In Jan 2008, at the beginning of the 2nd semester of the academic year
2007/2008, a diagnostic test was administered to the students to rank them
into low, intermediate and high achievers. The classification criteria were
reinforced by the school’s records about the achievement of the students
in the previous years. Then, throughout the 2nd semester from Jan-June
2008, collaborative learning using homogeneous and heterogeneous
groups was extensively implemented. To measure their achievement in
science by the end of the academic year, the students had taken a
standardized national test organized by the SEC in addition to the regular
school test.
Before the start of the study we explained the rules of collaborative
learning for the students that they must follow (Kenny et al., 1995):
1- Each group is responsible for working as a cooperative team.
2- Each team member is to give suggestions and help in completing the
team assignments.
3- Each team member will seek help from other group members.
4- Each team member will help each other learn.
5- Each team will complete worksheets together.
6- Each team member will take the quiz. You will take the quiz by
yourself, but you can help each other by helping others on your team
learn.
7- If a team member has a question, he should ask the group before
asking teachers. This is to make sure that everyone on the team has
tried to solve a problem.
The above rules were made clear to the students and they agreed on
following them. These rules were adopted from the research monograph1
95116. The CL strategy was applied using the Student Teams –
Achievement Divisions (STAD) established by Slavin (1987). However, this
strategy was modified where necessary to include a homogeneous group
of students and to ensure that none of the group members is ignored.