***Just a reminder to only post part D to the blog, as we continue to try and make the blog more manageable for participants to read and respond to each other - Thanks!
A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategy of Cooperative Learning in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment. After completing your self assessment please post a thought or two as a comment (click on comment link below) to this posting labeled Week Seven: Cooperative Learning.
• What is your purpose for using cooperative learning in your classroom?
• What kind of cooperative learning activities do you use with your students?
• Think of a time when you used cooperative learning and was pleased with the results. Why did it work well?
• Think of a time when you used cooperative learning and was not pleased with the results. Why didn’t it work well?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 7 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for Cooperative Learning After completing your chapter reflection, please post it as a comment (click on comment link below) in the posting labeled Week Seven: Cooperative Learning.
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to try out with your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom.)
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/prompts to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Seven: Cooperative Learning by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on Cooperative Learning effected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• How might I change how use cooperative learning in my classroom?
• What is something you now understand better about cooperative learning?
• What is your purpose for using cooperative learning in your classroom?
• What kind of cooperative learning activities do you use with your students?
• Think of a time when you used cooperative learning and was pleased with the results. Why did it work well?
• Think of a time when you used cooperative learning and was not pleased with the results. Why didn’t it work well?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 7 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for Cooperative Learning After completing your chapter reflection, please post it as a comment (click on comment link below) in the posting labeled Week Seven: Cooperative Learning.
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to try out with your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom.)
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/prompts to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Seven: Cooperative Learning by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on Cooperative Learning effected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• How might I change how use cooperative learning in my classroom?
• What is something you now understand better about cooperative learning?
10 comments:
After reading this chapter, I researched some new strategies I can use to group students for cooperative learning. Some of the new strategies I might use to group students include: “number pops”, synonymous written on a card, playing cards, and birthday buddies. This chapter helped me to understand the importance of incorporating individual and group accountability into cooperative learning activities to make the learning more successful for all students.
Laura – The cooperative learning ideas you found sound great. Best of luck implementing them next year…I know what a challenge it is to balance and fit everything in!
Assignment #7
I will be using base groups to encourage teambuilding, clarify information, foster accountability, and promote positive peer pressure. I could see using these groups at the beginning of the day to assist in turning in work and getting the morning routine successfully started. End of the day would work well also, filling out planners, packing up homework, cleaning, etc.
I was surprised to see the research showing that homogeneous groups are not effective when grouping the higher students together. Teaching, modeling, practicing, displaying and discussing the cooperative learning components is something that I believe will make this style of teaching/learning much more successful.
Hi David! It’s great that you’ve though of ways that you might use base groups as an effective tool for your morning classroom management. I think your 5th graders will thoroughly enjoy the process. I mentioned the Responsive Classroom in my Assignment 6 response, and Base Groups, would go hand in hand with their philosophy!
I really love the idea of base groups throughout the year. I imagine it would really give kids a chance to get to know one another, but also have a core group of kids they can count on for everything from companionship to clarification on assignments.
I was actually a bit relieved to read about the inefficacy of grouping according to ability. I experienced first hand the downside to running a classroom project with this philosophy. I had never run a book group before in class, and decided to after hearing how successful they were for some of my colleagues. I partnered with our school media specialist to choose novel options for kids and I grouped them according to personality fit and reading level, thinking that since the kids get to choose the books, there would be less of a chance of kids feeling they were forced into one book vs. another. The groups turned out to be great from the personality perspective, but academically, the ability groupings totally backfired. Some groups didn’t have a strong academic leader where others got into perfectionist control battles. It was horrible. Since then I totally learned to mix it up, so kids can learn from one another with teacher guidance- a good balance that keeps kids feeling engaged and empowered.
Lesson #7: Cooperative Learning
What struck me as I read through this chapter is the importance of “community” in the classroom. Without building trust and mutual respect – no variety of groupings will work successfully for learning. I have tried various different ideas but found that there were certain students that no one wanted to work with. These children lacked social skills and were unable to communicate with their peers in a positive manner. Until I was able to teach those skills, model, and the students practiced them I wasn’t able to do small groups or partner sharing. I just wanted to make sure that was addressed because it wasn’t given enough attention in the chapter.
I would like to try some grouping using similar interests as described by the science teacher’s scenario on pg.89. I can see that building community for the kids as well as given them a common interest in order to relate to one another. Various topics could be animals, sports, TV shows, and favorite foods. I also thought of handing out cards from a deck for students to match a suit to make small groups and guarantee that some friends don’t always end up with each other. In my classroom I have five desk groups of six students each. I can do partner shares with students that are shoulder to shoulder as well as “cross” partners. I am thinking of ways to use this idea without losing time in transitions.
Hi Nicolette – Creating base groups with your classroom this year, would definitely be a great community building experience. I’m sorry that you had to go through such a difficult learning experience with your novel groups…but you are right…it’s all about finding that BALANCE. I don’t believe that there’s any “right” way for any given group of students….they’ll all need variety of instructional strategies and groupings.
Debra – you are so right – without trust and respect, it really doesn’t matter how you try to create groups. Kids really need to be taught how to interact and communicate with their peers…and some need more support than others;) You are so right to take the necessary time to model and teach what this looks like to your students when necessary! In my district, we use a program called Making Meaning that actually has a social skills component. Many of the grouping strategies that you suggested are ones that we use with our students.
Assignment #7 Chapter 7 “Cooperative Learning”
I like using cooperative learning groups with students. I did not implement this strategy in my kindergarten class. However, I did use it a few times in my student teaching in a blended third and fourth grade classroom. I took a lot of time and energy to form the groups with equal numbers of high and low ability children. The groups seemed to work at the time. Now that I have read the chapter and have had time to reflect on the process, I realize the groups were too large. I was surprised to learn that the ideal cooperative group size is three to four students. In chapter seven, the authors, explain that the best use of cooperative learning includes groups chosen randomly. I was not aware of this fact. I was also surprised to learn that teachers should use cooperative learning sparingly and consistently to ensure the most benefit for student learning. With this new information and time to reflect on the classroom experience, I can now see that the mix of ability levels was frustrating for some of the children. I thought at the time I was helping them learn how to teach each other and work as a group. The research clearly indicates cooperative learning is most effective when teachers use small randomly selected groups in a systematic approach.
Hi Laura! It’s always good as a teacher (as in most professions) to try and stay on top of the research that comes along. With how busy our profession is…it’s good to take courses that support research based instruction. We also have to learn to be careful and reflective practitioners…always keeping in mind that finding balance is usually the best way to go. I do believe that your groups can be formed in many different ways throughout the day, and used for many different reasons!
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