PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS

Research on group learning has focused almost exclusively on interactions among individuals within groups; there has been little research on phenomena occurring between groups of learners in classrooms. This exploratory study identifies, describes, and categorizes events occurring between members of different learning groups in three ninth-grade physical science classrooms. This study also investigates how the characteristics of learning tasks enable or constrain different kinds of inter-group interactions, and, in turn, how they affect opportunities for learning. Evidence gathered during the study supports four assertions about inter-group interactions in collaborative contexts: (1) inter-group dynamics are qualitatively different from intra-group dynamics; (2) the products of student work and the constructive processes leading to such products are significantly influenced by inter-group dynamics; (3) different types of tasks stimulate and constrain different types of inter-group interactions