Monday, March 21, 2011
Instructional Strategies
Cooperative learning is one type of instructional strategy. Students at all levels, K-post secondary, are often engaged in cooperative learning at some time during an academic year. Some students learn best when working with others, while the opposite is true for some. How do you think cooperative learning should be implemented into classrooms? How do you think cooperative learning should be assessed?
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Cooperative learning can be an excellent strategy to use in the classroom. Cooperative learning helps many students become active participants in their learning. This instructional strategy also helps students develop collaboration and social skills. The students have to work together to achieve a single goal. Cooperative learning helps students to develop lifelong skills.
ReplyDeleteEventhough cooperative learning has many benefits, I believe that it should be implemented in moderation. Some students may love cooperative learning and group work while others struggle. It is very difficult for some students to work in groups. I am a great example of this. I did not always like groups and become very frustrated when it is the only work being assessed. There needs to be a balance between group and individual work in the classroom. However, an easy way to incorporate cooperative learning in the classroom everyday would be the use of think/pair/share. This strategy exposes students to different ideas in a quick, informal manner.
Cooperative learning can be used as a formative or summative assessment. I believe that student understanding while engaged in cooperative learning should be assessed on three dimensions. It is important to take into account how well the students worked together, the quality of the group's project, and each individual's contribution in the group. You can evaluate all three aspects with the use of student's self and peer evaluations, personal observations and rubrics.
I think that it is important that teachers implement opportunities for students to work in groups. They need to develop the social skills needed to work with others because their future occupations and experiences will involve cooperative teams. However, I think that it shouldn't be overused. I believe teachers should find a balance between individual and group work because some students have a difficult time with cooperative learning. Some students rely on others while other students may take complete control. As a future educator, I would like to use group work mostly when I am introducing a new topic or concept. This will help students to not become overwhelmed, and will give them someone to bounce ideas off of. With regard to assessment, I think that group work should be graded as a combination of individual contribution and the final group product. This will keep students accountable, while giving them a chance to work with others.
ReplyDeleteI think cooperative learning should be implemented into the classroom every once and awhile. It is helpful for students to interact with other students. Interacting with other students can help students understand and learn from the other students. On the other hand, as a teacher, you should not use cooperative learning all the time. Every student learns differently and teachers need to incorporate many different types of instructional strategies. Some students get embarrassed to work with other students because they might feel they don’t know much about the subject. Some students might not put in any work into their assignment.
ReplyDeleteI think cooperative learning should be assessed individually and as a group. To assess individually have the students give peer evaluations and grade on their part of the work they did. To assess the group, using a rubric will help grade everyone as a whole.
The other day during my Level II experience, my mentor teacher demonstrated a very effective strategy while using cooperative learning. The students just finished an activity while working in groups. When giving directions for the next activity, she told the students that she wanted them to work in pairs again. When she was splitting the class into groups she asked if any student preferred to work alone. Students would be able to complete this activity on their own and were given that opportunity if they preferred. One student who previously had a difficult time working with her partner earlier raised her hand to work alone. She was then allowed to move to a desk by herself and work independently. This strategy should not be used all the time because you want the students to develop social skills and work together. However it can be effective when students have been working in groups for an extended period of time or for those who sometimes prefer working alone.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Kara's comment, my mentor teacher also uses the same approach. She frequently asks students if they would rather work in pairs or by themselves. This allows students who feel less confident to practice difficult concepts with their peers. It also gives students, who are more advanced, a chance to work independently. This approach gives students the chance to decide how much scaffolding they believe is needed. During my first lesson, I let students decide if they would rather work alone or in partners. This was effective because students could work at their own pace, and it helped them to not become frustrated or uncomfortable, as well.
ReplyDeleteDuring my lesson for level 2 the students were to work together to play a game. After the students played the game a few times they went back to their desk and worked independently writing in their math journals. They wrote about what strategies they used to play the game and also what they though of the game. Some of the students responded saying they enjoyed working with a partner. This was a way to allow the students to work together and on their own on the same lesson.
ReplyDeleteI think that cooperative learning plays a very big part in students' education. When students work in groups, they learn a lot of things about cooperation and learning to work with others. Many of the skills they'll develop during cooperative learning will be helpful later on in life in their careers. However, I know that some students prefer to work alone instead of in groups, and I think that's fine, but it's still important for them to experience working in different groups, because eventually they'll have to do an activity or assignment that requires cooperation, so it's good to have that background in cooperative learning.
ReplyDeleteI think as far as assessments go, cooperative learning can be used in all 3-diagnostic, formative, and summative. I think it would be especially important in diagnostic assessments at the beginning of the school year, because you don't yet know what students work well together, and what students prefer to work alone. Once you've established students' preferences, you can give them more choices on other assessments, and if students have a chance to choose for themselves, it will help show them realize their own preferences.
In my classroom, my teacher does something called "Think Pair Share", where the students are posed with a question, think about the answer for a bit, then pair up with a classmate and share their ideas. It's a way for students to think independently, but also to bounce ideas off of each other. Then the pairs pick their best ideas and share them with the whole class. I like this strategy because students get to experience a variety of different methods, and in 3rd grade, the students still really enjoy sharing with each other--they always have a lot to say and have many ideas to bounce off of their partners. I think a strategy like this encourages them to work cooperatively, and gives them experience working in groups.
ReplyDeleteCooperative learning can have many benefits for student learning. It promotes communication and increases the participation of students. However, it is not always the best to have the students be too talkative and rather be a distraction. Cooperative learning provides students to become more social and outgoing with higher self esteem. Students become more familiar with their classmates by working with them. Students who are having trouble with a problem can go to a friend not just in school, but at home or in a social setting with cooperative learning. Cooperative learning provides can help with academic achievement if the individual can't do the best on their own with assignments, so cooperative group work could help them. All students, regardless of their ability level, benefit from the cooperative experience because it can promote higher achievement and greater motivation than individual learning for some students.
ReplyDeleteI like that my Level II teacher incorporates cooperative learning for the students in her lesson. It gives them an opportunity to see their peer's perspective and ways of doing things. Cooperative learning could let a student who understands the concept more, be paired up with a student who is having difficulty understanding, to work together. In my second lesson, I read them a story about Rosa Parks, then they had to write a letter to her on how the students -themselves- can become leaders. Well, after they were done writing, I paired them up together in partners to read to each other until the whole class was done and was ready to volunteer to the class their letter. I thought this was a great way to give my students some time to hear other classmates' thoughts over how they could become a leader.
ReplyDeleteEven though not everyone likes working in groups, I think it is important to incorporate cooperative learning into the classroom. I think it is important that students learn how to work with people, those just like them and people different from them. Cooperative learning introduces to students different ways of working with peers whether or not they are close friends. This can help them get to know peers better and gain a new perspective on a subject.
ReplyDeleteWhen incorporating cooperative learning into the classroom, I do not think it should be used exclusively. As many benefits as it can offer students, I don't think it is the only way for students to learn and not all students will learn the most working with others. Teachers need to consider the different options to best meet the needs of their students.
I think that assessing cooperative learning should focus on how the each individual student works in the group. The reason I say this is because I think cooperative learning is as much about working together as it is about the content, maybe even more about working together. I think teachers should focus on the group work and how well students are working or trying to work together. It is important to take into consideration their work ethic, their communication skills, their patience with group members and things like that.
For my first lesson, students were working individually on a fraction activity where they were building rectangles of different colors using fractions they were given. When some of the students got done, I paired them up with another student who was done and had them make their own rectangles, write down the fractions, and have their partner build the fraction. I did not get the directions clearly explained to the students so I am not sure of how much it helped them, but I noticed how much they enjoyed working together like that. I think I would want to incorporate more game-like activities into my classroom to give students opportunities to work together. It allows them to learn and grow from each other but there is less pressure in regards to an assessment.
ReplyDeleteI think cooperative learning is a great tool to use inside the classroom for several different reasons. I think that students are more comfortable working with their peers because they are going to be more open to sharing their ideas. When students work together collaboratively they have the chance to be active in their own learning with the help of their peers. Students are more likely to be involved in their learning when working in a small group rather than a large group setting.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that makes cooperative learning so effective inside the classroom is it helps students acquire the necessary social skills they will need later in life. Like I said before, students are going to be more likely to express their ideas to their peers. This is a social interaction between classmates. It is so important that students exercise and develop these social skills in order to be an effective learner later in their school years.
Finally, I think that peer assessment is the best option for assessing cooperative learning. I think that students are going to be more likely to tune into feedback from their peers, which they will utilize for later cooperative learning activities. By having students assess each other, it gives them a sense of responsibility for the group because they know they will have to assess each other. It also creates another interaction in which they will give each other feedback about their participation.
I agree with Shelby and her idea that think, pair, share is a great strategy. Not only is it great for the students to get ideas from one another and get different perspectives, but it also helps the teacher save time as well. During my first week of level 2, there was another student giving her lesson and she had a hard time because almost every student had something to say pertaining to her question. This really puts the teacher in a pickle because he or she doesn't want to leave anyone out, but at the same time there usually isn't time to get to everyone. In this particular instance, think, pair, share would have been a great strategy to use. It would have given each student the opportunity to share their ideas, while interacting socially to expand their learning.
ReplyDeleteI think cooperative learning is very crucial in the classroom. It allows students to share their thinking with others ad expand their knowledge. Cooperative learning also promotes verbal skills and communication. I do think that there should be a balance between cooperative learning and working independently. Cooperative learning is a great way to assess their learning, but it becomes easy to get off topic when you have one or two students who are easily distracted. I think cooperative learning should be implemented by having group discussions or working on small group projects together. It can be assessed by a total answer/project or by having one student explain to the rest of the class their group's reasoning and thinking on the assignment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kirby. I like how often the students worked in groups. They understood how each other thought and seemed to know their learning styles and where they were at ability wise during math. I realized however if one student began talking and becoming off track, the others would soon follow. They usually do a great job of staying on task and finishing their work. To really implement cooperative learning, teachers need to guide and get them back on track in order to finish their given assignments. My L2 teacher usually did not have a problem guiding them back to being on task.
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