Coopertive Learning
I am a big fan of group work and therefore am asking you to reflect upon possible misconceptions and/or concerns you may have about cooperative learning? What challenges have you encountered with having students engage in cooperative learning? Do you think that there is such a thing as having too much group work and not enough independent work? If so, how as educators balance cooperative learning and independent learning?
posted by Yesenia Moreno at 4:54 PM
12 Comments:
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My biggest fear and disappointment that I've seen when observing teachers has been when cooperative learning is not challenging the students' mind or learning experience. Even now in grad school there are times were some
As teachers, we must make sure that when doing cooperative learning there is stimulation for students to acquire new knowledge. Teachers must model, facilitate, reinforce (whatever word you would like to choose) learning acquisition. A good advice for engaging students is to reflect on how well the students react to certain activity or to be creative. I think that is where teachers go wrong; also not verifying the group work composition and interaction. Teachers should also have time for individual work and to challenge the students’ while doing group work there should be some independence from the group; for example, think-write-and share (with the group). In addition, I think that for every cooperate learning independent work should follow to reinforce acquisition.
RESPONSE TO REGINA'S COMMENT:
I think that teachers should expect the same standards or same level as other students who have been exposed to literature or other subject as long as that teacher is making proper adjustments in order to raise the student’s knowledge to the same level as the rest of the class/grade. I also, think that teachers must also teach those students how to learn and study to reinforce/ increase learning the material at hand. I would have to cater and be flexible to every child in order to close the gap, at least in my classroom, as well as maintain support from parents and other outside classroom support.
Cooperative learning! My first concern is that teachers often want students to do what they themselves cannot. The best way to teach someone is by example, so they say, and therefore the teaching of cooperative learning should begin with a model -- collaborating with other teachers would be a great way to do that, much as the English and home-language teachers in a dual-language program have to. Because I myself have trouble with teamwork/social intelligence skills, I think I should learn how to play and work well with others before I demand that from children!
Second concern: How can we make sure that students actually cooperate instead of just PRETENDING to cooperate when the teacher is around? (Because you just KNOW that happens, as it still does into adulthood.) Should students be given the opportunity to give feedback on their peers during evaluation? How can we make up for what we cannot see (though we always think we see everything)?
I’m also a huge advocate of group work, which (when well planned), I believe should encourage students to work cooperatively. No matter what profession or what lifestyle a student chooses to live in the future, social skills will inevitably be needed in order for them to function successfully. Whether in the home or in the workplace, students need to learn how to handle themselves, as well as others. Today, more than ever, I think these skills need to be practiced and learned at an early age. I think the present generation will especially be dependent on these skills because they’ll be faced with so much diversity that it won’t just be necessary to learn to work together, but to learn to work with such opposite types of people that come from such diverse cultures. This is why I think group work and cooperative learning are most fundamental. I also think that it is the duty of educators to foster these skills because of the many unstable homes that some children seem to be growing up in. That’s the big picture I see.
On a smaller scale, that is, in the classroom, I think the biggest challenge that educators face when planning group work is precisely in the vast diversity of cultures, learning styles, backgrounds, personalities, abilities, and so forth of each student. For me, this is what I’ve struggled with most—finding the optimum balance and trying to form those groups that you hope will truly become engaged in the learning activity. Like most things that come with teaching, I think it’s about trial and error and about really knowing your students’ strengths and weaknesses. I also think it is extremely important to continuously change the make-up of groups and allow for different combinations. Although I do think it’s important for students to have some sort of consistency and balance, I also think it’s important to continuously challenge students by assigning them to work with different classmates throughout the course of the year. Most importantly, I think the biggest concern and mistake that teachers make is mindlessly assigning group work and using it as a substitution for filling in time. Above all things, I believe there must always be a learning purpose that accompanies any group work time and any hope for cooperative learning.
There is no doubt that cooperative learning is advocated by many educators and promoted by many classroom teachers due to its efficiency in developing students' sense of cooperation,shaing and responsibility. Both cooperative learning and independent learning are recommendable methods. To me, the two are not contradictorily separate but involved in each other. In most cases, cooperative learning takes place in the form of group study.Since the topic is cooperative learning, my interpretation of the original question is how to stike a balance between independent learning and cooperative learning during group study/work.
According to my very limited experience, the most salient problem with group study is that a portion of students may develop the habit of over depending upon others. Thus, new standards by which teachers group students should be worked out and allowed for,such as students' schooling motivation, verbal ability, self-confidence, and so forth. The point is that teachers should make their students aware of that every member of the group is supposed to come up with some kind of original idea. Every member is responsible to make contributions. Thus, a teacher may try to put students who are more schooling motivated with those who are not so schooling motivated together for the purpose of promoting positive peer effects.
The second problem with cooperative learning is that ideas of some more expressive and competent students' might be over-represented in a group work. In this case, teachers may take students' ability to articulate into account and re-group them. In addition, timely intervetions by teachers are feasible and appropriate. For example, proper appraise to those under-represented is a way to help them establish their confidence and thus take a bigger part in the group work.
All in all, how to avoid excluding independent learning from cooperative learning and make them complementary to each other is a topic deserving adequate attention.
When I ask students to do group activity, I try to avoid letting them pick their own group. My students tend to do minimum work when they get to sit with their friends. I also try to group at least one higher level student within the group so someone could lead the group to the right direction. Of course, teachers need to monitor very closely to ensure the dominant student doesn’t end up doing all the work. Sometimes it’s challenging when I arrange the students to be in the same group but they refuse to work with each other, or to place a student in a group that no one wants to work with.
Teachers definitely need to balance between group work and independent work so students can get the benefit of both. I think it’s appropriate to have students work in group on tasks that you feel they would do a better job with multiple points of views. Tasks such as peer editing, collaborative poster, mind mirror and guided questions are some of the examples. Students generally gain more insights with these tasks. To me, independent work would be used as an assessment or when the teacher wants students to work independently at their levels. Handouts, journal entries, book reviews and silent reading are tasks I expect students to do independently. Students’ completion of these tasks will allow me to evaluate their individual progress.
Cooperative learning promotes classroom communication. The article Primary Language Instruction for Limited English proficient Students said that “ In cooprative learning, the class is divided into teams, whose members work together and rely on one another to learn concepts, solve problems, and complete projects. … It is clear, however, that cooperative strategies produce more opportunities for content-related communication among students than a traditional, teacher-centered classroom environment.”
However, cooperative learning cannot replace independent work. Students should develop the two kind of abilities in balance. Different lesson content may be learned more effecively through different formats. Moreover, due to diverse cultural backgrounds, some students may prefer independent learning to cooperative learning. In order to ensure effective learning, teachers should make the decision according different lesson content and students’ preference.
When having students engage in cooperative learning, teachers have to make sure that all of the students are participating in the communication and that they are focusing on the assigned topics.
Cooperative learning, I agree, is one of the fundamental components of learning and meta-cognition. It must, however, be carefully designed into an effective lesson plan activity. From my former experience, when cooperative and independent learning are well implemented into a lesson plan, cooperative/independent learning and social skills develop effectively. This requires the educator to be fully aware of his or her student’s capacities and personalities (as we take time to know our students, we grasp a good sense of which students work/do not work well with others – educators must take this responsibility seriously in order to achieve independent/cooperative student success). Ana-Stephany brings up a good point, that often times has been one of my critics as well towards cooperative learning and group work. When I have observed teachers in the past, the cooperative learning/student groups have not been quite as challenging to the student’s minds nor learning experience. In these cases I feel one of many reasons for this could be due to an over crowded classroom, a classroom with different learning levels, or assigning group work activity just aims to keep students “busy” rather than intellectually productive. As educators we must take into consideration all of these elements that can complicate an effective learning environment. I believe Jeanne, also brings up some interesting concerns that often arise with group cooperation. Teachers often want students to do what they themselves cannot, although we do not want to downplay the zone of proximal development, we must also lead by example. We have to expect our students to achieve at an individual level as well as within their learning community (classrooms). A second concern that teachers often need to monitor is individual student progress. If we are aware of individual progress, we will also be able to notice progress and student input within a group. By doing so can also monitor productivity, learning, as well as individual student progress. By creating a balance of individual and cooperative learning – educators will know students actually are cooperating and not just PRETENDING to cooperate when the teacher is around.
Maybe a compromise between group work and independent work could be a spin-off of the jigsaw classroom. As those of you in math (and probably many others) know, the jigsaw classroom is a theory of groupwork that divides the classroom into groups. Each member of the group then chooses or is assigned a specific topic area to be in charge of. Then, all the members assigned to a specific topic from the whole class get together and research the topic. Finally each individual brings back what they learned to their original group and the original group gets to learn about each specific topic from the "experts." Each group is dependent upon each member of the group for a certain type of knowledge and each group member has the responsibility for presenting their information to the group. Perhaps, to increase individual learning while maintaining the cooperative learning, instead of each specific topic meeting as a group, there could be individual research. The individual would still report back to his or her group and the questions they ask him or her would lead him or her to think more critically about the individual work he or she has done. Maybe then the indivdual could go back and do some more research and report back a second time to the group. I think this might be a good way to integrate individual learning with group learning because it still maintains the importance of a job well done - because your group members are counting on you - but at the same time, it allows the individual to work on his or her own and develop ways of sharing his or her information. I think it would be important to do this activity after the concept of a jigsaw classroom is understood and the students understand how much of a responsibility it is to have their group dependant on them for information, but I think it has a lot of potential.
I think individual work in general should not exist in a vaccuum. Very few professions in life work completely alone. You may not have to work with other people, but it has certainly been my experience that people are constantly asking each other to be springboards for ideas, to offer advice, or just a new perspective, even if they are not cooperating on a specific activity. I think that independent work should similarly be presented to someone - a classmate, a teacher, a parent, - while it is going on and not just at the completion of the assignment.
Balancing cooperative learning and independent learning is difficult, and depends in large part, I believe, on knowing your students. Just as many people mentioned in the blog on praise that the most effective praise comes from knowing your students and knowing what kind of praise they need, I believe the balance of cooperative and independent learning is based on knowing your students and how much of each type of learning they can handle and need.
Group works are great in that it allows students to learn more effectively by learning from each other. In cooperative learning, it is important for teachers to encourage students to think in terms of ‘positive interdependence,’ meaning that the students should not think competitively and individualistically but rather cooperatively and in terms of the group.
There are several things teachers need to keep in mind when planning and implementing group work. First, it is sometimes beneficial to group students that share a common characteristic (i.e., multiple intelligence, proficiency level, interest, etc.) but generally it may be better to create groups so that the groups are mixed in terms of gender, ethnicity, proficiency level, etc. This would allow students to learn from each other and also give them practice in how to get along with people different from themselves. Secondly, teachers should assign different roles to each student so that leadership is distributed. Each group member should be encouraged to feel responsible for participating and for leaning. Thirdly, one of the essential points teachers should explicitly teach is social skills such as acknowledging another’s contribution, asking others to contribute, and keeping the conversation calm. The goal of cooperative learning is to help students develop the knowledge and skills necessary to be able to work effectively with anyone and everyone regardless of their characteristics/backgrounds.
possible misconceptions and/or concerns you may have about cooperative learning?
I struggle with cooperative learning at times but feel that it is important for children to communicate with classmates since his technology age has encouraged kids to only relate to television shows, computer screens and video games. Group work also improves language abilities and content understanding.
What challenges have you encountered with having students engage in cooperative learning?
Challenges that I have encountered are the following: students not getting along with each other; one person doing most of the work for the group; kids talking about other topics than the subject at hand; students not working to their ability and blaming it on each other; and some groups might have students with a stronger academic performance.
Do you think that there is such a thing as having too much group work and not enough independent work? I don't think that there can be too much group work. Making a classroom requirment working with others should be part of education at every age and grade level.
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