Help Seeking in Cooperative Learning Groups

In today's economic and technological environment, individuals continually face the challenge of acquiring new knowledge and skills. To be successful, people must be "intelligent novices" (Mathan & Koedinger, 2003), able to get up to speed quickly in a new domain. Metacognitive skills are often regarded as key to being a good learner (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; White & Frederiksen, 1998). Although these skills are crucial in today's society, they are addressed insufficiently in the current educational system.