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Cooperative Education: Making It Work
The author explores the concept and methods of cooperative learning.
by Lynn Surin
Several key factors must be kept in mind in order for cooperative learning to work in the classroom:
- Teachers are clear about what they want to accomplish with the cooperative-learning task (including both academic and social-emotional goals).
- Composition of specific groupings (size, as well as mix of student characteristics) is informed by the goals.
- The task -- whether short term or long term and whether project based or not -- is constructed so that students have the opportunity to promote each other's success.
- Clear explanations are given to students of the academic and social goals of the task and the norms of behavior (for example, individual students are accountable for their fair share of the work).
- Students discuss the SEL skills required to enhance project success.
- The class reflects on academic and social learning, what worked, what didn't, and what might be the next lesson goals in light of this experience.
Once It's Over
We always debrief as a class. It is this follow-up that is really important; the learning takes place in the reflection. For social goals (for each lesson, we have an academic goal and a social goal, written right on the board), we'll discuss whether we attained them, what we learned, what worked, and what didn't. We'll ask the kids for ideas about solutions and strategies we might try, and, in light of this experience, what goal we want to set for next time.
For example, cooperative learning is a great way to teach students how to disagree respectfully and not take disagreements personally. The kids love this, once they learn it. A great debriefing topic is, "Did anyone have a disagreement in his or her group? How did you handle it? What worked? What didn't work? Does anyone have ideas for how these students might have handled this disagreement differently? What might our social goal be for our next small-group work? Should we try some of these strategies you generated?"
Thus, the children themselves become the sources of the solutions, and they will explore what works and what doesn't, and reflect and discuss again. These steps become powerful lessons in self-awareness (one's role in dominating or facilitating a group's efforts, one's feelings when someone disagrees, how feelings change when disagreement is respectful versus disrespectful), relationship skills (can people disagree and still respect each other and be friends, and, if so, how?), responsibility (to think about solutions), creativity, critical thinking, self-management (anger control, pursuing group-learning goals in the face of disagreements and setbacks), and problem solving. The students see that the solutions reside within them, and that they have useful ideas to contribute -- that they can affect things around them. -- Lynn Surin, Cossitt Avenue School, LaGrange, Illinois
Cooperative Education/Cooperative Learning
Submitted by Mary Utne O'Brien (not verified) on May 31, 2007 - 11:58.
Kudos for your attention to this important issue! Further bolstering the view that being able to work effectively in groups is an essential skill for our students to learn, the May 18, 2007 issue of Science (pp1036-1039) reports that teams, as opposed to individuals, are increasingly dominating the production of knowledge, and especially high-impact knowledge. The best ideas develop out of highly social, not solitary, processes: exchange, debate, cross-fertilization, discussion, challenge, conversation. Engaging in these acts effectively requires skills learned in cooperative education.
Cooperative learning
Submitted by Susan Haydock, Ph.D. (not verified) on May 29, 2007 - 16:23.
After teaching for almost thirty years and for being an active user of cooperative learning, I feel that I have had more success by making sure students know and understand their and others different intelligences (Gardners 8) and different learning styles. Students will broker their strengths more easily and in turn allow others to broker theirs. This give and take of different intelligences and learning styles allows for successful cooperative or team learning.
rubric
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on May 29, 2007 - 11:49.
Hi, does anyone have an example rubric for middle school math PBL, including roles and responsibilities of group members? Thanks.
rubric
Submitted by wendy (not verified) on May 30, 2007 - 07:46.
What I have used to help students evaluate the contributions of others in their group, is to hand out a paper with a circle drawn on it and lines for each group member's name. I then ask students to shade in the amount of work that they felt each member contributed, color and assign a color to each person in the group. So a group of four people who worked equally would have 4 quarter pies shaded in. I then use these in determining their grade along with my own observations during the class period.
I find that students are more willing to work in groups when they feel that each member is held accountable. And this is an easy way for me to quickly get a visual for how much each student participated.
This also is a great way to introduce percents, and have students do more calculating for a real-life application!
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