Education Commons^™

Enhancing Collaborative Group Processes To Promote Academic Literacy And Content Learning For Diverse Learners Through Video Reflection, Brooke Moore Ph.D., Alison G. Boardman, Clara Smith, Amy Ferrell

Advanced Education Programs Faculty Publications

Research indicates the benefits of collaborative learning for supporting academic literacy in content classrooms, especially for diverse and exceptional students such as students with learning disabilities or English learners (ELs) who can become disengaged in content classrooms if they struggle to access complex, content-related texts. Drawing from Cognitive Load Theory, we argue that collaborative group structures support students in sharing the load of processing these texts across all members, thus ensuring better comprehension of the content. Yet, collaborative structures may not be beneficial to diverse and exceptional learners in the group, particularly if students are not supported in how to …