Abstract
This study begins with my experience teaching General Education Mathematics Courses (GEMC). Some specific problems I see in these courses include low self-efficacy in mathematics, low engagement, and low interaction in class. In addition, many students come to class with negative experiences in learning mathematics. It is essential for students to know why we need to learn mathematics and how we use knowledge of mathematics in real life to get them more engaged. These challenges and acknowledgment in teaching GEMC motivated me to change my pedagogical approaches to better support and guide students. As a part of an intervention in my pedagogical approaches, I revised existing activities, assignments, and assessment methods to make the class more active and interactive, including some collaborative projects to get students more engaged. In this dissertation study, I explored what students’ experiences were like and in what ways this approach supported students to learn mathematics positively. The overarching research question aims to better understand college students’ learning experiences with a collaborative learning approach in a general education mathematics course. The first sub-research question is to explore and better understand students’ experiences in learning and doing mathematics through a collaborative learning approach in the course. This question also examines the students’ learning experiences in and out of the classroom and whether there is any change in students’ perception of doing mathematics. The second sub-research question is to investigate what experiences students value as learning mathematics through a collaborative learning approach. It aims to examine the aspects of cooperative learning that benefit the students. The third sub-question is to discern how collaborative learning aspects support (or not) learning mathematics. This study contributes to a better understanding of how students experience and what students value in college GEMC with a collaborative learning approach. Especially knowing more about what student values in their experiences of learning mathematics through a collaborative learning approach are essential for instructors to develop instructional strategies for positive outcomes in teaching and learning. To develop a better understanding of learning in GEMC and how to support students to succeed in GEMC, I developed a literature review related to 1) the reality of GEMC, 2) student efficacy in mathematics, 3) students’ perception in mathematics, and 4) collaborative learning and project-based learning approaches. I adopted explicitly the approach to meaningful learning by Jonassen and his colleagues (2008) to help me make sense of the experiences of the undergraduate students related to collaborative projects in their learning. This situated my work and constrained it as I examined how the students talked about their experiences in GEMC projects related to meaningful learning. Under this umbrella, I specifically adopted collaborative learning as a guiding conceptual framework. From the perspective of meaningful learning, I examined how students perceive doing mathematics, what aspects students value, and how students perceive the collaborative learning approach supported (or not) their learning. The primary interest of this study is to better understand and describe, rather than explain, the experiences of college students in GEMC, what their experiences of doing the collaborative projects were like, and what they value. Hence, a qualitative study, specifically the exploratory qualitative approach, is appropriate to investigate students’ experiences in GEMC (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Maxwell, 2013). Therefore, this dissertation study approached investigating the students' classroom work, reflections, and interviews to understand how students perceived mathematics before and after taking GEMC and what they valued during the collaborative project in GEMC. Consistent with qualitative study guidelines (Maxwell, 2013; Patton, 2015), I collected multiple forms of data. The data included 1) semi-structured interviews (Maxwell, 2013; Seidman, 2013) and 2) documents and artifacts. This research design had a total of eight interviews: one interview with each of the eight participants. The findings based on the interview and artifacts analysis include the following: 1) students showed a positive change in doing mathematics and felt more confident in doing mathematics; 2) students valued a) interactive learning with peers, b) working with the topics that they were interested in, c) engaging actively and consistently in learning, d) recognizing multiple ways and solution exist, e) knowing each other, f) seeing the relevance of mathematics, and g) seeing the relevance to their future study and career; 3) students perceived/described collaborative learning supported their learning in the following ways: a) how to work together systematically, b) ways to communicate and clarification ideas, c) multiple technology use in mathematics learning, and d) ownership and responsibility. This dissertation study provides some evidence that we may not need to allow any possible previous negative experiences to hinder our approach to doing mathematics now and in the future. Developing quantitative literacy could be more consequential and worthwhile for learners with collaborative and meaningful learning approaches with authentic problems in real-life contexts. Some positive experiences in mathematics can encourage students to engage in the activities more actively, interactively, and constructively.