Transcript Cooperative Learning Theory

Cooperative Learning Theory
Jim Shetter
Ed.636 Curriculum and Instructional
Leadership
September 26, 2012
What is It?
• Cooperative Learning Theory:
• Is an offshoot of Constructivism which
incorporates the idea that the best learning
occurs when students are actively engaged in the
learning process and working in collaboration
with other students to accomplish a shared goal.
• Constructivism focuses on personal experience as
Cooperative Learning utilizes not only the
student’s own experience to solidify knowledge,
but also uses the experiences of others.
History of Cooperative Learning
The strategy of cooperative learning was
developed as a means to reduce
competition in American schools, which
James Coleman (1959) identified as a
negative component of the education
system.
Building on the work of James
Coleman, Robert Slavin conducted
research on a form of cooperative
learning he described as Student
Team Learning. (1994)
Elements of Cooperative Learning
There are 5 basic elements of successful
cooperative learning:
Positive Interdependence
Face to Face Interaction
Individual and Group Accountability
Interpersonal and Small Group Skills
Group Processing
Defining Elements
•
•
•
•
•
1. Positive interdependence:
This will be achieved only when all individuals of the group feel that they cannot
succeed unless everyone succeeds.
2. Promotes interaction:
Student’s need to do work where they help each other understand by
encouraging, supporting and helping one another.
3. Individual and group accountability:
The group should be responsible for achieving its goal and each student should be
responsible for his or her share of work.
4. Teaching students the required interpersonal and small group skills:
Social skills must be taught . Leadership, decision-making, trust-building,
communication, and conflict-management skills empower students to manage
both teamwork and task work successfully.
5. Group processing:
Group members can discuss between each other how well or how bad they are
achieving their goals within their group. Groups need to describe what
proceedings can be changed in order to have a successful working relationship.
Examples of Cooperative Learning
•
First example: Small groups of boys and girls, high and low ability
students, from different ethnic backgrounds would work together for a
long period of time. A research project or class presentation might be
assigned to cooperative learning groups in which each student receives
both an individual and a group grade. There are many different
methods for example, jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles or a game. This
helps the teacher see what was the best way for the student to learn
whatever subject they were teaching each other.
•
Second example: There is a different group facilitator for each day. The
facilitator is in charge of the group. The facilitator will distribute and
collect materials for the group. This is great because in reality you are
only dealing with 7 groups of facilitators in a class of 28 students. There
is also a reduction in time needed to put things away because there is
only one person per group that is in charge for that day that will take
care of the necessities. Students explain things better to another
student than a teacher to a class. The teacher can be boring, therefore
a student can make the subject more interesting because he or she is
using words that their fellow classmates can understand better and are
accustomed to.
•
Benefits: In today’s job market is looking for people with good
interpersonal and problem-solving”. Participation in cooperative
learning can help promote and achieve these skills.
Strength & Weakness
Strengths
Weakness
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
According to researchers, cooperative
learning groups work best when they meet
the following criteria: Groups should be
heterogeneous and, at least at the beginning,
should be small, perhaps limited to two to six
members.
Research shows that cooperative learning
promotes both intellectual and emotional
growth.
Students achieve higher achievement,
especially for math in the elementary grades
Students have higher levels of self-esteem
and greater motivation to learn.
Students can sense the positive regard they
have for one another
Understanding and cooperating among
students from different racial and ethnic
backgrounds are enhanced.
•
•
•
Research also shows that cooperative
learning can be a hardship to students when
a group is not well developed.
There is a great burden placed on children in
the cooperative learning group. The great
burden is making them responsible for each
other’s learning apart from themselves.
Cooperative learning group is based on one
high-achieving student, two average and one
low achiever. For obvious reasons the
cooperative learning group is made up this
way, basically because there should always
be someone in the group that can learn the
lesson and teach it to others.
The high achievers of the group will
understand the material better than anyone
in the group as they explain it to others
which takes more time for group discussion.
•
•
•
•
Classroom Principles
1. Heterogeneous Grouping:
This principle means that the groups in which students do
cooperative learning tasks are mixed on one or more of a number
of variables including sex, ethnicity, social class, religion,
personality, age, language proficiency, and diligence.
2. Collaborative Skills:
Collaborative skills, such as giving reasons, are those needed to
work with others. Students may lack these skills, the language
involved in using the skills, or the inclination to apply the skills.
Most books and websites on cooperative learning urge that
collaborative skills be explicitly taught one at a time.
3. Group Autonomy:
This principle encourages students to look to themselves for
resources rather than relying solely on the teacher. When student
groups are having difficulty, it is very tempting for teachers to
intervene either in a particular group or with the entire class. We
may sometimes want to resist this temptation.
4. Simultaneous Interaction:
In classrooms in which group activities are not used, the normal
interaction pattern is that of sequential interaction, in which one
person at a time – usually the teacher – speaks. In contrast, when
group activities are used, one student per group is speaking.
•
•
•
•
Classroom Principles
5. Equal Participation:
A frequent problem in groups is that one or two group members dominate the
group and, for whatever reason, impede the participation of others. Cooperative
learning offers many ways of promoting more equal participation among group
members.
6. Individual Accountability:
When we try to encourage individual accountability in groups, we hope that
everyone will try to learn and to share their knowledge and ideas with others.
7. Positive Interdependence:
This principle lies at the heart of CL. When positive interdependence exists among
members of a group, they feel that what helps one member of the group helps the
other members and that what hurts one member of the group hurts the other
members. It is this “All for one, one for all” feeling that leads group members to
want to help each other, to see that they share a common goal.
8. Cooperation as a Value:
This principle means that rather than cooperation being only a way to learn,
cooperation also becomes part of the content to be learned. This flows naturally
from the most crucial cooperative learning principle, positive interdependence.
Cooperation as a value involves taking the feeling of “All for one, one for all” and
expanding it beyond the small classroom group to encompass the whole class, the
whole school, bringing in increasingly greater numbers of people with whom to
cooperate.
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Baloche, L. (1998). The cooperative classroom: Empowering learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Cohen, E. (1994). Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous classroom (2nd
ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Jacobs, G. M., Power, M. A., Loh, W. I. (2002). The teacher's sourcebook for cooperative
learning: Practical techniques, basic principles, and frequently asked questions. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. http://www.corwinpress.com/index1.asp?id=detail.asp?id=27713
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1999). Learning together and alone (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn
& Bacon.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Stanne, M. B. (2000). Cooperative learning methods: A
meta-analysis. http://www.clcrc.com/pages/cl-methods.html.
Kagan, S. (1994). Cooperative learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publications.
Kohn, A. (1992). No contest: the case against competition. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton
Miflin.
Robinson, P. (Ed.). (2002). Individual differences and instructed language learning.
Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
Sapon-Shevin, M. (1999). Because we can change the world: A practical guide to building
cooperative, inclusive classroom communities. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Sharan, S. (Ed.). (1994). Handbook of cooperative learning methods. Westport, CN:
Greenwood Press.
Slavin, R. E. (1995). Cooperative learning: Theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.