Download Cooperative Learning

Cooperative Learning
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A number of strategies whereby students help
one another acquire course content
Cooperation in Context
Learning may be competitive,
individualistic, or cooperative
 Competitive goals encourage students to
work against one another; evaluation is
norm-referenced and grades are
distributed along a bell-curve with good,
average and poor performers
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Cooperation in Context
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Individualistic goals encourage students to
disregard their classmates; evaluation is
criterion-referenced and students looked after
their self-interests or personal mastery or
specified objectives
 Cooperative goals emphasize collaboration
and shared understanding on any task;
evaluation is interdependence – a group must
succeed for an individual to succeed.
Tenets of Cooperative Learning
Individual and group accountability: each
student is accountable for a specific task
or topic as well as topics assigned to
other group members
 Positive interdependence: each team
benefits when all embers perform well,
and is held accountable when one or
more members do not
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Tenets of Cooperative Learning
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Group processing: students coached on
group process skills – supporting
differences, listening, providing
feedback, gate keeping to ensure all
participate, coaching others, reaching
consensus
Tenets of Cooperative Learning
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Promote group process by assigning roles
Leaders keep groups on task, ensure
everyone participates and understands
Recorders manage group files and folders,
tracking each team member’s contributions
Reporters give responses to the class about
as group’s activities or conclusions
Monitors act as timekeepers for activities
Setting Up
Use small groups
 Heterogeneous groups suggested by
research (e.g., mixed gender, race, and
ability levels)
 Low ability student typically improves
performance when grouped with higher
ability student; higher ability student
sometimes decreases in performance
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Strategies: Think-Pair-Share
Think-pair-share is one of dozens of
cooperative learning strategies described
on the Internet
 Students are prompted to think about a
topic or problem, record their ideas, pair
with a neighbour and share their ideas
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Strategies: Affinity
Students jot issues, concerns, or olutions
on a card
 Cards collected and compared by group
 “like” cards are sorted together to create
categorized and focus on issues,
concerns, or solutions students have in
common
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Strategies: Find the Fib
Students learn different parts of a topic
 Each student teaches their piece of the
topic to their group, including a fib or
non-truthful element in their instruction
 After each student’s instruction, groups
discuss the content and try to find the fib
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Cooperative Learning Outcomes
Critical thinking, reasoning about course
content (active learning)
 Students acquire better understanding of
course content as they are required to
explain topics to others in team
 Better attitudes towards courses
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Cooperative Learning Outcomes
Increased social skills, respect for
multiple opinions and perspectives
 Higher achievement
 Higher productivity
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