Dynamic grouping in collaborative learning supported by wireless handhelds

Abstract

One of the most important decisions to be made in a face-to-face collaborative learning activity is how the participating groups are composed. These compositions produce different learning and social interaction results. The ability to change the group member composition in real time and dynamically enables the leveling up of learning results and improvements in the participants' social relationships. Changes in composition also facilitate the analysis of the best criteria to be used in a determined activity. We propose a face-to-face collaborative environment supported by wireless handhelds that allows for dynamic changes in the composition of groups while an activity is underway. Three different group composition changes were carried out in one environment and the outcomes were compared with another, similar environment where no such group composition changes were performed. The results obtained showed significant improvements, both qualitative and quantitative, in the environment where dynamic grouping was used. Moreover, the criteria for group composition that produce different social interaction outcomes were identified.