Experiences
that help students increase their thinking and develop social relationships are
important. These learning experiences help to foster a student’s self esteem
and increase the chances that learning will have a positive outcome. Because much of a student’s learning involves
social interactions between each other, cooperative group learning is a great
way to create a climate of positive learning.
Through cooperative learning, teachers provide students with
opportunities of building thinking skills and positive social interactions.
According
to Gregory and Chapman (2007) “when students work in cooperative groups
students learn valuable social skills, use higher-order thinking, and rehearse
and practice new concepts, processes, and information” (p.109). When teachers use cooperative group learning
to facilitate learning, students benefit through the varied experiences of
working together.
Cooperative
group learning is more than just students talking with each other in
groups. Cooperative group learning uses
the principles of the acronym TASK: thinking
is built into the process, accountability is necessary in individual and group
work, social skills, keep everyone on tasks, roles, resources, novelty,
simulations and clear expectations.
Implementation
of group learning can be done through a number of ways. This can be achieved
through other instructional methods such as graphic organizers, thinking
skills, and metaphors which aid in skill and practice.
One
of the graphic organizers that I think would be beneficial is kidinspiration
useful in helping students to organize ideas, brainstorm, as well as to help
students visualize their work. Another graphic organizer is character sketch,
can be used in groups of three of four, to aid in reading a story or novel. In
addition, group learning can be enhanced by grouping students using the
different levels of the thinking taxonomy, and varied assessments in the form
of individual grades, checklists and journals.
Cooperative group learning is a learning activity involving students, and
can also be used across many content areas such as math, science, language
arts.
Cooperative
group learning should also be a way for students to have fun while learning. Students
need to be able to process what they are learning in a climate that is
encouraging and positive. Although
teachers are building a climate of trust for learning in the classroom, social
skills will need to be reinforced.
Based
on Goldman’s emotional intelligences in the five domains, self awareness, self
motivation, managing emotions, empathy for listening and social skills
opportunities are needed in the implementation of cooperative learning by
helping students learn content and competencies as well helping to develop
their emotional intelligences (Gregory, 2008).
Because
students are working with each other and have various perspectives, it is
important to understand the role of their emotions while actively learning. One
of Daniel Goldman’s five domains for emotional intelligences is managing
emotions and he states that “emotions play a large part not only in garnering
attention but also in memory and learning” (Gregory and Chapman, 2008,
p.97).
Students
need many opportunities to express the way they understand what they are
learning. Students also benefit from
cooperative group learning by the processes involved in interdependence. According to Gregory and Chapman (2008), interdependence
builds and encourages “responsibility and ownership for the task when given a
particular role” (p.113). Interdependence can also be enhanced by using
the jigsaw method. This method is in particular good to use in differentiating
materials and content for students at different levels of readiness.
Cooperative
learning is well researched. Based on one aspect of the research of Johnson and
Johnson (2009) found that cooperative learning experiences such as
interdependence promote higher self esteem than do competitive or
individualistic experiences. As well,
these experiences tend to be valued by the student as intrinsicially worthwhile
and they are viewed as successful and competent among their peers.
However,
teachers must be aware that there are some students that prefer to work alone
or in smaller groups. For those
students, as related by Gregory and Chapman (2008), teachers can pair these
students with a partner rather than in larger groups. Pointed out by Wilson (2009), a teacher that is aware of
differentiating the instruction by using multiple goals for students in the
same lesson will be able to differentiate the lesson.
A
teacher’s goal is to facilitate learners in learning and provide to students
the best scenarios by which they can learn.
They should guide their students by providing instructional strategies
such as cooperative learning which aid in student discussions, processes, and
inquiry of the information. When
teachers use different strategies to help their students learn, “results in
substantial learning improvement, and working together in small groups helps
students to master and understand the material” (Chemwei, Kiboss and Ilieva,
2005, p.25-33).
Effective
teachers are always thinking about ways to increase student learning and
understanding. Cooperative group
learning is one of those instructional strategies by which learning can be
increased. In order for cooperative
group learning to be effective requires good organization and thoughtful
panning.
The
implementation of this strategy was successful in that it utilized the
processes of thinking skills, student accountability, and social skills,
keeping everyone on tasks, roles, resources, novelty, simulations and clear
expectations. As well provide students with many opportunities to form social
connections and share their thoughts with their fellow peers. As was stated
earlier cooperative learning also provides to students invaluable learning that
can be constructed to other learning. Research has shown that using cooperative
learning strategies is effective in helping to facilitate understanding and
higher order thinking. The collaboration among peers is crucial to positive self
worth and confidence. Many of students
after participating in cooperative group learning made improvements in the
confidence to voice their thoughts were able to freely share their ideas.
In
the process of learning, students need effective ways to understand the
material presented to them and learn from each other. Teachers understand the importance of
providing meaningful connections that students can participate in.
In
the future, I would provide students with more opportunities to share with each
other the impact of learning from their fellow peers. I would also consider incorporating more of
their ideas to discuss in the group discussions as a way to provide students
with more confidence in learning. Many times in the process of learning students
are learning but the connections to other relationships may be missed. These
relationships are important because they form the foundation by which students
can build on for future learning.
Major
considerations would also be to collaborate with other teachers on joint
projects using cooperative group learning.
It is important that teachers are always sharing and collaborating among
each other as a way to help each other in support of learning. In order for
students to succeed in their future occupations and relate to their future
colleagues, discipline in managing their emotional intelligences is an
invaluable tool in the pursuit of future occupations.
Taking
time to purposely construct effective cooperative learning will require that we
think about what our students need. The
individual learning preferences and thinking styles of our students is of
consideration in the process of active learning. Collaboration is important as we plan out
what instructional strategies we will use with our students to affect learning.
References
Chemwei, B. Kiboss, J.,
& Ilieva E. (2005). Effects of cooperative learning on teaching
poetry. Thinking Classroom, 6(4), 25-33. Retrieved October 28, 2010, from Research
Library.
Gregory, G. (2008). Differentiated
Instructional Strategies in Practice: Training,
Implementation, and Supervision. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Gregory, G., Chapman, C.
(2007). Differentiated Instructional Strategies:
One Size Doesn’t Fit All. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Johnson, D., & Johnson, R. (2009).
An Educational psychology success story: social
interdependence theory and
cooperative learning. Educational Researcher, 38(5), 365-379.
Retrieved October 28, 2010, from
ProQuest Psychology Journals.
Wilson, S.
(2009). Differentiated
instruction: how are design, essential questions in learning,
assessment, and instruction part of
it? New England Reading Association Journal, 44(2),
68-75. Retrieved October 28, 2010, from ProQuest Educational
Journals.
No comments:
Post a Comment