Cooperative+Learning

__Cooperative Learning__


In the spirit of cooperative learning, we'd like your help and we'd like to help you. If you have questions for us, others or maybe a different perspective on our project, we'd be glad to hear from you. Please add your comments to the discussion tab.

Before we begin: Test your knowledge related to cooperative learning

Choose the best option:

1) **//Positive interdependence//** to the idea that  a) each member of a group is accountable b) group members should like each other c) each member of the group needs to succeed in order for the group to succeed

2) Which idea reflects the element of **// individual accountability //**? a) any member of the group may be asked to report b) all members evaluate the social learning c) group members assume different roles within the group

3) Cooperative learning is a highly structured group activity. a) true b) false

4) Cooperative learning strategies can only be used with small groups of learners. a) true b) false

Overview Click the icon to view a short video on the components of cooperative learning Cooperative learning is not just "group work." Students learn together in producing group projects while developing social skills; it can be used as an integral part of the classroom management plan, and at every stage of your lessons. The basic elements of cooperative learning can be considered essential to all interactive methods.

1. Positive Interdependence 2. Face-to-Face Interaction 3. Individual and group Accountability 4. Interpersonal and small group skills 5. Group Processing ** Positive interdependence ** is successfully structured when group members recognize that they are connected with each other and one cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds. Group goals and tasks, need to be designed and communicated to students. When positive interdependence is firmly structured, it reinforces that each group member's efforts are required for group success and each group member has a unique contribution to make to the effort because of his or her resources, role and task responsibilities. This is the core of cooperative learning. If there is no positive interdependence, there is no cooperation.
 * Five Basic Elements of Cooperative Learning **

** Face-to-Face Interaction **** means ** students promote each other's learning by sharing resources and helping, supporting, encouraging, and congratulating each other's efforts to achieve. Important interpersonal occur when students support each other's learning. Which can include: orally explaining how to solve problems, teaching knowledge to others, checking for understanding, discussing concepts being learned, and making connections to present and past learning. Through supporting each other's learning face-to-face students working in cooperative groups become personally connected to each other as well as to the group goals.

** Individual and group accountability ** are the two levels of accountability that must be planned into cooperative lessons. Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual is evaluated and feedback is given both to the group and the individual. The teacher needs to monitor who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in the learning process. Cooperative learning groups make each member a stronger individual if structured properly.

** Interpersonal and small group skills **** also need to be taught. ** Cooperative learning is multifaceted. Social skills must be taught to students as purposefully as academic skills. Leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-resolution skills allow students to manage both teamwork and the academic task. Procedures and strategies for teaching students social skills may be found in Johnson (1991, 1993) and Johnson and F. Johnson (1994).

Research Click the icon to watch a short video, citing the research behind cooperative learning //Two brains are better than one//: Does arranging children into groups to work toward a common objective significantly impact student performance? According to Marzano’s synthesis of a research study on the __Effects of cooperative, competitive and individualistic goal structures on achievement__ (p. 86); cooperative learning produces a large effect size (.78) in achievement when compared with both the techniques of //individual competition// and //individual student tasks//. //Intergroup competition// produced the same effect size (.00) as the cooperative learning strategy, indicating no difference in student achievement. This is illustrated in the chart below, taken from Marzano (p. 86). Cooperative learning clearly improves student performance.

In a publication titled __Student Team Learning: A Practical Guide to Student Learning__, Slavin cites increases in self-esteem, integration (blending students’ ethnic differences) differences mainstreaming (narrowing the achievement gap between high and low performing children) and student achievement as benefits to a cooperative approach to learning (Slavin, 1991). With student achievement at the forefront education, teachers can feel confident that a cooperative learning strategies will, in most cases, have a positive impact on student achievement and performance narrow the achievement gap and increase resiliency among children.

Examples:

These impromptu groups are used as a teaching aide during direct instruction. Informal groups are particularly useful for breaking up material and helping to insure retention of the material. Examples of informal learning groups include: Think, Pair, Share; Turn to your Neighbor; Write, Pair Share; Walk Talk and Timed Pair Share. It is important to give students time to think about their response before having them share their ideas. When the size of the cooperative team is two – these groups are called dyads. The difference between one on one discussion and dyads is the individual accountability and the group responsibility. Click here to see a sample activity
 * Informal Cooperative Learning Groups **

** Formal Cooperative Learning Groups ** Formal groupings are the most routinely used of cooperative groups. Groups are assembled for a period of time either several days or weeks depending on the project involved. For the formal groups the teacher will assign specific tasks to students to insure individual accountability. The roles might include a recorder, researcher, summarizer and technical advisor. Examples of formal cooperative groups include: Jigsaw – each member of the team becomes an expert in a specific area or chapter and then reports back to the group. An excellent example of a jigsaw technique is the one being used in this assignment! Additional examples of formal learning groups are: CO-OP, LEARNING TOGETHER, and GROUP INVESTIGATION

"Formal cooperative learning groups ensure that students are actively involved in the intellectual work of organizing material, explaining it, summarizing it, and integrating it into existing conceptual structures. They are the heart of using cooperative learning" (Johnson, Johnson and Holubec, 1998, p. 1:7). Click here & here to see sample activities

 ** Group Size  **  Be conscious of group size. Cooperative learning works best when the group size is smaller. It is suggested that students be grouped in clusters of 3 to 4. The larger the group size the more difficult it becomes for students to organize and establish their roles. Larger groups decrease each member's opportunity to participate actively. The less skillful the group members, the smaller the groups should be. Also, the shorter amount of time available, the smaller the groups should be. (Sources: Cooper, 1990; Johnson, Johnson, and Smith, 1991; Smith, 1986) An article by Susan Fiechtner and Elaine Davis, "Why Some Groups Fail: A Survey of Students' Experiences with Learning Groups" gives advice on how to make the group experience a success for students. -Students have a better experience with groups established by instructors and not students. -Groups of four students are preferred. -Allow groups to become cohesive - do not continually dissolve groups.



** Base Groups ** Base groups are long –term with stable membership. These groups usually stay together for at least a term, semester or year. Base groups are created to provide students with on going support. They provide a context in which students can support each other in academics as well as in other aspects of their lives. Base group members make sure everyone is completing their work and hold each other accountable for their performance. This can provide the permanent support and caring that students need "to make academic progress and develop cognitively and socially in healthy ways." (Johnson et al., 1988, p.10:7)

** Examples of readily observable cooperative learning strategies in classrooms: ** ·  Students are sharing information using a think, pair, share technique · Groups of students are working together on the computer to research a specific topic · Groups of students are working together interacting with obvious defined roles <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Students referencing a rubric for a group activity <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Students are able to verbalize learning or objective for the activity or project <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Teacher is observed circulating and facilitating group interactions. <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Lesson plan demonstrates a clear process for group formation, assignment of roles and set purpose and objective of activity

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 90%;">** Non examples of cooperative learning ** <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Students are sitting class in rows with teacher lecturing <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Large group or two groups attempting to understand task <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Group is too large for cooperative work

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">** Technology and Connections to Cooperative Learning ** <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Blogs <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Wikkis <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Video Conferencing <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Podcasting <span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· Nings

<span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: center;"> Cooperative Learning misconceptions:

** Group size does not matter: ** It takes a lot of skill for students to manage a group of 4 or more. Instead, keep group size small: 2 or 3 is best. Smaller groups are more effective and take less time to establish the process. ** I can just give group grades. ** Give group grades only when you have taught the students how to work together. Assess learning with individual rubrics, quizzes or papers. Avoid having students grade each other. Have students assess their own learning by comparing what they did with criteria. <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">** Assuming students already have the needed social skills: ** The teacher must teach them how to coordinate their work with others and keep everyone included in the learning. Help them see the need for skills, modeling exactly what to do, having them practice then giving them feedback and coaching until their cooperative skills are automatic.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'mso-ansi-language;">**Assuming that implementing cooperative learning is easy:** Cooperative learning is complex, Plan on on-going training and practice in cooperative learning to achieve proficient use.

<span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: center;">Lesson Plan Links: [|click here] A to Z Teacher Stuff: Lesson Plans

[|click here] Teaching Tips: Cooperative Learning Strategies

[|click here] Cooperative Learning Lesson Template

Quiz Answers <span style="font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: Arial; msolist: Ignore;">1) A <span style="font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: Arial; msolist: Ignore;">2)  A <span style="font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: Arial; msolist: Ignore;">3)  A <span style="font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: Arial; msolist: Ignore;">4)  A

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">Works Cited <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> Marzano, R., Pickering, D. & Pollock, J. (2001). //Classroom instruction that works//. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Slavin, R.E. (1991). Student team learning: a practical guide to cooperative learning. Third Edition. National Education Association. {ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 339518}

Veenman, S., Kenter, B., Post, K. (1999). Cooperative learning as a form of active learning in Dutch primary schools. {ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 438273} P. 23. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Kagan Publishing & Professional Development. (2009). The Case For Student Centered Instruction Via Collaborative Learning Paradigms. Retrieved September 27, 2009, from The Kagan Club Official Website: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">[]