American Institutes for Research (AIR) conducted this study as part of the Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative’s initial cycle of research. The team at AIR worked alongside fellow scholars, educators and policymakers to investigate the impact of specific student-centered practices and then translate their findings for cross-sector audiences.
AIR’s final report, Learning with Others: A Study Exploring the Relationship Between Collaboration, Personalization, and Equity represents their work over the past two years as they examined the impact of collaboration on learners in student-centered classrooms and how that impact varied by race and ethnicity.
Research Questions
- What are the relationships among opportunities for collaboration, classroom experiences, and outcomes, particularly for students who identify as Black?
- To what extent do students have opportunities to participate in high-quality collaborative learning experiences?
- What contextual, school-level factors do teachers identify as helping or hindering their ability to provide opportunities for high-quality collaboration in diverse, student-centered classrooms?
Key Findings
- Classrooms reflect society — for students to collaborate successfully in problem-solving, teachers must attend to status differences in the classroom.
- Personalization shouldn’t require isolation. Students often learn the best and can learn the most when they work with peers to solve problems and develop projects. Well-designed group activities allow individual students to name and grow their unique interests and skillsets.