Cooperative Learning

Cooperative Learning

1. students work together in mixed ability groups in accomlpishing a set of tasks

2. individual accountability is an essential characteristic

3. accountability means that the success of the group is based on the individual learning of each team member

   • occurs when each student in the group is held responsible for the required learning goals
   • assign roles and responsibilities to students to encourage cooperation and full participation
     • recorder
     • encourager
     • materials monitor
     • taskmaster
     • quiet captain
     • coach

4. takes many forms

   • peer tutoring
     • students as supplementary instructors in basic skills areas
     • teacher presents material as he/she normally would
     • pairs of students then use structured exercises and worksheets with answer sheets to reinforce the new material
   • student teams achievement division
     • students are paired on evenly matched teams of four
     • team scores are based on the extent to which individuals improve their scores on skills tests
     • rewards are given to teams whose members improve the most over their past performances
       • encouraging group cooperation
     • steps involved
       • 1. pretest
         • unit or from previous work
       • 2. rank students in descending order
       • 3. divide students into teams of 4
         • each team has high, medium and low ability students
         • groups diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity
       • 4. present lessons as normal
       • 5. students study worksheets
         • focus on goals and content
       • 6. monitor groups progress on goals
       • 7. administer individual quizzes
       • 8. Assign team scores
         • based on individual score gains
   • teams/games/ tournaments
     • team members compete against each other
     • homogeneous ability groups of three or four
     • competitive games in weekly tournaments
     • 3 students at each tournament table
       • tables include students of similar ability
     • winner of each table is usually bumped up to next higher level
     • if you lose, you move down
     • competition always among matched or somewhat alike achieving students
     • individual accountability is maintained
       • teammates cannot help each other during competition
   • team accelerated instruction
     • combines the notion of cooperative learning with individually paced instruction
     • heterogeneous teams
       • student studies individualized academic materials he/she is to master
       • check each other's work from answer sheets
       • more advanced students serve as tutors
       • rewards based upon
         • #of units each team completes
         • #of final tests passed
         • other criteria
   • group investigation
     • promote higher level learning
     • combination of independent learning and group work
     • teams of 3 to six students
     • investigate or solve common problems
     • students responsible for....
       • developing group goals
       • assigning responsibilities
       • bringing projects to completion
     • grades assigned to total projects
   • jigsaw strategy
     • 6member teams
     • investigate common topic
       • broad in scope
     • individuals responsible for researching and learning their part
     • individuals assigned subjects within the topic
     • members of different teams
       • studied same part
       • converse
       • discuss their part
       • return to home teams
       • take turns teaching home team their part
     • all students expected to learn all information on topic

5. graphic organizers

   • pictorial/graphical ways to organize written/oral information
   • form visual pictures of information
   • allow people to process info more intensely
     • improves recall
   • organize information into simple to read, structured display
     • presents complex information in an easy to understand manner
   • students must prioritize information
   • 3 main classes/types
     • sequential
       • timeline
       • flowchart
       • cyclical
       • hierarchy
     • single main concepts
       • continua
       • argumentation structure
       • spider maps
     • multiple concepts
       • venn diagram
       • matrix