Tuesday, April 19, 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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I believe that cooperative learning should be implemented in the classroom by having many opportunities after activities for students to talk with a partner or small group about their findings. I think that every lesson should have a set up where there is an individual portion, a partner/small group portion, and a large group summarizing portion at the end. This way, students get to not only share their findings, but see other points of view and strategies used to get to the same answer. This not only teaches that there are commonly more than one way to find an answer, but it teaches students how to work cooperatively with other students and helps teach how to present opinions in a polite way. I think this type of learning is best assessed by rubrics, but you can also assess on how the students are reacting to other ideas, how well students work together, and how well students are able to compromise as well as academic material.
ReplyDeleteI think it is very important that cooperative learning is in the classroom because students who learn better by communication need certain activities to help this. Also, this helps students be more creative sometimes too. I agree with Katelyn that every lesson should have an individual portion, a partner/small group portion, and a large group summarizing portion at the end. This way every aspect is involved in one lesson and every students learning abilities can be met. This type of learning like Katelyn said is best assessed by rubrics because it allows students to see what is required of them but also lets them be creative too.
ReplyDeleteI think cooperative learning is important in the classroom. I think the important thing to remember is that content should be taught the best way for that area. Cooperative learning is not best for some content while it is the best for other content. I think as teachers we should work to make our teaching the best it can be for what we are teaching. I do think cooperative learning is beneficial for a variety of reasons including social interactions, learning material, and working with others. It helps students to learn material in an effective way.
ReplyDeleteI think this is best assessed using a rubric. This way students know what is expected and it is easy for a teacher to reach a grade without letting biases get in the way.
I agree with Katelyn that sharing findings would be beneficial to students. However, I do not think it is appropriate for every lessons. There are some lessons were group work is not appropriate. It is also important to understand that the ITBS tests and other tests assess students alone and we need to prepare students for those situations.
ReplyDeleteI think that coopertive learning is an important strategy to implement in the classroom. I think that this can be included in the classroom several ways. A few simple ways to incorporate cooperative learning into the classroom is just t0 allow a few minutes within your lesson for the students to talk back and forth to each other and share their thoughts. This could be talking with a partner to decide on the basic concepts of the lesson for instance "what is a feature article?" or it could be having the student reflect on the lesson in a group and talk about the different questions and responses they had. There can be more extensive roles for collaboration within a classroom such as group projects or student taught lessons as well. These are assignments that require the students to collaborate with each other.
ReplyDeleteI think that there can be many ways to assess collaborative learning. THe first way is to allow the students to do peer evaluations. the teacher can provide a reflection sheet for the students to evaluate each other on. Another way would be through teacher observation of the collaborative group. This would look like the teacher walking around with an assessment tool and marking what she sees happening with in the groups.
I agree with Katelyn that is is important to allow the cooperative groups to share their ideas with the whole class. This will allow the students to hear and be exposed to other ways of thinking as well as allow the students a chance to teach each other.
ReplyDeleteI liked the strategies Adrianne brought up for assessing students that work together. Peer evaulations and teacher observations are very helpful ways to assess not only group work, but even the students when they work individually.
ReplyDeleteI believe incorporating cooperative learning in the classroom is completely necessary but should be used carefully. The benefits of cooperating learning supports the 21st century standards and include social skills, communication skills, ability to express ideas and thoughts, and academic collaboration. Cooperative learning also provides students with the opportunity to learn from their peers and consider various points of view of content. However, I also think there can be personality traits that conflict with cooperative learning within the classroom and there are students who prefer not to work with peers. With this said, although students may have a preference of working alone, they still need to have the ability to collaborate and effectively communicate with others. Nearly all careers require some form of collaboration and it is a necessity of life to acquire people skills. Therefore, considering necessity and preferences- I think cooperative learning needs to be implemented carefully and the teacher should be aware of the dynamics of each group and the preferences/personality of their students. If a child is able to successfully engage in cooperative learning, then I do not think it should be a requirement. Personally, I do not prefer group work and believe I produce better work when I am working alone. A teacher wants to be careful that the student is meeting his or her personal and academic standards, and not having to decrease his/her standards due to group collaboration. Students have different standards for themselves and as a teacher, it's important to push students to the same high standards, not encourage them to decrease their own standards for the good of the group.
ReplyDeleteWhen assessing cooperative learning, I believe each student should be assessed differently. Improvement must be shown rather than a set standard. Every student is not going to meet one standard because socially they develop at different rates. In addition, personality traits vary, making socializing and collaboration easier, and more natural for some students.
As a future teacher, I cannot forget the to consider how lessons and instruction will affect ITBS scores, so I appreciate Samantha bringing up the point concerning student's ability to complete individual work to increase ITBS scores. If cooperative learning is overused it may affect the student's ability to be successful by themselves. They may not even be aware that they are depending on their peers for class work, if cooperative learning is consistently implemented. Also when testing, students are able to check their work with their peers. Through individual testing, they cannot have a significant need for continuous reassurance because it will not be an option.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to implement cooperative learning into my classroom, I would try to incorporate it into other activities. I think that in many group projects one person does most of the work while others slack. I think that having large and small group discussions are the best type of cooperative learning in the classroom. This also makes it easy to assess the cooperative learning because the teacher can see who is talking and participating. They can also listen to what the students are saying and see if they are comprehending the information.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mae, I think that cooperative learning will benefit the students if it is implemented right. It can easily be ruined if the organization of the activity is off. Also, it does help the students' social habits. This "forces" them to open up and make connections with the other students in the class, which is a valuable part of school.
ReplyDeleteI think cooperative learning is a very important strategy. I know from personal experience, I find that I learn best when working with other classmates. It's a very effective strategy because students that are the same age, for the most part, have the same vocabulary and cognitive thinking. Therefore, they speak the same "language" and can understand each other better. That being said, cooperative learning is only successful if the class is mature enough to handle student based learning. I think cooperative learning is more effective in the older age groups, but can still be effective in lower levels with the right structure and directions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brianna when she said that usually in group tasks or projects, that one or two students do most of the work and the rest of the group slacks off. Sometimes, especially in the lower age levels students are worrying about getting to task or project done instead of paying actual attention to the content. If it were my classroom I would constantly walking around the room to make sure the everyone is doing their part. Another effective assessment of student involvement would be having every member in the group rate themselves and the other members. I will make sure to assure them that this would remain confidential so they will be honest in their rating.
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