Group dynamics and peer-tutoring: A pedagogical tool for learning in higher education

Abstract

The increasing diversity in students’ enrolment in higher education in Norway offers an opportunity to use collaborative learning and teamwork as a learning vehicle to exploit the synergy in the community to have formal and informal agoras. Theoretical and empirical observation of the value of team processes provides the framework to personify our understanding of learning and present a model for teaching in higher education in Norway. We consider learning as a holistic process and one must appreciate its dynamics and be flexible and responsive to it. Moreover, such a view of the entire process necessitates an active communication with all stakeholders of the system and to make an integrative and coordinated effort to ensure availability of the required institutional resources, equitable distribution of the students’ resources, and a smooth transition from the traditional lecturing to this form of collaborative learning to make higher educational institution a learning organization. We report a positive feedback from the students attending two courses at School of Business at HiOA, indicating that students consider this teaching method adding more value compared to traditional lecturing