Implementing Cross-Culture Pedagogies: Cooperative Learning at Confucian Heritage Cultures (Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects Book 25)

During the last two decades Confucian heritage culture countries have widely promoted teaching and learning reforms to advance their educational systems. To skip the painfully long research stage, Confucian heritage culture educators have borrowed Western philosophies and practices with the assumption that what has been done successfully in the West will produce similar outcomes in the East. The wide importation of cooperative learning practices to Confucian heritage culture classrooms recently is an example. However, cooperative learning has been documented in many studies not to work effectively in Confucian heritage culture classrooms. The reason is that the educators often impose this instructional method on the students without a careful consideration of its appropriateness in the socio-cultural context of Confucian heritage culture countries. This procedure is not effective and professional because learning does not stand alone. Rather, it is shaped and influenced by other factors including teaching methods, learning tasks, assessment demands, workload and the learning culture of students in the local context. For cooperative learning to work effectively in Confucian heritage culture classrooms, reformers need to consider the importation of this approach in line with a careful examination of all supports and constraints that affect those factors that are associated with learning. The volume provides an applied theoretical framework and culturally appropriate and practical instructions that could assist Confucian heritage culture educators and teachers to address various factors at multiple levels in order to optimize success in importing cooperative learning to their classrooms. Overall, it provides strategies to assist Confucian heritage culture teachers to change their teaching practices, redesign lessons plans, design assessment methods, and organize learning activities in a manner that can influence Confucian heritage culture students to shift from e mploying teacher-centered learning approaches to cooperative learning Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction and Research Overview....Pages 1-9 Cooperative Learning in Comparison with the Teacher-Centredness....Pages 11-27 Cooperative Learning in CHC Countries....Pages 29-50 An Applied Theoretical Framework to Implement Cooperative Learning in CHC Countries....Pages 51-63 Teaching Practices at CHC Education Institutions: A Hidden Challenge and Techniques to Enhance Cooperative Learning....Pages 65-102 Assessment at CHC Education Institutions: Problems and Strategies to Enhance Cooperative Learning....Pages 103-123 Learning Culture of CHC Students: Its Support and Challenge to Cooperative Learning....Pages 125-153 Structural Constraints at CHC Education Institutions: Barriers Hindering Cooperative Learning and Strategies to Overcome....Pages 155-171 Conclusion: Reflection and Integration....Pages 173-191 Back Matter....Pages 193-221