science experiments searching for knowledge to protect their incomes and quality of

life near the Chesapeake Bay. Students learn that they are part of many intercon nected systems. They do experiments to learn about the biological and physical systems that affect the Bay. They investigate the way economic, social and political systems affect life both near and in the Chesapeake Bay. They learn that we all make choices every day that affect everyone's quality of life and economic well-being. As students realise that their livelihood depends on the health of the Bay, saving the Bay becomes personally important. The teacher guides the class through a variety of activities to activate prior knowledge, and teach new concepts. Students choose topics in which they become experts. Class discussions lead to solutions. Classes choose a community service project they can carry out to make a real difference in their community. Some assess the health of streams on school property and plant trees to shade them when they find that dissolved oxygen levels are too low. Others participate in habitat restoration efforts. Some help local environmental groups educate the community about the problems of the Bay. All this activism leads students to look to their state government for solu tions. Students begin investigating again, this time to find out how their state government works. Some students run for office and others work in cooperative teams to get their candidate elected. After the elections, students write and debate bills, and prepare to defend them before the entire General Assembly. All their work culminates in a model General Assembly where students discuss and defend their bills in committees, debate them in open sessions, and finally vote on them. Emotions run as high as they do in the real state capital when a controversial issue hits the floor. In the first BayLab model General Assembly, the President of the "real" Senate, Mr. Mike Miller, made a guest appearance and played the part of Governor for the simulation. Senators and Delegates met in a final joint session to find out if the "Governor" would veto or sign their bills into law. Cheers broke out as he signed the first two bills that had passed through both houses. He vetoed the third bill, and the Senators and Delegates immediately voted to override his veto. These students learned how the system worked and were thrilled at their ability to use it. It was an experience neither the students nor Mike Miller will ever forget! BayLab illustrates the key components of the WorldLab model. Units are designed to immerse students in simulations and investigations of interdependent systems. Students make decisions that affect the outcome of the simulation, thus giving them real feedback to direct their learning. Students must work co-operatively, using higher-order thinking processes to solve reallife problems. There is incentive for team members to help everyone on their team succeed. Students often complete projects that improve their communities. They become actively involved in their learning. As teachers and students become accomplished WorldLab veterans, their role in the process will change. They will make more

choices about the direction the simulations, investigations and experimentation will take them. The curriculum provides structured tasks, but outcomes will vary based on the interests, abilities and imaginations of those completing them. Teachers and students in WorldLab have daily conferences called "one-to- one". These provide informal opportunities for the assessment of a student's products and goal setting. Students keep individual score sheets that outline their goals for the week and the products they complete. Students regularly complete performance-based assessments after approximately five lessons to provide teachers, parents and students with an accurate picture of each student's progress. Teams keep score sheets that record how much each team member has improved that week. Teams receive additional points when they meet classroom standards or targeted social skills for that week. Recognition of teams doing a super, great, or good job is a regular part of the weekly routine.
Conclusion

Professional development is a key component of the Roots and Wings programme. Successful implementation of all parts of the model hinge on teacher involvement in the process. Teachers report that although there is extra work involved in undergoing changes in the curriculum, the excitement and satisfaction of learning something new makes up for this. As teachers become more familiar with the WorldLab model, they begin to personalise the units. Teachers excitedly finding new sources of information for their class to use during an investigation, model for their students how much fun learning can be. Does involving students actively in their learning make a difference? In one of the first BayLab classrooms I visited, I watched as students searched a local newspaper's classified section to find apartments for rent that met their needs and were within their budgets. One fourth grade boy was having some difficulty reading and interpreting the ads. With some direction from his teacher, and the assistance of teammates, he succeeded in finding a place to live. During the reflecting time at the end of the lesson, the teacher asked students to share anything they learned that really amazed them. This boy spoke up immediately. He solemnly stated that you needed to be able to read to find a place to live. Being able to read had taken on new meaning to him. He no longer needed to readjust to complete an assignment. He saw it as a skill he needs for life.

Part III ANALYSIS ACROSS COUNTRIES

Chapter III. 1 SELF-REGULATED LEARNING BY INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS

Gnter L. Huber

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse results of the country studies on individual students as self-regulated learners, in the light of previous research. The chapter begins with a discussion of the paradox of trying to teach a student to be able to learn without a teacher. Efforts by teachers in the case studies to resolve this paradox are described qualitatively, then a quantitative analysis of conditions consistent with individual active learning is presented.
Self-regulated learning a tautology?

The statement that learning is or should be self-regulated may appear as a tautology. If we browse through the literature on human learning looking for communalities, we will find that for the majority of authors the most important feature of learning is active involvement of learners in a process of combining information from the environment with their knowledge and their stored experiences. We will find at least hints to this fundamental principle of learning even in the classical behaviourist literature. Thorndike (1931/1966), for instance, introduced the principle of "belongingness" according to which only those stimuli and responses will be connected which somehow belong together for a learning organism. Thorndike's cats never connected the opening of their cage's door to the behaviour of licking their fur when the door was opened while they licked themselves relaxing on a platform in the back of their cage; that is, they never began later to lick themselves when they wanted to get out of the cage. Without a learner actively connecting two events, mere contiguity does not support learning and later retrieval. In other words, there is no mysterious passive associative mechanism at work in learning. As a matter of fact, in search of "pure" connectivist learning phenomena in people, special learning materials had to be invented the notorious meaningless syllables - in order to prevent subjects to some extent from constructing "belongingness" between the elements that they should rote-memorise or pair-associate, etc.

From a mostly neglected addendum the notion of learner activity became the principal explanatory factor in constructivist approaches to human cognitive processes. We do not learn too much about our environment, if somebody just tells us something about it. We have at least to listen carefully and to make sense actively from what we are told. Aebli (1961, p. 27), when advising teachers how to present a topic verbally reminded them that "the activation of an experience of meaning is a mental act which the listener has to intend." The situation is quite different if we interact directly with our environment. As Piaget (1981) has put it, in order to learn about an object we must act upon it. Learning about reality demands that we transform reality at least in our minds. This characteristic of human learning is expressed in Piaget's idea of operations: Knowledge is permanently connected with actions or operations, which are for Piaget synonymous to "transformations" of objects. Learning as a process of constructing epistemological relations of subject and object is in Piaget's terms neither a process that simply maps external objects nor a process that differentiates a subject's internal representative structures, but a process of interaction between subject and object. Three features are characteristic of this dynamic interrelation (see Piaget, 1981, pp. 30-37), which also distinguish active or self-regulated learning: 1) In order to "know" objects, a learner has to get a chance to act on them, that is to transform them, for instance by moving them or by disassembling and assembling them again. 2) In addition, a learner must be able to co-ordinate these activities and relations between objects. This epistemological activity is at the core of "constructing" knowledge, because co-ordinating principles can neither be found exclusively in the objects nor in the subjects. 3) Co-ordinations or constructions, however, are not achieved just by experiences with objects, but demand above all "permanent and active self-regulation" (Piaget, 1981, p. 36). If learning is active by definition, why do we find such rhetorical insistence on the idea of active learning in decades of educational literature? Just to give a few examples, there are advocates of self-directed learning (Cropley, 1977; Knowles, 1975), of independent learning (Treffmger and Barton, 1981), of autonomous learning (Weltner, 1978), and of active learning in all contributions to this book. The reform-pedagogists in Germany have even introduced in the 1920s a concept that is doubly tautological: "selbsttatiges Lernen" (Gaudig, 1963). The meaning of "selbst" is "oneself, the meaning of "tatig" is "to be doing something"; thus, "selbsttatiges Lernen" is nothing less than "learning by doing it by oneself!" But this concept does not differ fundamentally from Zimmerman's (1986) description of self-regulated learners as active participants in their own learning processes or from Piaget's "active self-regulation". This habitual tautotology cannot be simply the result of linguistic sloppiness by generations of educational scientists. On the contrary, it is a necessary reaction to a long tradition of teachercentred schooling, which has chosen "instruction" as its trademark instead of learning. A summary of analyses of educational reforms

in the USA since the early 1960s concluded that "each of these reform movements was based on instructional theories that viewed students as playing a reactive rather than a proactive role (Zimmerman, 1989, p. 3)." The training and evaluation of student teachers and beginners in the teaching profession in many countries reveal a preoccupation of educational administrations with "good" teaching. This must not necessarily be a disadvantage ~ if the criteria of teaching quality were at the same time indicators of qualified learning. However, why should we assume that those students learn most efficiently whose teacher follows a particular, officially approved sequence of steps from "motivating students", to presentation, practice, and finally monitoring and assessment? Of course, the majority of students will learn something in these lessons cynical critics would say they learn despite their teachers' influence. Our point is that teachers are more trained to focus their attention on presenting their subject matter according to some didactical state-of-the-art than on their role as facilitators of students' learning activities. How long would a training institution survive if it were, for instance, instructing sales personnel and if its graduates were famous for their sales rhetoric but their customers bought less than from less eloquent shop assistants? Seen from this point of view, self-regulated learning presents an extraordinary challenge for teachers, school administrations, and anyone also who is inter ested in education and learning. The problems as well as the promises of self-regulated learning gain even more weight if we broaden our perspective and do not take into account only learning efficiency in terms of grades, test scores, national achievement averages, etc. In all countries there is some degree of consensus about a set of core curriculum requirements as the basic of education but the notion of basic requirements implies that more is expected to be built upon this foundation and there is more about qualified learning than academic achievement in a narrow sense of knowledge and skills in school subject matter areas. The supreme goal of all teaching activities and of all educational interventions is to become superfluous in the long run. Thus, schools are confronted with a paradoxical task. On the one hand, they have to draw their students' attention to those questions for which the curriculum contains prepared answers. Schools have to guide their students' learning activities towards knowledge and skills that are prescribed in the curriculum. At the same time, schools have to prepare their students for the only invariant feature of living in a modern (even more a postmodern) world: that is, permanent change. Therefore, instruction has to make students interested not only in answering questions foreseen by their teachers or by their textbooks, but in asking new questions on their own and in trying to find adequate answers independently. Curiosity, interest, flexibility, adaptability, metacognitive abilities, self-regulation are some of the key words denoting this further goal. In curricular terms, schools have to promote learning how to learn, readiness for life-long learning, abilities to selfregulate learning processes and to act self-responsibly.

The dilemma is how to guide somebody in a way that makes guidance un necessary. How to exercise external influence which helps to develop internal regulation of activities? And in addition, how to lead learners not only to make them able to find their way independently, but to support their eagerness to look for new ways? Taking into account the state of practised solutions to these problems, we can at least resolve the problem of the awkward and obstinate combination of "self-regulation" and "learning" in educational discussions: What seemed at first to be a negligent tautological formulation turns out to serve as a necessary pointer toward an increasingly acute paradox in education and schooling. Individual self-regulated learning also poses another challenge. With grow ing complexity of tasks, which no longer can be mastered individually, schools are confronted with a second dilemma. Individual knowledge and skills are indispensable to tackle complex tasks, but individuals also need the capacity to share their resources and mutually support their endeavours as members of task-oriented teams. Thus, self-regulation as a goal and a means of learning cannot be isolated from the social context of learning in classrooms or working in teams. However, schools' awareness of the challenges of working in teams and even more of learning in teams ~ as the slogan of "learning organisations" implies as an important goal seems still to be somewhat underdeveloped in many countries. Despite growing demands for team competencies in most classrooms, the evaluation of learning and feedback of results still are organised according to a model of individual learners. When we concentrate in this chapter on examples of self-regulated learning by individual learners in the classrooms described in Part II, we do not disavow the importance of team learning expressed here and in other parts of this book. But given the low state of awareness of the active nature of learning revealed by the routines in everyday classrooms, it seems useful first to focus on solutions for the dilemma of balancing guidance and autonomy in learning processes. The next chapter will then consider models of team learning, where self-regulation and mutual support are demanded and promoted.
Characteristics of self-regulated learning processes

Considering the contribution of learners' and teachers' activities to students' learning, we confronted the dilemma that teachers are expected to support learning and at the same time to assist their learners in becoming independent of this kind of support. To resolve this dilemma we have to find out what makes the difference between external interventions in learning processes and external support for developing the capacity for selfregulation. We can draw the following rough contrast.

In teacher-regulated learning processes, instructional decision-making is primarily informed by student output, that is, by achievement indicators. Observable student behaviour is the criterion for applying or withholding positive or negative sanctions in welldefined problem situations. If the instructional objectives include thinking processes, these are seen as routines to be established by teaching/learning efforts (cf. Bandura, 1986). In contrast, support for self-regulation demands primarily an input-orientation in teachers' decisionmaking. An intention to promote self-regulation of learners precludes precise lesson planning and predetermination student output as correct or incorrect in advance. Instead, teachers will try to create stimulating environments that offer opportunities to identify interesting learning goals, to decide more or less rationally which of them to approach, and to elaborate strategies for approaching them. When the focus of teachers' attention moves from stimulating correct student responses to creation of stimulating environments, teachers also may become more aware of what their students really are doing when learning. How does a student learn in this kind of environment? What are the "in puts" into active learning? One systematic attempt to find out about the activities of self-regulated learners was reported by Tough (1977). He studied the learning activities of 40 college graduates ranging in age between 23 and 60 years. He interviewed them and had them answer between 14 to 24 questionnaires dealing with particular problems or "tasks" emerging during a learning project in which they were involved during the year preceding the study. Twelve core tasks of self-regulating learners were identified for structuring the interview and the questionnaires by consulting the literature on adult education and the roles of teachers. The resulting list includes only those activities which define a potential controversy between teachercontrolled and self-regulated learning approaches, that is, the list describes tasks which might be performed by a teacher as an externally supporting intervention or by the learner as a form of self-regulation of her/his learning process. Here, we list these tasks according to their frequency in the subjects' reports (Tough, 1977, pp. 58-69), not according to their sequence in the learning process: * deciding which activities are necessary to master an intended learning pro ject; *estimating the level of knowledge and skill already reached; *dealing with difficult stages of learning; *obtaining learning resources (getting books from the library, meeting an expert, etc.); *choosing the goal of learning; * deciding about time required for the learning project (when and how long to learn); dealing with doubts about the success of one's efforts;

dealing with dislike of particular activities; deciding about a suitable place for learning; dealing with lack of desire for learning after beginning the learning project; deciding whether to continue learning; deciding about how much money should be spent for the learning project.

At the end of the interview, the subjects were encouraged to mention tasks they had performed during their learning project but had not been discussed during the interview. The analysis of those parts of the interviews produced a list of nine additional learning tasks mastered by self-regulated learners (Tough, 1977, pp. 69-70): Dealing with lack of knowledge prerequisites; developing, regaining, maintaining particular learning skills, above all how to concentrate on learning; dealing with frustration because of low-structured subject matter; applying knowledge to real life; finding and joining a learning team; persuading other individuals to participate in the project (at least not to hamper it!); dealing with frustration due to the necessity to adapt to slower fellow learners; overcoming "laziness"; and dealing with unpleasant physical consequences (sore muscles!) of practising. Of course, the 40 subjects did not all perform each of these 21 selfregulatory tasks to achieve her/his learning goal, but six of the major tasks were performed by most subjects (Tough, 1977). Those six are the first items in the above list, marked additionally by an asterisk. To summarise his findings, Tough put the modal results in a process sequence and described how typical "self-teachers" approach their learning project and how they cope with difficulties:
Before beginning his (sic) project..., the typical self-teacher spent about an hour decid ing just what knowledge and skill he wanted to learn. Although he was interested in the subject matter, he did not seriously consider learning it until some specific impetus occurred. While choosing his goal, he received advice, encouragement, and other assistance from six individuals, mostly family, friends, and colleagues. Once he had chosen his goal, he ... considered which activities would be effective... In particular, he decided which books and articles to read, which individuals to ask for information and advice, and what to observe and practise. Altogether he spent five hours making such decisions, and obtained assistance from two subject matter experts and three other persons. ... the self-teacher had to decide just when to learn. Although these decisions about time were made throughout the project, he spent only about forty minutes making them. ... the subject spent more than five hours obtaining the printed materials and walking or travelling to see the assistants. He was assisted a great deal in obtaining these resources...

Continuously throughout the learning he attempted to estimate his level of knowledge and skill. ... Seven people assisted him with these estimates; some of them served as models for comparisons and a few made direct evaluative comments. About ten times he found that he was unable to grasp some part of the knowledge and skill... He spent more time dealing with these difficult parts than he spent performing most other tasks... He obtained assistance from three relatives and friends, two experts ..., and one sales person (Tough, 1977, pp. 73f).

The process of tackling a learning task independently of formal instruction requires learners to master motivational and volitional challenges. They approach their task by deciding about direction, form and intensity of necessary actions a classical definition of what the phase of motivation within the process of action is about (Thomae, 1965). However, the real difficulties often begin after the decision to approach a particular goal has been made. Now action control is necessary, which supports the learner's original decision and backs her/his intention to reach this goal. The activities necessary to protect learning against internal or external distractions clearly belong to the volitional domain in the contemporary meaning of this term (Corno, 1989; Kuhl, 1984). Zimmerman's summary of constructs explaining self-regulatory learning (Zimmerman and Schunk, 1989) reflects the phases of initial motivation and subsequent action. As preparatory conditions various modes of motivational states are discussed, ranging from perceived ability to attain desired learning results, that is self-efficacy, to more subject-matter based conditions arousing cognitive conflicts in the learner. Goal-setting, a substantial activity both in Tough's descriptive analysis of self-regulated learning and in Karoly's (1993) review of self-regulatory mechanisms, is considered only indirectly. This deficit is due to he fact that the authors in Zimmerman and Schunk's book are writing about schools, which function on the basis of prescribed curriculae. Thus, there are not too many degrees of freedom for students to ponder about where to direct their learning activities. The findings from studies on self-regulation in schools thus reflect the state of teaching and learning in these institutions, not so much conditions promoting a comprehensive repertoire of selfregulatory learning skills. School-based research has produced more elaboration of the "on-line" or actioncontrol activities in self-regulated learning. The spectrum of activities ranges from either more phenpmenologically conceived selfawareness or more operationally conceived selfmonitoring processes to activities of self-instruction, self-evaluation or self-judgement and finally self-reinforcement (see Chapter 1.2). But what happens if there is no opportunity for self-reinforcement because goal expectation are not met? Corno (1990) discusses in detail by how learners come to terms with failure. She distinguishes person-centred sub-processes of self-control (cognitive, emotional, and motivational strategies) and environment-

centred strategies like attempts to control the task situation or other people in volved in the task setting. The pragmatic question is how teaching and learning should be organised to support students' development of self-regulatory strategies. The classroom observation protocol shown in Chapter I.3 was designed to register the presence of self-regulated learning by students. We turn now to a discussion of the results.
Qualitative images of self-regulated learning in the case studies Goal setting and task structure

We already noted the lack of research related to goal setting as the first step of self-regulated learning activities in classrooms. Hence, we should not expect too much involvement of students in goal-setting if we look into classrooms. Observational data as well as the summaries of interviews with participating teachers and students in the CERI Study show that student involvement in goal setting is a rare event even in classrooms where active learning is promoted. The teachers' standard routine can be best described as a sequence of proposing particular activities and asking their students for responses. Sometimes students ask their teachers to explain the purpose of these activities. Among the classroom events categorised as goal setting, "teacher explaining purpose" had the highest probability to be observed during a lesson, followed by "discussion of relevance of new knowledge". Within the boundaries of the curriculum these teachers attempted at least to help their students generate some personal meaning from the subject matter prescribed by the curriculum. Compared to a teacher starting a new lesson announcing that "today we want to find out/hear about...", the goal setting sequence in active learning classrooms represents a substantial toward self-regulated learning. In those classrooms where teachers asked their students what they would like to learn, they directed their question to the whole class or more frequently to individual students, but only rarely to small groups of students. However, as was stated in several reports, there were also classrooms in which students never were asked either what they would like to learn or what they would like to do to approach a given learning goal. On the other hand, some teachers have found ways to move some steps further in the direction of student involvement in goal setting. The Australian report in Chapter II. 1 contains information about a teacher of health education who structured the course together with the students at the beginning of the year and had them review the course outline at the start of each term. In other cases, teachers practised individual goal setting for some or all of their students through learning learning logs, diaries and journals, or conferencing routines in their classrooms. These methods not only help teachers and students to get an overview on learning activities and to keep track of curricular areas already

covered, but these records also promise to promote self-monitoring and self-evaluative skills. Another approach to involving students in goal setting is described in the Netherlands (Chapter II.b). The teacher prepares a "task book" for the whole school year; in this book the syllabus for the coming year is structured in four-week periods. The teacher notes what will be discussed and what tasks the students will have to master. However, how to do so is up to the students; they decide about activities to reach the sub-goals of their itinerary, and the teacher assists them in decision-making. In addition each day a period of 40 minutes was dedicated to learning totally according to the student's own preferences as regards goal, subject matter, and assisting teachers. Finally, somewhat longer lasting individual tasks were outlined, like reading a book of a particular author and write a report about it. Together with decision-making about learning goals these periods of learn ing independently of teacher guidance also trigger processes to come to terms with the constraint of time available to fulfil the demands of a chosen task. However, explicit approaches to foster time-management skills were totally missing among our reports from classrooms. Obviously there is not much need to decide about when and for how long to learn in classrooms, because mostly time is already scheduled on a micro-level within lessons as well as on the macro-level of allocating time to various subjects. Maybe because of this lack of specific preparatory activities many people experience problems when they enter learning environments with less prestructured time-tables than schools use. Access to new information Preparation for obtaining and processing new information is widely sup ported in active learning classrooms. A number of images from these classrooms illustrate the freedom potentially available in schools for student participation in preparing their own learning processes. Mapping of already established concepts and activation of background knowledge were employed as approaches to make students aware of their available knowledge, gaps in their knowledge structure, and areas of necessary expansion. Browsing through books and preparation for encounters with experts were used to assist students in accessing additional information. Only a few schools were external experts tapped. However, these images represent highlights in a rather dark area. For the majority of learning tasks in schools, students need no preparation to access information, because their teacher, textbooks, or other materials supplied by the teacher serve almost exclusively as information resources. In most of the classrooms observed, teachers and the materials they provided were the sole or main source of information. But there were exceptions, indicating that more could be done in

many schools to promote the development of students' activity to find information on their own.

Process of work and learning

The possibilities to support "on-line" self-regulatory skills were more exten sively exploited in the observed classrooms. Students get many opportunities to process information individually or in small learning teams or in combinations of individual and co-operative learning formats. One method students used was concept mapping to structure scattered information, to elaborate their ideas, or as a basis for later information exchange in small groups. Another support strategy was the introduction of learning centres. These are particular tables or shelves containing books, slides, maps, objects, tools, work sheets or other materials related either to specific learning tasks (for instance, "Our weather") or general subject matter domains (for instance, "Geometry"). Learning centres were established in some classrooms to support co-operative learning in small groups. They also play an important role within approaches to individualise learning. As was accentuated already, the introduction of opportunities for individual self-regulated learning does not and should not exclude that students seek assistance from their peers or that they support other classmates' learning efforts now and then, as we have seen that self-teaching adults combine individual efforts and external resources very efficiently. Sharan and Sharan (1976) recommended learning centres to support individual learning activities as well as to provide resources for co-operating teams. Learning centres transfer unilateral learning, that is reception of ready-made pieces of information from teachers, text-books, etc. into bilateral learning, which is characterised by exchange relations between learners and the sources of information. Teamwork integrates other learners, their suggestions and their reactions into these exchange processes and leads to multilateral learning (Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz, 1984). Thus, learning centres promote learning in manifold ways, principally demanding and stimulating learner activity. As Sharan and Sharan (1976) describe, learning centres 1) are flexible resources, which may represent environments containing well-defined tasks (for instance an experimental plan together with objects, tools, and protocol sheets) as well as open learning situations; 2) can be set up by teachers or students; 3) support student activity without teachers' permanent surveillance; 4) can be integrated into various teaching/learning sequences in all subject matter areas; and 5) can be installed in every ordinary classroom provided some space is available for additional tables, shelves, boxes, etc. Learning centres are a flexible device that can contribute to the ultimate supreme goal of disengaging learning from teaching.

Among the observations in active-learning classrooms were several images of situations which can be best described as particular instances of learning centres. For example, the report of Hamalainen and Hakkinen from Finland (Chapter II.3) describes a unit on "Finnish waterways", which kept the students busy for three weeks. During this time the students had to master among other learning tasks ~ six of nine "bus stop" tasks according to their own choice. Each bus stop was marked by a set of instructions pinned to the wall. Resources to solve the tasks were posted on chairs or on the floor next to each instruction poster. As intended, the students tackled these tasks individually, but also in cooperation with classmates. Mutual support was sometimes necessary to read and understand the instructions. In some very difficult cases the teacher was asked for assistance in information processing. For faster learning students the teachers had prepared "basket tasks". These were tasks a student could choose on his/her own from baskets stored on a particular shelf in the classroom. The instructions and materials in these baskets included interviews, quizzes, games and other amusing or interesting exercises and assignments. Most interesting in the classroom description is that the teacher tried to balance the opportunities to get involved in this type of work. If this teacher noticed that some slower learning students got no chance to tackle basket tasks, the teacher included some of them either into the obligatory "contract work" or made a particular basket the basis of team work for a complete table group. Thus, all students are regularly exposed at least to some challenges of self-regulated learning.

Assessment of learning
Skills to self-evaluate one's learning process and achievement play a promi nent role among the action-control skills to be developed on the way from teacher-guided to selfregulated learning. They are indispensable if we want students to benefit from the many possibilities to make errors in open learning settings and to find variations to an unsuccessful approach instead of rigidly repeating an inadequate strategy or giving up. However, the image we receive from classroom observations is full of contrasts. What was concluded from the observations in English classrooms outlined by Hopkins and Aldrige (1995) seems to be representative: There is no coherent pattern of evaluative practices explicitly promoting self-assessment and self-reinforcement skills of students. Student interviews showed that many of the students apply various strategies to find out about the own level of knowledge and skill by asking others or by comparison between peers. However, students who are well advanced in self-regulating their learning activities may also be better at getting feedback, about their learning progress and where they should invest more learning effort. Less advanced students may rely more on the predominant evaluation strategies in schools, give

mainly summative feedback about a student's relative learning status. A grade or a test score locates the student somewhere on the curve of achievement distribution in the class. Probably those students, who often receive the information that they are not located on the positive side of the achievement distribution are not too eager to investigate this issue in detail on their own. However, they are the ones who most need feedback about their learning process and support for developing self-evaluative skills most badly. Two conclusions should be drawn from this state of affairs as regards promotion of self-regulated learning: 1) Formative assessment procedures and explicit involvement of students in the evaluation of their own learning processes, not only their learning products, could be greatly extended in many classrooms. 2) As can be seen from students own efforts, co-operative evaluation procedures within team settings could be very helpful to advance approximations to the goal of individual self-regulated learning, too. Teachers in many sites observed have made more or less comprehensive attempts to have students self-evaluate their learning. Often products resulting from work on a learning task are evaluated separately by teacher and student, then the assessments are compared and discussed. There are also reports about teachers who try to focus their students' attention on their learning process and their progress, introducing an individual scale of comparison. For instance, one of the Finnish teachers in Hamalainen and Hakkinen's study reminded the students to look at their own work and to compare it with earlier results not with achievements of other students. In one school using WorldLab (Chapter II. 11), teachers and students meet every day in conferences called "One-to-One". They offer opportunities to discuss learning products and approximation to learning goals as well as to promote students' self-evalution skills by having them outline their goals and their current position in relation to these goals on individual assessment sheets. Learning centres could be used to proceed one step further and to promote students' independence of teachers in the phase of evaluation. Equipped with short teacher-made tests, quizzes, representative samples of learning tasks from a learning period just finished, etc., a learning centre would offer resources that could be used for diagnostic ends individually, in pairs, or in small groups. In case the results of self-assessment reveal serious deficits in knowledge or skill, a student could be advised to do some additional work in a support centre individually, assisted by peers, or guided by the teacher (see Sharan and Sharan, 1976). Models for implementing selfregulated assessment procedures combining individual efforts and peer support can also be taken from particular team learning arrangements, for instance from "Teams-Games-Tournaments" (DeVries and Mescon, 1975) or from "Team Assisted Individualisation" (Slavin, Madden and Leavey, 1984).

Conditions for self-regulated individual learning

These images of self-regulated learning in eight countries show great vari ability among the classrooms observed. Here we will explore quantitative patterns to see if we can identify conditions associated with students' self-regulation of their learning processes. We will use data from the classroom observation protocols. The observation instrument reproduced in Chapter I.3 contains over 200 items in six main categories: 1) goal setting, 2) task structure, 3) access to information, 4) process of work and learning, 5) outcomes of work, and 6) assessment of learning and learning processes. But the way in which the instruments could be applied varied from site to site as did the learning environments themselves. Therefore, we reduced all available protocol data to the minimal level of comparable information, which was whether or not a particular teaching/learning practice was noticed at least once during an observation period. We can then compute the proportion of observation sessions during which a particular practice was observed. For purposes of computing this proportion, observation sessions are grouped by country. The results of this first stage of analysis are as follows:
Goal setting

Explicitly related to individual learners are the observational items listed subsequently. The scores following each item give the range of proportions of classroom observations in the eight countries:
Teacher asks students individually what they would like to learn 0 Teacher asks students individually about purpose of activity 0 Teacher proposes activity/asks for responses 0 Student asks teacher about purpose of activity 0 Student asks student about purpose of activity 0 Student states purpose of activity (without prompt) 0 Teacher explains purpose of activity .14 Discussion of relevance of knew knowledge/skill 0 .33 .29 1 .14 .57 .29 1 1

With the exception that teachers explained the purpose of some suggested activity in no less than 14 per cent of all lessons observed in a given country, there are countries where one or more of all other goal-setting activities were never observed. The largest proportions for items that indicate student initiative in goal setting (asking the teacher about purpose: . 14; spontaneously explaining purpose: .29) are among the lowest in this list. In contrast, there were several countries in

which teachers always (proportion = 1) explained purposes of activities or en gaged students in discussions about its relevance.

Task structure
As in the case of goal setting activities the teachers decided in the majority of all lessons observed what all students in the classroom had to do. There was also considerable variation in student participation:
Students can choose from given alternatives Individual students choose task Students design their own tasks Teacher negotiates task with individual students (only 1 site!) Teacher decides that students work individually 0 .72 Whole class decides that students work individually Individual students decide to work individually Task requires co-operative efforts Other incentives than grades provided 0 1 0 0 0 .02 0 0 0 .73 .43 .44 .14

Information access
We already discussed the fact that students' access to information was mostly mediated by teachers personally or by materials selected by teachers. However, in some sites alternative possibilities were utilised quite frequently (in up to two thirds of all lessons observed):
Students communicating with experts outside school 0 Students individually away from school 0 The mode of exposure to new information mostly observed was having students approach texts, materials, etc. individually 0 .67 .60 .62

which was not observed at all in two sites. There, teachers always (probability 1) got the whole class involved in information access. The range in classrooms accessing information individually for part of the time was .2 to .62, while cooperative access in teams ranged between .10 and .75.

Process of work and learning

There were three country reports without any reference to individual work in classrooms, while individual work ranged between probabilities of. 15 to .60 in the other reports.

No individual work (all countries included) Students read only Students read and take notes Students use work sheets 0 .50 Students check their answers individually 0 Students write Students use non-print materials

0 0 0 .67 0 0 -

.60 .50 .75 .67 .43

Assessment

It has become obvious already from the descriptive analysis of selfteachers summarised above that self-assessment is highly important for within the domain of skills necessary for actioncontrol, above all to learn from failures. This latter use of assessment seems to be especially underdeveloped in the majority of classrooms observed, as indicated by the last two items on the following list:
Teacher asks students individually to state/write an answer 0 Students write/state without immediate prompting 0 Teacher asks students individually for relation to previous learning 0 Students write/state relation to previous learning 0 Identification of individual accountability to team work 0 Students define performance standards individually 0 Students define performance standards together 0 Students reflect causes of success/failure individually 0 Students reflect causes of success/failure together 0 Students write/talk about improvement of performance individually (observed only in three countries; range .07 - .14) 0 Students write/talk about improvement of performance together (observed only in three countries; range .03 - .42) 0 1 .86 .29 .33 .67 .09 .43 .67 .67 .14 .42

Whole-class discussions about possible improvements of tasks and/or learn ing processes were observed more frequently in six countries, there with a spread between .07 and .4.
Conditions associated with self-regulated learning by individual students

To search for conditions associated with individual self-regulation in class rooms, we (D. Stern and G. Huber) regrouped the classroom observation items into a new set of "Gestalt" categories so named because they indicate a whole pattern of activity within the classroom. These are listed Table III. 1.1, with examples of items that were placed into each of the new categories. Table III. 1.2 shows "Gestalt scores" by country. Each column contains the data from all the classroom observations in a single country, except that the data

for one country are presented in two separate columns because of great curricular differences between the sites observed. Table III.1.1. "Gestalt" categories SIN: Students learn as self-regulated individuals.
For example: Without immediate prompting by the teacher, a student writes or states the purpose of a current or planned activity. Students define their own task as individuals. Individual students choose tasks. Students write. Students individually reflect on causes of success or failure to achieve learning goals.

SGR:

Students learn in autonomous groups.

For example: Students define their own task in small groups. Students choose their own small group members. Exposure of students to new information occurs in small groups. Small-group interaction, without the teacher, includes getting organised, exchanging information, explaining or elaborating ideas. Students in small groups reflect on causes of success or failure to achieve learning goals.

TCO:

The teacher is in control.

For example: The teacher explains the purpose of current or planned activity. The teacher decides what all students do. Source of new information is the teacher. The teacher is the centre of attention for the whole class all or most of the time. Performance standards are defined by the teacher.

TIN:

The teacher dominates, but allows some individual autonomy.

For example: The teacher asks students individually to write or state what they would like to learn. Students as individuals choose tasks from a set of choices given by the teacher. Students work on written problems or work sheets. The teacher asks students individually to write or state what they have learned.

TGR:

The teacher dominates, but allows some small group autonomy.

For example: The teacher asks students in small groups to write or state what they would like to learn. Students as small groups choose tasks from a set of choices given by the teacher. The teacher chooses members of small groups. The teacher asks students in small groups to write or state what they have learned.

TOP: The teacher dominates, but is open to students' collective preferences.

For example: The teacher asks students as a whole class to discuss what they would like to learn. Students as a whole class choose tasks from a set of choices given by the teacher. Assignment of students to tasks is determined jointly by students and the teacher. Performance standards are determined by agreement between students and the teacher.

The Gestalt score is the proportion of all recorded classroom events in a given country that are assigned to a particular Gestalt category. For example, the upper left cell in Table III. 1.2 indicates that a proportion of. 11, or 11 percent, of all events recorded in country A were individual students' self-regulated learning activities (SIN). Table III.1.2. Gestalt scores for countries Site A B C D E F G H I

SIN .11 SGR .07 TCO .50 TIN .17 TGR .07 TOP .09

.07 .05 .46 .21 .09 .12

.09 .09 .43 .19 .11 .09

.13 .13 .34 .09 .14 .17

.15 .18 .33 .13 .10 .11

.16 .16 .28 .20 .07 .13

.15 .20 .26 .13 .13 .12

.12 .18 .25 .16 .16 .14

.12 .20 .20 .16 .13 .18

Table III. 1.2 confirms again that there is wide variation in classroom practices. The proportion of classroom events indicating direct teacher control of the learning process (TCO) ranges from 20 to 50 percent. The other categories display narrower ranges of variation because they account for less of the total observed activity, but still the variation is considerable. In particular, the proportion

of events that are individual self-regulated learning activities (SIN) ranges from 7 to 16 percent. Does a pattern of individual self-regulated learning tend to occur along with other patterns of activity in the classroom? A partial answer to this question can be found by examining the correlations among Gestalt categories. Table III. 1.3 shows the correlations computed across the 9 columns of Table III. 1.2. For instance, the top left cell of Table III. 1.3 indicates a positive correlation of .68 between SIN and SGR. This means that countries where a relatively high proportion of recorded classroom events signify individual self-regulation also tend to have a high proportion of classroom events that reflect autonomy for students in small groups. Table III.1.3. Correlations among Gestalt scores SIN SGR TCO TIN TGR TOP .68 -.56 -.43 .05 .20 -.84 -.41 .46 .45 .30 -.52 -.62 -.50 -.37 .51 SGR TCO TIN TGR

More generally, Table III. 1.3 reveals two distinct clusters of activity in classrooms: on the one hand, TCO and TIN, and on the other hand, SIN, SGR, TGR, and TOP. TCO and TIN are positively correlated with each other, but negatively correlated with everything else. In other words, in countries where a high proportion of recorded classroom events show the teacher directly controlling the learning process, there also tends to be a high proportion of events signifying that the teacher dominates but allows some autonomy for students as individuals (e.g. allowing individuals to choose among a predetermined set of activities). Conversely, in countries with a relatively low degree of direct control by teachers, larger proportions of classroom events are categorised as autonomous activities by students working individually or in groups, or as teachers responding to preferences of students expressed as a whole class. These correlations suggest that

self-regulated learning by individual students is more likely to be found where there is also more opportunity for students to work in small groups, and where the teacher is responsive to students' collective preferences. The positive correlation between individually self-regulated learning activity and smallgroup activity is consistent with the reliance of adult independent learners on various social supports, as described above. In structuring classroom activities for students, the important interaction between individual accountability and group incentives will be discussed further in the next chapter. Open questions The results of the CERI study present a series of valuable approximations to an answer for the old question how teaching as an external influence on learners can become superfluous by promoting self-regulation skills in students. At least three groups of further questions still call for answers: 1) Are all students eager to develop self-regulating skills, and do all teachers feel comfortable with less dominance in their classrooms? 2) What are the characteristics of learning tasks that stimulate self-regulation, and which characteristics may impede this development? 3) What organisational conditions support or hinder students' self-regulated activities?

Do all students and teachers want self-regulated learning for students?

Experience with the implementation of special courses fostering independent thinking and productive problem solving, the introduction of controversial topics for group work or classroom discussions in many disciplines, and the organisation of classroom learning and instruction within heterogeneously composed small groups have revealed the effects of a profound interindividual difference. According to Sorrentino and Hewitt (1984; cf. Sorrentino, Short and Raynor, 1984; Sorrentino et al., 1990), such methods may not motivate all students to learn: The uncertainty of particular aspects of the self or the environment will motivate so-called "uncertainty-oriented" students to reduce controversies and to attain greater understanding, but so-called "certainty-oriented" students maybe the majority in everyday classrooms seem to be more motivated by situations that do not evoke uncertainty about the self or the environment. Certainty oriented students reject learning arrangements of the "curiosity" or "debate" type in favour of clearly structured situations including much guidance by teachers. A summary of classroom findings confirming these differences was reported by Huber et al. (1992).

Some teachers' reluctance to loosen control over the events in their classrooms, to open teaching and learning for students' inputs, unforeseen questions, and surprising results may also be due to those teachers' certainty orientation. In a study for her doctoral thesis, Kempas (1994) evaluated a three-term training course for teachers in adult education, offered regularly at the Padagogische Hochschule Weingarten, Germany, since 1984. This course aims explicitly at modifying dysfunctional teaching strategies and at enriching the participants' teaching repertoire by reflective, self-regulated learning processes, which are supported by mutual supervision of participants in "training tandems", that is, dyads whose members observe and discuss each other's teaching. Kempas found pronounced differences between the most uncertainty oriented and the most certainty oriented participants. For example, with respect to the teachers' goal setting:
While the goals of uncertainty oriented participants demonstrate a strong orientation towards the learners' needs ... Certainty oriented participants still show more achievement- and contentorientation. The need of subject matter competencies and teaching competencies is still high after the course and goes together with authoritative tendencies. Their wish to assert themselves discloses their tendency to intervene in unclear situations by means of teacher control in order to guarantee learning processes without disturbances (Kempas, 1994, p. 78).

We may conclude that didactical adaptation to interindividual differences is necessary both for teachers as well as students, if we really want to promote active self-regulation. What is a meaningful task? Much of what was recommended as characteristics of learning tasks suited for team learning (for instance, Cohen, 1994) should also be taken into account in approaches to promote individual self-regulated learning. Within the framework of individual selfregulation, the question of task authenticity should receive special attention. Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) advocate authentic learning tasks. These activities are defined as activities framed by a particular culture, meaningful for members of this social framework, and pursued purposively by them. Measured against this standard, many tasks designed for learning in schools are not authentic, even if they were taken from a particular domain of practice. As they are transformed into tasks for school learning they become part of the school's specific culture. The main problem for the development of self-regulation skills arising from this alteration is described as follows:
The system of learning and using (and, of course, testing) thereafter remains hermeti cally sealed within the self-confirming culture of the school. Consequently, contrary to

the aim of schooling, success within this culture often has little bearing on performance elsewhere (Brown, Collins and Duguid, 1989, p. 34).

This perspective has begun to shift at least in didactical discussions (see, for instance, the contributions to Moll, 1990; Resnick, Levine and Teasley, 1991). However, a reconciliation of the worlds of authentic practice and the culture of school's complexityreduced and systematised tasks is still found wanting.
How to change organisational norms?

The images of self-regulated learning from classrooms all over the world are promising. But whenever we quote an example of classroom practices sup porting selfregulated individual learning we could also draw attention to the zero probabilities for the observation of relevant activities in other classrooms in the OECD/CERI study. A major reason for the wide dispersions in these data can be found in the organisational embedding of classrooms. Teachers generally have more degrees of freedom to structure (or better: to unstructure) their teaching than they often dare to use. However, the organisational framework determines how much space is available for teachers' attempts to de-regulate their students' learning activities and for students' efforts to gradually take over and selfregulate their learning. Shachar and Sharan (1993) compare bureaucratic and loosely-coupled mod els of school organisation concluding that the bureaucratic organisational structures, which they find typical for the majority of schools, do not invite teachers and students to foster or to use self-regulation and team support in teaching and learning. The authors describe the consequences of bureaucratic versus open system structures by analysing central processes including social relations of members of the organisation and their activities, determination of learning tasks, physical resources, and communication. These analyses are performed both on the classroom level and on the level of whole schools. Their main conclusion is that it is insufficient for the promotion of student autonomy to change only the classroom:
... classrooms and schools must be organised according to the same model, if real changes are to be achieved in teaching and learning. But often changes are attempted only on the level of classrooms (Shachar and Sharan, 1992, p. 70).

How can we expect that teachers will support their students' emancipation as independent learners, if these teachers have experienced in their own profes sional life mostly dependency on hierarchical structures, bureaucratic regulations, external assessment and control? How can people trained to act according to detailed prescriptions and time schedules, sometimes even following "teacher-proof

curricula, learn to enjoy the challenge of open situations, to be stimulated by a multitude of ideas, even controversial suggestions ~ and do their best to create such situations for students and inspire their enthusiasm for active learning?

Chapter III.2 CO-OPERATIVE LEARNING AMONG STUDENTS

R. Slaving(*)

Co-operative learning and active learning are broad categories of educational innovation that are very often seen together. Definitions of both vary, but co-operative learning always incorporates principles of active learning. In principle, active learning can exist with students working entirely on their own (see Chapter I.2), but in practice, it almost always incorporates some form of cooperative interaction. To the degree that active learning implies substantial learner freedom to select learning strategies and resources, it is difficult to imagine active learning settings in which students are forbidden to work with others. In fact, every one of the reports of active learning presented in Part II describes extensive use of co-operative learning. True active learning, or project-based learning, has not been extensively evaluated in classroom research. However, there is a substantial body of research on co-operative learning. The purpose of this chapter is to summarise what has been learned in research on co-operative learning, and to use the conclusions of this research and the CERI case reports to hypothesise conditions under which active learning will be effective, especially for student achievement. Evolution of co-operative learning The term co-operative (or collaborative) learning is used to refer to a broad range of teaching strategies that share the provision of opportunities for students to work together in small, face-to-face groups. Within this definition, however, there is an enormous diversity of co-operative approaches. Cooperative learning methods may be quite informal, as when students are simply allowed to do their individual work together, or they might be structured, with specific ways of forming teams, team structures, and team assessments. Cooperative groups may work together on projects or other open-ended, creative activities, or they may work to help one another master specific academic content. Group members may take (*) Portions of this chapter were adapted from Slavin, 1992, and Slavin, 1995.

responsibility for a designated portion of the group's task, or all students may work on the same tasks. Groups may be as large as six or more, or they may only involve dyads (although most use groups of about four). Groups may stay together for many months or may be constantly reformed. The concept that co-operation among peers can be important to learning has a long tradition in European formal education. For example, in the seventeenth century Comenius described a system of co-operative learning, noting that:
Very true is the phrase, "he who teaches others, educates himself, not only because he consolidates the knowledge by repetition, but because he finds opportunities to advance deeper into the things (in Didactica Magna; cited in Huber, 1992).

Later educational theorists also emphasized co-operation among students. Co-operative learning was central, for example, to the teachings of Rousseau in the eighteenth century, Pestalozzi in the nineteenth century, and Dewey in the early twentieth century. The developmental theories of both Piaget and Vygotsky emphasized the importance of discussion and joint problem solving among peers, and their theories have been influential in supporting the use of co-operative strategies today. A major change in the use of co-operative learning took place in the U.S. in the early 1970's. This was the development and evaluation of specific, relatively structured methods of co-operative learning. While cooperative learning had been studied for many years in the laboratory, or had occasionally been described in practice, the new forms of co-operative learning were for the first time compared to traditionally taught control groups in terms of effects on student achievement, intergroup relations, selfesteem, and other outcomes over significant time periods in real classrooms. Prominent among the developers and researchers were David and Roger Johnson (1989) and their colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Elliott Aronson and his colleagues (1978) at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and our group at Johns Hopkins University (Slavin, 1995). In addition, Shlomo and Yael Sharan (1992) began research in Israel evaluating group investigation methods based on Deweyan principles. While the methods used in each of these major centres of activity varied considerably, each provided teachers' manuals, training guides, and, in many cases, instructional materials to teachers using co-operative methods, and each evaluated co-operative learning in rigorous field experiments. Additional methods of this type were developed and disseminated by Spencer Kagan (1992), Elizabeth Cohen (1986), and others. Today, the status of co-operative learning practice and research is strikingly different in North America than in other parts of the world. Outside of North America, co-operative learning almost invariably means informal discussions, project groups, and other relatively unstructured applications, and research is more often descriptive than evaluative (see for example, Bennett, 1987; Meyer, 1983).

In North America, project groups and informal forms of co-operative learning are also common, but the more structured methods dominate evaluative research and are also widely used in schools at all levels. Hundreds of studies have compared co-operative and traditional methods (Slavin, 1995; Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Some of these studies were done outside of North America, but usually by researchers working in contact with North American colleagues.
Research on co-operative learning

There is a growing consensus among researchers that co-operative learning can have a significant positive effect on student achievement under certain circumstances. However, there is still considerable debate about what these circumstances are and, of equal importance, why co-operative learning would be expected to affect achievement. Even within the same countries researchers from different disciplinary and theoretical backgrounds have often operated in isolation from each other, almost on parallel tracks, and often describe theoretical mechanisms held to explain achievement effects of co-operative learning that are totally different from the mechanisms assumed by others. In particular, there are researchers who emphasize the changes in incentive structure brought about by certain forms of co-operative learning, while others hold that changes in task structure are all that is required to enhance learning. The problem is that applications of co-operative learning typically change many aspects of both incentive and task structures, so disentangling which is responsible for which outcomes can be difficult. In earlier articles (Slavin, 1989, 1992, 1995) six major theoretical perspec tives often proposed to explain the achievement effects of cooperative learning were identified. The four most important of these are described in the following sections.
Motivational perspectives

These focus primarily on the reward or goal structures under which students operate (see Slavin, 1977, 1983a, 1995). From a motivationalist perspective (e.g. Johnson and Johnson, 1992; Slavin, 1983a, 1983b, 1995), co-operative incentive structures create a situation in which the only way group members can attain their own personal goals is if the group is successful. Therefore, to meet their personal goals, group members must both help their groupmates to do whatever helps the group to succeed, and, perhaps even more importantly, to encourage their groupmates to exert maximum efforts. In other words, rewarding groups based on group performance (or the sum of individual performances) creates an interper-

sonal reward structure in which group members will give or withhold social rein- forcers (e.g. praise, encouragement) in response to groupmates' taskrelated efforts (see Slavin, 1983a). One intervention that uses co-operative goal structures is the group contingency (see Slavin, 1987), in which group rewards are given based on group members' behaviours. The theory underlying group contingencies does not require that group members be able to actually help one another or work together. The fact that their outcomes are dependent on one anothers' behaviour is enough to motivate students to engage in behaviours which help the group to be rewarded, because the group incentive induces students to encourage goal-directed behaviours among their groupmates (Slavin, 1983a, 1983b). A substantial literature in the behaviour modification tradition has found that group contingencies can be very effective at improving students' appropriate behaviours and achievement (Hayes, 1976; Litow and Pumroy, 1975). The motivationalist critique of traditional classroom organisation holds that the competitive grading and informal reward system of the classroom creates peer norms opposing academic efforts (see Coleman, 1961). Since one student's success decreases the chances that others will succeed, students are likely to express norms that high achievement is for "nerds" or teachers' pets. Such work restriction norms are familiar in industry, where the "rate buster" is scorned by his or her fellow workers (Vroom, 1969). However, by having students work together toward a common goal, they may be motivated to express norms favouring academic achievement, to reinforce one another for academic efforts. Not surprisingly, motivational theorists build group rewards into their co-operative learning methods. In methods developed by my colleagues and myself at Johns Hopkins University (Slavin, 1986), students can earn certificates or other recognition if their average team scores on quizzes or other individual assignments exceed a pre-established criterion. Methods developed by David and Roger Johnson (1986, 1989) and their colleagues at the University of Minnesota often give students grades based on group performance, which is defined in several different ways. The theoretical rationale for these group rewards is that if students value the success of the group, they will encourage and help one another to achieve, much in contrast to the situation in the traditional, competitive classroom.
Empirical support for the motivational perspective

Evidence from practical applications of co-operative learning in elementary and secondary schools supports the motivationalist position that group rewards are essential to the effectiveness of co-operative learning, with one critical qualification. Use of group goals or group rewards enhances the achievement outcomes of co-operative learning if and only if the group rewards are based on the individual learning of all group members (Slavin, 1983a, 1995). Most often, this means that

team scores are computed based on average scores on quizzes which all teammates take individually, without teammate help. For example, in Student Teams ~ Achievement Divisions, or STAD (Slavin, 1986), students work in mixed-ability teams to master material initially presented by the teacher. Following this, students take individual quizzes on the material, and the teams may earn certificates based on the degree to which team members have improved over their own past records. The only way the team can succeed is to ensure that all team members have learned, so the team members' activities focus on explaining concepts to one another, helping one another practice, and encouraging one another to achieve. In contrast, if group rewards are given based on a single group product (for example, the team completes one worksheet or solves one problem), there is little incentive for group members to explain concepts to one another, and one or two group members may do all the work (see Slavin, 1995). A review of 68 studies of co-operative learning in elementary and secondary schools that involved durations of at least four weeks compared achievement gains in co-operative learning and control groups. Most of these studies took place in the U.S., but there were also studies in Germany (Huber, Bogatzki, and Winter, 1982), Israel (e.g. Sharan et al., 1984; Mevarech, 1985), the Netherlands (e.g. Van Oudenhoven et al., 1987; Vedder, 1985), and Nigeria (Okebukola, 1985). Of forty-three studies of cooperative learning methods that provided group rewards based on the sum of group members' individual learning, nearly all found positive effects on achievement (Slavin, 1995). The median effect size for the 32 studies from which effect sizes could be computed was .30 (thirty percent of a standard deviation separated co-operative learning and control treatments). In contrast, studies of methods that used group goals based on a single group product or provided no group rewards found few positive effects. Comparisons within studies found similar patterns; group goals based on the sum of individual learning performances were necessary to the instructional effectiveness of the cooperative learning models (e.g. Fantuzzo, Polite, and Grayson, 1990; Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, and Dimeff, 1989; Huber, Bogatzki, and Winter, 1982).
Social cohesion perspectives

One theoretical perspective somewhat related to the motivational viewpoint holds that the effects of co-operative learning on achievement are strongly mediated by the cohesiveness of the group, in essence that students will help one another learn because they care about one another and want one another to succeed. This perspective is similar to the motivational perspective in that it emphasizes primarily motivational rather than cognitive explanations for the instructional effectiveness of co-operative learning. However, motivational theorists hold that students help their groupmates learn at least in part because it is in their

own interests to do so. Social cohesion theorists, in contrast, emphasize the idea that students help their groupmates learn because they care about the group. A hallmark of the social cohesion perspective is an emphasis on teambuilding activities in preparation for co-operative learning, and processing or group selfevaluation during and after group activities. Social cohesion theorists tend to downplay or reject the group incentives and individual accountability held by motivationalist researchers to be essential. For example, Cohen (1986, pp. 69-70) states "if the task is challenging and interesting, and if students are sufficiently prepared for skills in group process, students will experience the process of group work itself as highly rewarding... never grade or evaluate students on their individual contributions to the group product." Cohen's work as well as that of Shlomo and Yael Sharan (1992) and Elliot Aronson (Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Sikes, and Snapp, 1978) and their colleagues may be described as social cohesive-ness theories. Cohen, Aronson, and the Sharan's all use forms of cooperative learning in which students take on individual roles within the group, which Slavin (1995) calls "task specialisation" methods. In Aronson's Jigsaw method, students study material on one of four or five topics distributed among the group members. They meet in "expert groups" to share information on their topics with members of other teams who had the same topic, and then take turns presenting their topics to the team. In the Sharan's Group Investigation method, groups take on topics within a unit studied by the class as a whole, and then further subdivide the topic into tasks within the group. The students investigate the topic together and ultimately present their findings to the class as a whole. Cohen's adaptation of DeAvila and Duncan's (1980) Finding Out/Descubrimiento programme has students take different roles in discoveryoriented science activities. One main purpose of the task specialisation used in Jigsaw, Group Investigation, and Finding Out/Descubrimiento is to create interdependence among group members. In the Johnsons' methods, a somewhat similar form of interdependence is created by having students take on roles as "checker," "recorder," ' observer," and so on. The idea is that if students value their groupmates (as a result of teambuilding and other cohesivenessbuilding activities) and are dependent on one another, they are likely to encourage and help one another to succeed. The Johnsons' (1987) work straddles the social cohesion and motivationalist perspectives described in this paper; while their models do use group goals and group incentives, their theoretical writings emphasize development of group cohesion through teambuilding, group self-evaluation, and other means more characteristic of social cohesion theorists.

Empirical support for the social cohesion perspective

The achievement outcomes of co-operative learning methods that emphasize task specialisation are unclear. Research on the original form of Jigsaw has not generally found positive effects of this method on student achievement (Slavin, 1995). One problem with this method is that students have limited exposure to material other than that which they studied themselves, so learning gains on their own topics may be offset by losses on their groupmates' topics. In contrast, Israeli studies show that when it is well implemented, Group Investigation can significantly increase student achievement (Sharan and Shachar, 1988). In studies of at least four weeks' duration, the Johnson's (1987) methods have not been found to increase achievement more than individualistic methods unless they incorporate group rewards (in this case, group grades) based on the average of group members' individual quiz scores (see Slavin, 1995). Studies of forms of Jigsaw that have added group rewards to the original mode have found positive achievement outcomes (Mattingly and Van Sickle, 1992). Research on practical classroom applications of methods based on social cohesion theories provide inconsistent support for the proposition that building cohesiveness among students through teambuilding alone (i.e., without group incentives) will enhance student achievement. There is some evidence that group processing activities such as reflection at the end of each class period on the group's activities can enhance the achievement effects of co-operative learning (Yager, Johnson, Johnson, and Snider, 1986). On the other hand an Israeli study found that teambuilding activities had no effect on the achievement outcomes of Jigsaw (Rich, Amir, and Slavin, 1986). In general, methods which emphasize teambuilding and group process but do not provide specific group rewards based on the learning of all group members are no more effective than traditional instruction in increasing achievement (Slavin, 1995), although there is evidence that these methods can be effective if group rewards are added to them. One major exception is Group Investigation (Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz, 1980; Sharan and Shachar, 1988; Sharan and Sharan, 1992). However, in this method groups are evaluated based on their group products, which are composed of unique contributions made by each group member. Thus, this method may be using a form of the group goals and individual accountability held by motivationalist theories to be essential to the instructional effectiveness of co-operative learning.
Cognitive developmental perspectives

The major alternative to the motivationalist and social cohesiveness per spectives on co-operative learning, both of which focus primarily on group norms

and interpersonal influence, is the cognitive perspective, which holds that interac tions among students will in themselves increase student achievement for reasons which have to do with mental processing of information rather than with motivations. Co-operative methods developed by cognitive theorists involve neither the group goals that are the corner-stone of the motivationalist methods nor the emphasis on building group cohesiveness characteristic of the social cohesion methods. However, there are several quite different cognitive perspectives, as well as some which are similar in theoretical perspective but have developed on largely parallel tracks. One widely researched set of cognitive theories is the developmental per spective (e.g. Damon, 1984; Murray, 1982). This is the dominant theoretical basis for co-operative learning in Europe. The fundamental assumption of the developmental perspective on co-operative learning is that interaction among children around appropriate tasks increases their mastery of critical concepts. Vygotsky (1978, p. 86) defines the zone of proximal development as "... the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (emphasis added). In his view, collaborative activity among children promotes growth because children of similar ages are likely to be operating within one another's proximal zones of development, modelling in the collaborative group behaviours more advanced than those they could perform as individuals. Vygotsky (1978) described the influence of collaborative activity on learning as follows:
Functions are first formed in the collective in the form of relations among children and then become mental functions for the individual... Research shows that reflection is spawned from argument.

Similarly, Piaget (1926) held that social-arbitrary knowledge ~ language, values, rules, morality, and symbol systems can only be learned in interactions with others. Peer interaction is also important in logical-mathematical thought in disequilibrating the child's egocentric conceptualisations and in provision of feedback to the child about the validity of logical constructions. There is a great deal of empirical support for the idea that peer interaction can help nonconservers become conservers. Many studies in Europe and North America have shown that when conservers and nonconservers of about the same age work collaboratively on tasks requiring conservation, the non-conservers generally develop and maintain conservation concepts (see Bell, Grossen, and Perret-Clermont, 1985; Murray, 1982; Perret-Clermont, 1980). In fact, a few studies (e.g. Ames and Murray, 1982; Mugny and Doise, 1978) have found that pairs of disagreeing non-conservers who had to come to consensus on conservation problems both gained in conservation.

On the basis of these and other findings, many Piagetians (e.g. Damon, 1984; Murray, 1982; Wadsworth, 1984) have called for an increased use of co-operative activities in schools. They argue that interaction among students on learning tasks will lead in itself to improved student achievement. Students will learn from one another because in their discussions of the content, cognitive conflicts will arise, inadequate reasoning will be exposed, disequilibration will occur, and higher-quality understandings will emerge. From the developmental perspective, the effects of co-operative learning on student achievement would be largely or entirely due to the use of co-operative tasks. In this view, the opportunity for students to discuss, to argue, to present and hear one anothers' viewpoints is the critical element of co-operative learning with respect to student achievement. However, Damon (1984, p.337) explicitly rejects the use of "extrinsic incentives as part of the group learning situation," arguing that "there is no compelling reason to believe that such inducements are an important ingredient in peer learning." One category of practical co-operative methods closely related to the developmental perspective is group discovery methods in mathematics, such as Marilyn Burns' (1981) Groups of Four method. In these techniques, students work in small groups to solve complex problems with relatively little teacher guidance. They are expected to discover mathematical principles by working with unit blocks, manipulatives, diagrams, and other concrete aids. The theory underlying the presumed contribution of the group format is that in the exploration of opposing perceptions and ideas, higher-order understandings will emerge; also, students operating within one anothers' proximal zones of development will model higher-quality solutions for one another. However, studies of group discovery methods such as Groups of Four (Burns, 1981) find few achievement benefits for them in comparison to traditional expository teaching (Davidson, 1985; L.Johnson, 1985; L. Johnson and Waxman, 1985). Cognitive elaboration perspectives A cognitive perspective on co-operative learning quite different from the developmental viewpoint is one which might be called the cognitive elaboration perspective. Research in cognitive psychology has long held that if information is to be retained in memory and related to information already in memory, the learner must engage in some sort of cognitive restructuring, or elaboration, of the material (Wittrock, 1978). One of the most effective means of elaboration is explaining the material to someone else. Research on peer tutoring has long found achievement benefits for the tutor as well as the tutee (Devin-Sheehan, Feldman, and Allen, 1976). Donald Dansereau and his colleagues have found in an impressive series of brief studies that college students working on structured "co-opera-

tive scripts" can learn technical material or procedures far better than can students working alone (Dansereau, 1988). In this method, students take roles as recaller and listener. They read a section of text, and then the recaller summarises the information while the listener corrects any errors, fills in any omitted material, and helps think of ways both students can remember the main ideas. On the next section, the students switch roles. Dansereau and his colleagues found in a series of studies that while both the recaller and the listener learned more than did students working alone, the recaller learned more (O'Donnell and Dansereau, 1992). This mirrors both the peer tutoring findings and the findings of Noreen Webb (1989, 1992), who discovered that the students who gained the most from co-operative activities were those who provided elaborated explanations to others. In this research as well as in Dansereau's, students who received elaborated explanations learned more than those who worked alone, but not as much as those who served as explainers. There is evidence that adding group rewards to structured dyadic tasks enhances the effects of these strategies. Fantuzzo, Polite, and Grayson (1990) evaluated a dyadic study strategy called Reciprocal Peer Tutoring. A simple pair study format did not increase student arithmetic achievement, but when successful dyads were awarded stickers and classroom privileges, their achievement markedly increased. A similar comparison of dyadic tutoring with and without group rewards at the college level also found that group rewards greatly enhanced the achievement effects of a structured dyadic study model (Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, and Dimeff, 1989), and a series of studies have shown positive effects of the Reciprocal Peer Tutoring model in many subjects and at many grade levels (e.g. Pigott, Fantuzzo, and Wolfe, 1986). A similar program combining structured reciprocal tutoring with group rewards called Classwide Peer Tutoring has also been successful in increasing student achievement in a variety of subjects and grade levels (Greenwood, Delquardi, and Hall, 1989; Maheady, Harper, and Mallette, 1991). One practical use of the cognitive elaboration potential of co-operative learning is in writing process models (Graves, 1983), in which students work in peer response groups or form partnerships to help one another draft, revise, and edit compositions. Such models have been found to be effective in improving creative writing (Hillocks, 1984), and a writing process model emphasising use of peer response groups is part of the co-operative Integrated Reading and Composition Writing/Language Arts program (Stevens, Madden, Slavin, and Famish, 1987), a program which has also been used to increase student writing achievement. Part of the theory behind the use of peer response groups is that if students learn to evaluate others' writing, they will become better writers themselves, a variant of the cognitive elaboration explanation.

Co-operative learning and active learning

Research on co-operative learning provides both direct and indirect evi dence about the likely impact of active learning on student achievement. The most direct evidence is from the work of Yael and Shlomo Sharan (1992) evaluating their Group Investigation program. Group Investigation is an instance of active learning with a strong co-operative learning base. In it, students work in small groups to prepare class presentations, write reports, or prepare other products. Decisions about topics, about what will be produced, and about how labour will be divided within groups are up to the students themselves. Group investigation thus incorporates features of team-based production in the knowledge-intensive economy. Research on Group Investigation has generally supported its effectiveness, especially in promoting higher-order cognitive skills. A study (Sharan et al., 1984) found small but significant positive effects on student achievement measures assessing higher-order skills, though fewer effects on more basic skills. Sharan, Hertz-Lazarowitz and Ackerman (1980) also found positive effects on concept identification, analysis of problems, judgement, evaluation and imagination. Other indications of co-operative learning effects on high level cognitive objectives have come from research on the Co-operative Integrated Reading and Composition programme, which has been found to produce positive effects on creative writing and such high level reading skills as main idea, inference, and metacognitive awareness (Stevens et al., 1987; Stevens and Durkin, 1992; Stevens and Slavin, 1994). Effects have also been found of Success for All and Roots and Wings on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), which is a performance measure that is intended to tap higher-order skills (Slavin, Madden, Dolan, Wasik, Ross, and Smith, 1994). A study by Sharan and Shachar (1988) found substantial positive effects on student achievement. Unique characteristics of this study are important to note. Most importantly, the Group Investigation teachers had extensive training and follow-up and a year of experience before the study began. What the findings of the Sharan and Shachar study suggest is that cooperative project-based learning can have very positive effects, but these effects probably depend upon well-prepared, well-trained teachers who receive extensive inservice and follow-up over an extended period. Another line of research in support of this proposition has been conducted by Elizabeth Cohen and her colleagues (1986). Their model, Complex Instruction, has not been compared to control groups. However, their research has shown that teachers with greater conceptual understanding of the principles of project-based learning and students who do more interacting around academic tasks had better learning outcomes than other teachers and students.

Research on simpler co-operative learning methods suggests factors that should contribute to instructional effectiveness in co-operative project-based learning. In particular, this research emphasizes group goals and individual accountability (Slavin, 1995). That is, effects of co-operative learning are largest and most consistent when students work together in small groups and are evaluated and receive recognition based on the degree to which all group members have learned the material or have successfully completed a unique part of the group's task. Methods of this kind are usually ones in which students are individually assessed on material the group studied (and group recognition is based on the average of individual performances), or in which groups are evaluated based on projects or products in which each student contributed an identifiable chapter, section, or other component. In these circumstances, students are motivated not only to help each other but also to teach and assess each other, providing the elaborated explanations found by Webb (1989) to be essential correlates of learning gains in co-operative learning. The importance of group goals and individual accountability is, at least in theory, just as great in project-based learning as in simpler forms of co-operative learning. Without group goals (such as assessment of group products), there is a danger that some students may not participate, or may not help each other learn. Without individual accountability, there is a danger that some students may do the work while others watch, or that students felt to have little to contribute to the group might be shut out of the activity by their groupmates. Even if there is task differentiation within groups, there is the danger that some students may be given the "thinking" tasks, while others are given the low level mechanical or clerical tasks. From the research it might be concluded that an ideal arrangement for cooperative projects would be one in which students work together to complete a project but are either responsible for a unique portion of the project that requires high-level intellectual participation (e.g. preparing chapters within a group book), or are later assessed individually on the topic studied by the group. In either case, effectiveness for academic achievement should depend on the degree to which group members are motivated to help all their groupmates to learn the material being studied, either because each group member contributes a unique and valuable piece to the group's task or because the group's success depends on the individual learning (individually assessed) of all group members. Forms of co-operative learning in the CERI country reports Most of the CERI country reports describe project-based learning methods much like those studied by the Sharans and by Elizabeth Cohen and her colleagues. However, the methods described vary considerably in many respects, from grade level to subject to group organisation, tasks, and assessments. It is

impossible to evaluate the likely effectiveness of each of these methods, and that is not the intention of this chapter. However, it may be worthwhile to discuss the co-operative active learning methods described in the CERI case studies in light of the principles derived from 25 years of research on cooperative learning. The case studies vary considerably in their emphasis on group goals and individual accountability. For example, Chapter II.8 describes three British secondary classes. In one, a newspaper project had a clear group assessment (by the teacher), but assessment procedures were less clear in examples of science and technology lessons. Students had individual tasks (chosen by themselves) in all three lessons described, but in only one was there a clear link between individual task performance and group assessment. Also, the report notes that in about half of all observations all students were working on the same task. Even in the examples cited, it was unclear whether it was possible that some students were engaged in the thinking part of the task while others were given clerical or mechanical tasks. Similarly, the description of group work in Spain (Chapter II.7) emphasizes flexible group work in which students divide tasks within their groups. The tasks appear to vary in cognitive complexity (e.g. selecting slides, summarising information), and group evaluation seems to focus more on the group process than on the outcome. The rich set of activities described is certainly engaging but the degree to which the participation and learning of all students is necessary is unclear. A key element of the motivational and social cohesion models of cooperative learning, discussed earlier, is the idea that cohesion within groups is essential to motivate students to teach and help one another. Creating ad hoc groups for a single set of activities may not permit enough time or experience for groups to develop this cohesion. Yet this seems to have been the procedure used by the Port Pirie (Australia) secondary teacher whose class was described in Chapter II. 1. Groups in this class were frequently reforming, and may therefore have had little opportunity to build a sense of group solidarity. In contrast, the other Australian case study, an elementary school in Canadian Lead, involved multi-age table groups that apparently stayed together over extended periods of time. The issue of different levels of tasks is illustrated by Chapter II.4 describing a rural Finnish elementary school. A multi-age group was preparing commercials. The younger children were described as relatively quiet and passive; when tasks were divided up, sixth graders were apparently taking charge of the main activity while first graders drew pictures. The younger children may have been learning by observation or modelling, but it is not clear that their participation in the group's task was essential. In contrast, the same chapter describes a process writing activity in which students gave each other feedback on compositions and then combined the individual compositions into a joint play, which was then evaluated by the whole class. This is an excellent example of group goals (writing an ap-

pealing play) and individual accountability (individual sections of the play com bined into a group product). Several of the CERI country reports describe co-operative learning activities that are loosely structured, in which there was no differentiation of tasks within groups and group evaluations is informal or lacking. An example of this is the descriptions of two German elementary classes in Chapter II.5. In one, students worked together to plan interviews; in another, students worked as a class to try to identify the skull of an animal that they found in the woods. In both cases the tasks were exciting and intrinsically interesting, but there was no mechanism to ensure the meaningful participation of all students. Similarly, one of the Danish secondary classrooms described in Chapter II.2 was involved in group discussions of books all groups members were supposed to have read. There was no apparent structure or division of labour within the groups. Perhaps as a result, some students claimed that others were not reading the books and were not participating in the activity. Lacking individual accountability, it was difficult to ensure that every child actually did the work; in fact, students could let their groupmates do the work and hope not to be found out. While group goals can exist without individual accountability, individual accountability can also exist without group goals. This is illustrated by the report on an urban Finnish elementary school in Chapter II.3. This school was using a form of individualised instruction in which students were free to select a number of "bus stops," each of which directed students to carry out activities relating to waterways. Students were allowed to work in groups of their choice, but there was apparently no specific group structure or group goal. In this situation students may have co-operated to make the task simpler for each other, but there would be little reason for students to make sure their partners had learned the material. In fact, there is no apparent reason to expect that students would not simply give each other the answers. Much of the co-operative learning in three U.S reports is built around solving real or simulated problems. Chapter II.9 describes co-operative learning activities in which secondary students are studying real problems of pollution on their own campus. Chapter II. 11 describes a simulation in which elementary students work in groups to propose legislation relating to cleaning up a bay ecosystem. Chapter 11.10 depicts students working in groups to solve a real problem, how to make pagers acceptable to adolescents (and how to make adolescents' use of pagers acceptable to policy makers. All three of the U.S. case studies engage students in group activities with well-defined subtasks and group evaluations. Research on the use of well-structured simulations (Dukes and Seidner, 1978) suggests that participation involving real of simulated problems increase intrinsic motivation. This, plus the use of group evaluations depending upon the quality of individual subtasks, make it likely that these forms of co-operative learning are enhancing student achievement.

Conclusion

The CERI case studies provide rich description of a wide variety of co-operative, active learning methods used in different countries, with students of different ages, for highly diverse purposes and curricular objectives. None of these case studies can even be considered representative of the practices in the classrooms described, much less of whole schools or school systems. They are valuable, however, in illustrating in some detail exciting applications of cooperative projects in diverse settings. These descriptions provide an opportunity to consider how research on co-operative learning might inform practice in active learning. Only a few studies have evaluated project-based learning methods like those presented in this volume. Yet many studies of other forms of co-operative learning have provided principles of effective practice that may apply to active learning. In particular, research on co-operative learning has shown the importance of having groups work together toward a group goal or group evaluation in which success depends on the sum of individual learning performances on individual parts of a group task. The CERI case studies describe methods that vary considerably on this dimension. None describe methods in which individual learning is assessed and summed to form an evaluation of overall group success. However, several of the CERI studies describe methods like those successfully evaluated by Sharan and Shachar (1988), in which students make unique contributions to a group task whose quality is central to group evaluation. The international growth of active learning is an encouraging phenomenon. More and more students are having regular opportunities to solve real or simulated problems, to structure learning for themselves, and to work co-operatively in small groups to learn from each other. Yet the various forms of active learning described in the CERI studies are in need of research to establish their impact on student learning and to identify the conditions necessary for their effectiveness. It is possible to make some inferences along these lines from research on cooperative learning, but ultimately this is inadequate; as new forms of instruction are increasingly used, we need new forms of assessment and careful studies of new methods to form a base of evidence and experience for classroom reform.

Chapter III.3 ACTIVE LEARNING BY TEACHERS H. Niemi

During the past decade new evidence about teaching and learning, new con cepts of learning environments, and new knowledge of the diversity of learners have provided impetus for new practices in schools. More active methods in teaching and learning have been urged in many educational debates at national and international levels. However, there is a persistent gap between new knowledge of teaching and learning and actual practices in schools (Cuban 1990). Resources, administration, curriculum, and other institutional factors all contribute to the inertia of schools, but teachers are ultimately the most important factor in determining whether new methods of learning are implemented or not. This chapter will examine the conditions for teachers to become promoters of active learning.
Teaching as life-long learning

In recent years, teachers have increasingly been seen as learners, not only when they enter the profession but throughout their teaching career (Carter 1990). Expertise in a teaching domain can be defined as comprising the knowledge, skills, beliefs, an attitudes relevant to performance in that field (Buchberger et al. 1994, 12). The acquisition of expertise in teaching is a life-long process, which may be considered from the viewpoint of modern learning theories. Learning to teach is an individual process. Teacher's own learning may occur on several levels: 1) acquisition of new knowledge about subject matter and how to teach it; 2) development of pedagogical skills and metacognitive skills related to inquiry and selfevaluation; and 3) changes in personality and identity in connection with changing interactions with students and changing beliefs and values related to teaching and learning. These processes are interconnected, as studies on teachers' own reflective diaries and portfolios have shown. Becoming a teacher and working as a teacher involves a many-layered learning process (Black and Ammon 1992; Condon etal., 1993; Rainer and Guyton, 1994; Niemi and Kohonen 1994; Goodson, 1992; Oberg and Underwood 1992). One of the most important learning processes for teachers is their evolving knowledge of

learning and changes in this domain. It has consequences for teachers' own pro fessional development as well as their students' learning. Teachers' learning processes are individual but depend on larger educational, social, political and cultural contexts (e.g. Hargreaves and Fullan, 1992; Tabachnich and Zeichner, 1991; Ruohotie,1994; Grimmett, 1994). Traditions of schools, institutional development in school communities, teacher education culture and school administration create varying opportunities for teachers' development and their active learning.
There is no teacher development without institutional development and there is no insti tutional development without teacher development (Hargreaves, 1994).

Even though studies concerning teacher learning have different methodological and theoretical approaches (e.g. constructivist, experiential, socio-construc-tivist, or critical theory) they have certain common emphases:

Becoming a teacher is a life-long learning process. Teachers' metacognitive abilities form a basic condition for their own pro fessional development, if teacher development is seen more than merely adaptation of technical skills. Teachers' experiences hold powerful potential for their professional devel opment. But teachers, like everyone else, do not learn from experience alone. They learn from reflection on experience. Practical knowledge, in formal knowledge, tacit knowledge are different terms for knowledge which teachers collect from their daily work (Fenstermacher, 1994). When this knowledge is connected with reflection and conceptualisation (Kolb, 1984), it means active learning is taking place. High quality teachers seek new knowledge and new experiences to develop their teaching (OECD, 1994b). Teachers' own learning is important in de veloping teaching and learning at schools. On the other hand, teachers' commitment decreases if the peer community or institutional framework does not allow and encourage active development of teaching and learning at schools (Huberman, 1992; Hargreaves, 1994). Research on teachers as collaborative learners, the school as a learning community and teachers' professional culture has deepened our understand ing of why changes occur so slowly in schools. It has also created a new approach to implementing reforms. An individual teacher cannot change a school. Teaching and teacher education have deep roots in a nation's his tory. Reforms and new practices need collegial co-operation. Most changes require the whole school community to learn new concepts or reorganise their earlier beliefs, values and attitudes. These may call for changes in organisational culture and leadership (Hargreaves, 1992, 1994;

Raymond, Butt and Townsend, 1992). Research of socialisation of teachers have raised a serious question whether teachers learn new culture because of strong pressures of traditions at schools and teacher education (Zeichner and Gore, 1990). Teachers' awareness of the social function of their profession varies. In critical theory teachers are seen as a part of society and they are encouraged to take an emancipatory role (Carr and Kemmis, 1986; Shor, 1992; Liston and Zeichner, 1991; Tabachnich and Zeichner, 1991). Teaching should be seen as a real profession, which has a recognized status in a society. This requires a new critical, participatory culture in the teaching profession. Research on empowerment has encouraged teachers to use their voice and participate in educational debate. The pressures of rapid social change may push teachers from a positivist professional stance to a more critical one (Tom and Valli, 1990). From the positivist viewpoint, the teachers' responsibility is derived from educational authorities and experts outside the school. In contrast, the critical framework stresses teachers' critical awareness and action (Jarvinen et al. 1994; Niemi and Moon 1993; Bacharach and Conley, 1990). The case studies The CERI case studies show teachers taking an active role. The observed projects were different in many respects, but the teachers had certain comparable qualities and their professional role shared common characteristics.

Collaboration
In many case studies teachers were working in teams. Their role had changed from isolation to co-operation and joint planning. Teachers talked about pedagogical questions with other teachers and they planned together. Teachers worked effectively together in school community but also with other partners outside the school. In WorldLab (Chapter II.11) teachers and their students interacted with their local surroundings. The teacher in a rural Finnish school also performed as a teacher educator, opening the school to teachers and university students who wished to become acquainted with co-operative project work in combined grades (Chapter II.4). In the German case study, one teacher became so excited about being a learner again that she decided to share her insights and her new experi-

ences with other people interested in education ~ and she founded a parents dis cussion club focused on educational questions (Chapter II.5).

Teachers as learning facilitators

Promoting active learning in classrooms had a clear influence on teachers' role. They became facilitators who gave more responsibility to students. They were more democratic, negotiating more with students about aims, methods and control of learning. They saw students as resources for one another. More opportunities for independent learning and more open tasks and projects enabled students to collaborate with one another, and sometimes the teacher was a partner in a learning team. Teachers' position is not always in front of the classroom, nor in the centre of attention. Now they are circulating experts, learning together with students and trying to give space to their students as much as possible. Active learning methods usually seemed to increase students' motivation. In this sense new methods also improved working conditions for teachers. But there were instructive exceptions. Not all students became involved (Chapter II.2) and in some cases students were not ready for this kind of learning. A possible implication is that active learning methods and self-regulation skills should be taught gradually from the beginning of school. Active learning is possible in very young ages of school (e.g. see the examples from Australia and Finland) and the seed should be planted as early as possible. Sometimes teachers have only limited opportunities to give space to students' own initiatives and control. In England teachers were highly motivated when they could control their own learning but were very demotivated by the imposition of tasks from the outside that they regarded as educationally misguided or politically inspired. These teachers tried to give their pupils as much ownership of their learning as they could (Chapter II.8). Teachers' clear message was that active learning requires flexibility in curriculum and assessment.

Teachers as learners
Many teachers in the case studies had sought new pedagogical information. Some had become members of teachers' learning teams or learning centres. Sometimes the stated motivation was dissatisfaction with student learning and belief that students could achieve more (Chapter II. 1). Teachers reported that the new active learning methods meant plenty of extra work for them, but they felt it was worth the effort. Active learning projects prompted teachers to reflect on their implicit educational theories. They described how they became more aware of issues such as children from underprivileged

homes, victims of divorce, etc. (Chapter II.5). Also in the Dutch case study the teacher felt that her theory or philosophy had broadened (Chapter II.6). Some teachers did research as part of their teaching. One of the Australian school encouraged teachers to conduct research on a chosen aspect of their own teaching (Chapter II. 1). One team of Danish teachers did a survey of students to find out why they were having difficulty, then changed their teaching methods as a result (Chapter II.2).

Commitment to teaching and active role in change processes

Some teachers in the case studies had been active promoters of educational r eforms at the national or local level. Almost all teachers in the case studies had started some special project at the school level. In the German case, the teachers participating in the study worked voluntarily as mentors for student teachers Chapter II.5). In the Finnish context teachers worked as developers of school base curriculum. In Maryland, the teacher had helped revamp the school's science curriculum (Chapter II.9). The descriptions of teachers in the case studies gave clear evidence that the Teacher's role is changing. The emphasis is shifting toward facilitation of students' independent learning, rather than performance by the teacher (Grimmett, 1994). Keeping up with new knowledge about student learning means that growing as a professional also means growing as a learner. Conditions for teachers' active learning The 21. century will set high demands on learning. The world will be full of contradictory trends and tensions due to globalisation, regionalisation, value conflicts and social inequities. Concepts of work and professions are being redefined. In this context, debate about the nature of the teaching profession has raised two essential questions: do teachers have autonomy and responsibility in curriculum development and assessment of student learning, or is their role to implement policies set by others? Do teacher's pre- and inservice education aim to develop to extensive professional competence or more narrow technical skills? One view of the profession stresses the following aspects of teachers' work:

teaching requires life-long learning; the teaching profession has a high level of moral responsibility and requires a good education for dealing with value questions; teachers are real partners in school development;

teachers have deep insight into learning processes and can act as mentors for different learners; teachers seek to enhance learning opportunities in society for all learners.

An alternative view regards teachers as technicians or bureaucrats:

tightly defined norms and directions come from administrators and/or poli ticians; curricula are "teacher-proof; narrow, measurable objectives are the basis for assessment in schools and in teacher education; avoidance of pedagogical discussion at schools and in teachers' pre- and in-service education; practical, minimum teacher education. The latter alternative means that teachers need more and more supervision and control. But external control and lack of independence can demoralise teachers. The danger is that this could interfere with students' learning, leading to greater doubts about teachers' capacity, and imposition of further external accountability in a vicious circle. To avoid this negative development, certain conditions seem desirable. Administration at national and local levels Laws, national school reforms, and official recommendations influence educational practice, but usually with a long delay. Schools change slowly because teacher's work is rooted in earlier traditions. To accelerate change, official statements are needed, but they are not enough. Well-organised pre- and inservice education for teachers are also necessary. In the case studies there are examples of positive relationships between national policy and professional development for teachers. In Spain the new national policy supports active learning and also provides teacher education to promote it (Chapter II.7). Also in Finland the new national policy promotes educational practices based on active learning. The main principles of the curriculum reform currently being implemented support a school culture which lays stress on the autonomous control of learning and encourages flexibility and interactiveness in the school. In-service education for teachers has been provided. Administrative culture is another important factor determining whether reforms will succeed or not. Administration that supports and encourages teachers' initiative will make better use of teachers' potential than a top-down policy (Wagner, 1993; Wise, 1993).

School level conditions

In the case studies those teachers who used active learning methods often worked in teacher teams. Open and participatory communication seemed to be a common feature. Active learning at schools also benefits from flexible structural arrangements and school leaders who trust teachers and provide vision and moral encouragement to experiment. The traditional isolation of individual classroom teachers works against the notion of active learning. Where schools fail to develop structures and opportuni ties for shared learning to occur, students and teachers tend to be least active in their own learning. The Australian report emphasizes that a significant link was observed between the active learning capacities of teachers and students and the degree to which schools had internalised collaborative learning cultures. This understanding is crucial if schools are to be creative organisations in the future. The next decade will see significant work place reforms and technological changes which will require major alterations to learning approaches for both teachers and students. Collaborative school culture that utilises active learning is one way to meet the educational needs of teachers and students. The importance of a new organisational culture, where collaboration and sharing are common features has been emphasized by other authors. When Hargreaves (1994, p. 424) defines teacher professionalism he highlights teachers' collaboration and responsibility with colleagues, students and parents. Bacharach and Conley (1990) describe teachers working "on the line" and stress teachers' organisational knowledge and participation in school development. Active learning seems more likely to occur when teachers have opportunities for co-operation.
Content of teacher education

Becoming an active learner should be an important goal in teacher educa tion. Prospective teachers' learning abilities affect their future classrooms. The importance of this is stressed by Goodlad (1990), and by Edmundson (1993, p. 170), who notes that:
For teachers to be able stewards of the schools, they must have the skills and commit ment necessary for continuous inquiry and confrontation with the perplexing issues of contemporary education. Preparation programs should provide experiences to help prospective teachers understand schools as they are but also to help them understand alternatives and the assumptions underlying those alternatives. For teachers to be active agents in promoting continuous renewal of schools, they need to know how to effect needed changes in school organisation, pupil grouping, curriculum, and more.

In the German and Finnish case studies it was stressed that during teacher education student teachers should be introduced to the idea and methods of active learning. However, there seems to be a gap between, practices in teacher educa tion and demands of new learning models in many countries. In the Motorola project a young teacher was concerned that, though she had recently completed a teacher education programme, she was not prepared to any significant extent to facilitate an active learning model. She wondered what was going on in teacher education institutions to prepare the rising generations of new teachers. Obstacles to active learning in pre-service teacher education include old behavioristic models and closed, ready-made tasks reflecting earlier beliefs, learning habits and teaching arrangements. Limited time is also a constraint. These obstacles must be overcome if student teachers are to have authentic experiences of active learning themselves. Without such experience, it will be difficult for them to offer student-centered instruction in their own future classrooms. Since knowledge is created by the learner rather than imparted or trans ferred, teachers must understand how students construct and use their understanding (Lerman, 1989). This personal construction process also occurs for student teachers in pre-service education (Niemi and Kohonen, 1995). Smith (1994, pp. 26-27) points out that the teacher should learn to become a leader of students who act as knowledge workers. A prerequisite for such a role is that prospective teachers learn themselves to interact with knowledge and create their own knowledge. It seems important for active learning that student teachers have an opportu nity to work in an encouraging atmosphere where they have enough time and space for own planning (Niemi, 1994). Smith (1994, p. 26) urges teacher education faculty to:
create the innovative instructional environments which contribute to high levels of edu cational engagement, environments often characterised by dialogue, group problem-solving, inquiry, and active involvement. Experiential component extending classroom learning to the broader environment are central to the success of these strategies. With the exception of internship experiences, most teaching in traditional teacher education programs often relies on lectures, discussions, and prescribed readings. Few prospective teachers learn in ways showing them workable and practical alternative instructional practices. It is unreasonable to expect teacher education graduates to create classrooms very different from those dominating their educational experiences.

Naturally, if student teachers are to experience active learning, teacher edu cators must experience it themselves in the first place.

Conclusion The quality of learning is significant to teachers in two ways. First, the teacher is the central facilitator of students' learning. Active learning empowers students to assume an active role in their own lives a necessity in a democratic society. Secondly, the teacher is also a learner whose own evolving theory of learning is discernible in the classroom. If education is seen as a key investment for the future, one of the most important tasks is to create opportunities for active learning by teachers.

Chapter III.4 WHAT ARE WE LEARNING? D. Stern

This chapter extracts essential ideas and unanswered questions from the preceding chapters. It begins with a brief review of why there is pressure to change conventional curriculum and instructional methods. Giving students some opportunity and support for active learning is thought to provide more effective preparation for an increasingly learningintensive economy and society. Two key features shared by many of the active lessons described in Part II are i) immediate validation of students' learning and ii) grouping small numbers of students into work teams. The advantages and drawbacks of these practices are discussed here. Aims and aimlessness in education A well-known cartoon caricature of student-centred progressive education in the United States shows a young pupil asking the teacher, "Please, do we have to do just whatever we want to do again today?" Since children are required by law to attend school, it would be absurd to expect them to determine the educational agenda and procedures all by themselves. For young children especially, it is obvious that the curriculum should consist mainly of skills and information necessary for everyday life. Pupils in primary grades understand that reading and computation are part of the world around them. The necessity for all citizens to possess these basic capabilities is sufficient justification for compulsory schooling. But as children grow into middle or lower secondary school, the motivation for learning and the justification for schooling become more problematic. Subject matter begins to take the shape of academic disciplines, and its immediate relevance or necessity become less self-evident. By the time students reach secondary school, the distinction between the classroom and the "real world" is part of their ordinary language. Any student still naive enough to ask, "Why are we studying this?", would be likely to receive an answer that included statements such as, "It will be on the exam", "You'll need it for next year", or "The university requires it." Especially at the upper secondary and early post-secondary levels, educational systems in most OECD countries tend to become inward-looking and preoccupied

with their own requirements. (Important exceptions are the dual systems of voca tional training in Germany and neighbouring countries, and new forms of integrated education being developed in other countries, where academic subject matter is organised around career-related themes.). School would make more sense to students if they were given some choice about what to study. One of the main findings from our case studies is that, even in classrooms where teachers are trying to promote active learning, students have little choice about what is to be learned (see Chapter III.l). This limitation stems from the rigidity of the prescribed curriculum, which causes problems for students who cannot or will not relate to that curriculum. Some of these students stay in school but learn little. Others drop out. Disproportionate numbers of dropouts come from racial, ethnic, or linguistic minority groups, or from poor or disorganised families. The resulting high rates of school failure impose large costs on OECD countries (OECD, 1994a). But even for students who stay in the game and win the prize of high educational attainment, it is doubtful that conventional curriculum and instruction any longer provide the best preparation for life outside school and beyond the school years. As noted in Part I, increasingly rapid obsolescence of knowledge implies that the goal of education should shift from producing individuals who are highly learned to cultivating people who are highly proficient learners. Studying for examinations obliges students to memorise facts, concepts, procedures, algorithms, and definitions, and students who perform well must also learn to organise ideas and information, but studying a given body of knowledge does not confront students with one of the main questions they will face as learners after they leave school: namely, what is worth learning? The emergence of the "learning economy" makes continual learning a grow ing necessity at work. But also for parents, citizens, and members of a civilised culture, lifelong learning is increasingly required. In these responsible roles, the mark of an educated person is not the ability to recall large amounts of information, but the capacity for rapidly selecting, acquiring and using it. Whether diagnosing problems at work, bringing up children, or engaging in political debate, it is the acquisition and filtering of information and the application of concepts in a particular context that indicate intellectual competence. The philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead espoused this idea when he defined education as learning how to put knowledge to use (Whitehead, 1929/1949, p. 16). What he declared in 1912 is even more true today, as knowledge has become increasingly evanescent.

Immediacy and continuity: a conflict?

Many teachers, including some in upper secondary schools and universities where the authority of academic disciplines is strongest, already agree that the purpose of education is not only to teach subject matter but also to develop students' capacity to acquire and use knowledge. The practical question, then, is how to do it. Part II of this book presents actual examples from 8 countries, ranging from primary grades through upper secondary. One common feature in many of these examples is that students' activity achieves some external result that can be appreciated immediately. Students produce newsletters, bulletins, reports, legislative proposals, marketing plans, dramatic productions, slide presentations, posters, videotaped commercials, computerised data bases, electrical circuits, stream-flow gauges, gear boxes and other tangible accomplishments that are witnessed not only by the teacher but by other students in the class, sometimes by other classes in the school, and occasionally by people outside the school or family. Exhibiting students' work gives it immediate social validation. Many of the observed classes also had students working together in small groups; here the communication of information and explanation of ideas both within and between groups provides another kind of immediate audience. The importance of immediacy was expressed by Whitehead in his famous 1912 lecture on the aims of education. He attacked the idea that the mind, like an instrument, can be sharpened by abstract exercises now for use in real situations later, and urged teachers:
The mind is never passive; it is a perpetual activity, delicate, receptive, responsive to stimulus. You cannot postpone its life until you have sharpened it. Whatever interest attaches to your subject-matter must be evoked here and now; whatever powers you are strengthening in the pupil, must be exercised here and now; whatever possibilities of mental life your teaching should impart, must be exhibited here and now. That is the golden rule of education, and a very difficult rule to follow (Whitehead 1929/1949, p. 18).

As illustrated by our case studies, this is a principle that some teachers have learned to put into practice, despite the difficulty. Why is the principle of immediacy so difficult to follow? Many reasons have been discussed and illustrated in earlier chapters. It takes imagination, ingenuity, and energy for teachers to conceive and carry out the kind of lesson that gives students an immediate opportunity to use and validate what they are learning. Materials, equipment, transportation, and other logistical supports may be lacking. For most teachers most of the time, it is simply not worth the trouble to organise such lessons. After all, they are not required to do so.

But why not? If this is so fundamental to good education, should it not be required or at least strongly and consistently encouraged by administrative authorities and the official curriculum? Perhaps the main reason why such expectations are not enforced is a perceived conflict between having students spend a lot of time making things (or writing documents) for exhibition and the necessity to cover the full breadth of subject matter in the curriculum. Official examinations in many educational systems still require students to display a great deal of retained information. In some places, for example the State of Maryland in the United States, new examinations are testing students' proficiency in processing new information to solve problems, and are therefore encouraging project-based methods of instruction (see Chapters II.9 and II.10). But in most places, official examinations and the official curriculum still reflect the idea that the purpose of schools is to transmit society's accumulated knowledge. The goal of transmitting knowledge that has built up through history emphasizes continuity with the past, a principle which conflicts, or at least competes for students' time, with an emphasis on students applying what they learn immediately. The reality of this conflict is apparent in the United States, where some attempts to substitute examinations that test students' performance for examinations that measure retained knowledge have been strongly opposed by some who argue that it is especially important for children to learn historical facts. It would be irresponsible to advocate ignoring the past. Transmission of knowledge is important. Without knowledge of the past, a culture loses connection with its roots. But ensuring continuity into the future is also important, and it is apparent that the increasingly learning-intensive economy and society of today and tomorrow call for a kind of education which gives students practice in acquiring knowledge for immediate use. The arguments of Whitehead and other philosophers (including Dewey) have been reinforced by research indicating that students are more likely to understand and retain information if they actively use it (see Chapters I.2, III.l, and III.2, also, for example, Kuhn, 1990; Gardner, 1991; Grouws, 1992). Optimistically, this conflict could resolve itself if methods of active learning were shown to be not only more effective but also more efficient - that is, achieving a given result in less time or better results in the same time as conventional instruction. For instance, Chapter II. 11 gives an example of history being taught through simulations and students producing visual presentations. If this takes no more time than a conventional lesson covering the same material, and if students retain more of what they are supposed to learn about history and other subjects through the active lesson, then this would be the more efficient method. Unfortunately, it is difficult to conduct research on the relative efficiency of different educational methods, and the relative efficiency of active learning therefore remains an open question.

Individual self regulation, classroom groups, and the learning economy Active learning and group learning are different things. As explained in Chapters I.2 and III. 1, active learning is most often defined in the literature as self-regulated learning by an individual. Simons, in Chapter I.2, comments that individual methods may sometimes be preferred to group methods of active learning. It is therefore striking, and puzzling, that the large majority of examples presented in Part II describe lessons where students are working in groups. To some extent, this may be an artefact of the research procedure, which was limited to classroom observations and brief interviews, rather than extended study of individual learners (students or teachers). Given these limitations, researchers understandably chose examples where something notable could be detected by classroom observations: students moving around, engaged in projects, working in groups. As was evident in the few case studies that did describe contractual learning arrangements which allowed students as individuals to regulate the pace and sequence of their own tasks (for example, Chapters II.3 and II.6), individual self-regulation does not give much to observe from a distance. Active thinking in individual minds is not detectable by observing the classroom; it would have to be documented by means of probing interviews. However, allowing for this methodological bias, the widespread use of student work teams in our examples still may tell us something. Huber presents research in Chapter III.2 showing that adults who take on independent learning projects rely extensively on friends, family members, and experts for support and Iguidance. Simons points out in Chapter I.2 that independent individual learners may choose to have a teacher help them. In Chapter III.2, Slavin reviews extensive research indicating that mutual assistance by members of small groups raises individual achievement. And the correlations among classroom data collected by the CERI case studies, reported in Chapter III.l, reveal a positive association between the frequency of individual self-regulated learning activities and activities that involve students in autonomous groups. Active learning by individuals and groups evidently go together because individuals can help each other. This is not to say that group learning is always successful or effective. The Danish study in Chapter II.2 instructively documents cases where groups did not function well. Slavin, in his chapter, cautions that the effectiveness of group projects like those most often described in Part II has not been extensively evaluated. He warns that some of these projects seem to lack group incentives tied to individual performance, the combination that characterises co-operative education models for which positive research evidence exists. Nevertheless, student work teams and group projects of the kind described in Part II may hold particular promise as a way for schools to prepare students for the "learning economy". While most of the evaluations of co-operative learning reviewed by Slavin have focused on basic skills in language and mathematics,

studies of the "group investigation" model, which is most akin to the lessons de scribed in Part II, have found positive effects on higher-order thinking skills involving analysis of problems, evaluation, and imagination. These are the kinds of mental capacities said to be prized by employers in "learning organisations". In fact, the summer program conducted by Motorola Inc. (Chapter II. 10) centred on a group investigation similar to the model described by Slavin. There is at least a superficial resemblance between this kind of group project and the activity of adult work teams in contemporary organisations, including teams of teachers in some schools. The production of a videotaped "commercial" by students in a tiny primary school in rural Finland ~ to take one example from many in Part II ~ lets students rehearse future work roles. Some projects go one step further. Beyond emulating work activity, they engage students in actual production of useful goods or services. For example, students described in Chapter II.9 did extensive analysis of a stream running through their campus, and then took measures to protect it. Students in the Motorola program contributed ideas to help solve a real problem for the corporation. Australian students described in Chapter II. 1 constructed a data base that other students could use. In these projects, active learning becomes productive learning. This mirrors the convergence of learning and production that increasingly characterises economic life. As the learning economy continues to evolve, schools and firms may come to resemble each other more closely. The economic and humanistic goals of education seem to be growing more compatible. Firms may even look to schools for ideas about how best to combine learning with productive activity. The fact that a leading global corporation chose to participate in this study of active learning is one indication of how seriously some companies now take this question. To find the learning economy, it is not necessary to look beyond the classrooms described in this study. Educational systems themselves are major employers, and teachers are their main group of employees. The innovating teachers described in this book are continually learning at work. Through their personal example, as well as through the lessons they create, they prepare students for their own lifetime of learning.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Katherine Aldridge Tabor High School Essex United Kingdom Murray Baum West Coast Training Consultants Tumby Bay Australia Kris Black-Hawkins University of Cambridge Institute of Education Cambridge United Kingdom Inmaculada Cordoba Rodriguez de Guzman Centro de Profesores de Getafe Madrid Spain Cecelia Daniels Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland USA Denise Davidson Oundle School United Kingdom Kerry Dohring West Coast Training Consultants Tumby Bay Australia

Jens Dolin Koge Gymnasium Koge Denmark Polly Eckert West Coast Training Consultants Tumby Bay Australia Kirsti Hakkinen Department of Teacher Education University of Jyvaskyla Jyvaskyla Finland Seppo Hamalainen Department of Teachers Education University of Jyvaskyla Jyvaskyla Finland R. Carl Harris Brigham Young University Provo, Utah USA David Hopkins University of Cambridge Institute of Education Cambridge United Kingdom Gnter L. Huber Department of Education University of Tubingen Institut Erziehungswissenschaft Tubingen Germany

Gitte Ingerslev Koge Gymnasium Koge Denmark Philip Jewell Samuel Whitbread School Bedfordshire United Kingdom Eija Kimonen Department of Teacher Education University of Jyvaskyla Jyvaskyla Finland Howard Lay Samuel Ward School Suffolk United Kingdom Susan Magri The Seton Keough High School Baltimore, Maryland USA Raimo Nevalainen Department of Teacher Education University of Jyvaskyla Jyvaskyla Finland Hannele Niemi Department of Teacher Education University of Tampere Finland Jrgen W. H. Roth University of Munchen Institut fr Grundschulpadagogik Germany Robert Slavin Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland USA David Stern School of Education University of California Berkeley, California USA P. Robert Jan Simons Department of Educational Sciences University of Nijmegen Nijmegen Netherlands Paul Wangemann Motorola University Motorola Inc. Schaumburg,

Illinois USA Virgie Withagen Institute for Applied Social Sciences University of Nijmegen Nijmegen Netherlands

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