Components of Cooperative Learning

the elaborator who gives examples or connects the material to what group members already know. Positive resource interdependence means that each member has only a portion of the information, materials, or tools needed to complete a task. The exercise you are doing now is an ex ample of resource interdependence, because in each home team no one has all the information; you each have different pieces. Thus, you need to share resources to succeed. Another ex ample would be a science experiment in which different group members have different pieces of equipment. Positive identity interdependence means that the group shares a common identity. This can be encouraged by having students choose a group name, flag, motto, handshake, etc. Countries, clubs, sports teams, and schools use these and other ways to attempt to create a shared identity among their citizens, members, and students and staff. 2.2. Collaborative Skills The first time most teachers ask their students to study in groups, it quickly becomes clear that students lack the necessary skills to work effectively with others. Thus, teachers may want to teach these collaborative skills along with academic content. Good collaborative skills are important so that students learn more when they study in groups. These skills are also crucial for success outside of school, with their friends and families, as well as later, in their careers. Teachers should choose a skill to emphasize in each cooperative lesson. It will probably be necessary to emphasize the same skill for several lessons or more. This should be a skill which is likely to be needed in upcoming lessons. There are six steps in teaching collaborative skills. First, students should see the need for the skill. This can be done by asking students how the skill has come up in their own experiences, by explaining why the skill is important in and out of school now and in the future, and via room displays. Second, students need a clear understanding of what the skill is. One way to achieve this understanding is for the class to develop lists of what a skill looks like and sounds like. For example, being a good listener can look like looking at people when they are talking to us. It can sound like using expressions such as “uh-huh” and “right” while the people are speaking to us in order to show we are following what they are saying. Third, students may need to practice the collaborative skill in isolation from regular class content. This can be done via activities such as demonstrations by the teacher, role plays, and games. Here, both positive and negative examples can be used. Fourth, the skill should be integrated into course content activities. For example, if groups are working together on projects, they can be asked to use the skill of encouraging others to participate. Another way to do this is for group members to be given rotating roles based on collaborative skills. For example, one student can be the praiser, another the para phraser, a third can be the facilitator in charge of keeping the group on task, and a fourth can be the questioner asking people for reasons. The teacher can circulate among groups and observe use of the designated skills, and students can also observe their own use and their group members’ use of. Fifth, processing group interaction is important. One of the other members of your home team will explain this to you. Sixth, once the skill is taught, the teacher needs to encourage students to persevere in using it. At first, using the skill may seem awkward and artificial. It takes time to become proficient at a skill. Ways to persevere include telling parents which skill the class is practicing and asking them to help, having the whole school work on the same skill, putting up signs, and recycling a skill that was taught earlier in the year. 2.3. Processing Group Interaction As part of each unit in which cooperative learning is used, time should be set aside at least once for students to discuss how well their group is working together. This processing of group interaction helps groups learn how to collaborate more effectively. It can take place during or at the end of an activity. Processing group interaction has two aspects. One, the good things about group functioning should be brought out. For example, particular members can be praised for the specific time they helped to explain a difficult point to their groupmates. Two, the group should discuss what in their interaction needs to be improved. For instance, they may feel that their group did not stay on task. Here again, being specific helps. Sometimes, teachers will request that specific collaborative skills be discussed during the processing of group interaction. For instance, the teacher may ask students to concentrate on how well their group did on making sure everyone understood a point before going on. Processing is helped if the teacher and students do observations while the groups are working together. It is easy to succumb to time pressure and skip the processing portion of a cooperative learning lesson. However, processing group interaction is a key element of cooperative learning because it gives students useful feedback on their group skills, and it tells students that the teacher places importance on how well they work together. Heterogeneous Grouping Many experts on cooperative learning recommend that students usually be placed by the teacher in groups which are heterogeneous on such dimensions as past achievement, diligence, ethnicity, and sex. Mixing students by achievement is encouraged in order to pro mote peer tutoring which can benefit both tutor and tutee, to provide low achievers with models of good study habits, and to improve relations between students. Improved relations is also a reason given for mixing students of different ethnicities in the same group. Working together toward a common goal can help dissolve barriers and build friendships. Additionally, students from different ethnic groups often bring unique perspective to group discussions. This combining of perspectives is also a rationale for mixing female and male students. The resulting diversity of perspectives can enrich students’ thinking. Usually, heterogeneous groups are best achieved by having the teacher choose who will be in which group. When students select their groupmates, they often choose people most like themselves. This can lead to cliques and other factors which work against cohesive classroom relations. 2.4. Individual Accountability One of the most commonly heard objections to having students work in groups is that some group members will end up doing all the work and all the learning. This can occur because some students try to avoid working or because others want to do everything. Thus, encouraging everyone in the group to participate is a real concern. To do this we need everyone to feel that they are individually accountable for the success of their group. There are many ways to structure group activities so as to promote this feeling of individual accountability. Some of these are: 1. Each student individually takes a quiz, completes a task, or writes an essay on the material studied. 2. Group members are called on at random to answer a question andor to explain an answer. 3. Each group member has a designated role which they are to perform. These roles can rotate. For example, a reading passage can be divided into sections. Members of a pair each read the first section silently. Then, one person is to summarize the section and the other is to make connections between the section and other materials the class has studied or with aspects of their lives. These roles rotate for the next section of the reading passage. 4. Each member is principally responsible for one part of their group’s project. For example, if a group is doing a report on Korea, one member could write the section on history, another the geography section, an other the art section, and the fourth member could write the section on the economy. The person in your home team who has information about positive interdependence will have more ideas about how to promote individual accountability. Teacher’s Role When Students Are In Groups ‘While students are in their groups, the teacher can circulate among them to see if: 1. groups understand the task; 2. groups understand the content they are studying; 3. groups are using appropriate collaborative skills the member of your home teach with piece B will explain this to you; and, 4. anyone needs extra help.

3. List of Collaborative Skills

The following list of collaborative skills is taken directly from Jacobs, et al, 1997:68. 3.1. Group Forming Skills 1. Getting into Groups Efficiently 2. Greeting Others 3. Introducing Oneself—Introducing Oth ers 4. Using People’s Names When Speaking to Them 5. Ending a Group Activity 6. Saying Goodbye 3.2. Basic Group Functioning Skills 1. Saying Thanks—Responding to Thanks 2. Attentive Listening 3. Giving Praise—Responding to Praise 4. Waiting Patiently-—Trying Not to Keep Others Waiting 5. Asking for Help—Giving Help 6. Apologizing—Accepting Apologies 7. Encouraging Others to Participate—Responding to Encouragement to Participate 8. Asking Questions—Responding to Questions 9. Saying “No”—Accepting “No” 10. Giving Instructions—Following Instructions 11. Interrupting Appropriately—Accepting Appropriate Interruptions 12. Using Humour to Help Group Function ing 13. Getting the Group Back On Task 14. Paraphrasing 15. Observing and Commenting on Group Functioning 16. Keeping to Time Limits 3.3. Idea Exchange Skills 1. Making a Plan 2. Making Suggestions—Responding to Suggestions 3. Asking for Reasons—Giving Reasons 4. Asking for Feedback—Giving Feedback 5. Giving Negative Feedback—Responding to Negative Feedback 6. Disagreeing Politely—Responding to Disagreement 7. Checking Accuracy 8. Checking for Understanding 9. Persuading Others 10. Compromising 11. Summarizing

4. Some Cooperative Learning Techniques

There are many cooperative learning techniques developed by the scholars in the area, but only a few are presented here as examples taken and directly quoted from http:edtech.kennesaw.eduintech cooperativelearning.htm. Teachers can always modify these techniques to suit their teaching needs. 1. Jigsaw - Groups with five students are set up. Each group member is assigned some unique material to learn and then to teach to his group members. To help in the learning students across the class working on the same sub-section get together to decide what is important and how to teach it. After practice in these expert groups the original groups reform and students teach each other. Wood, p. 17 Tests or assessment follows. 2. Think-Pair-Share - Involves a three step cooperative structure. During the first step individuals think silently about a question posed by the instructor. Individuals pair up during the second step and exchange thoughts. In the third step, the pairs share their responses with other pairs, other teams, or the entire group. 3. Three-Step Interview Kagan - Each member of a team chooses another member to be a partner. During the first step individuals interview their partners by asking clarifying questions. During the second step partners reverse the roles. For the final step, members share their partners response with the team. 4. RoundRobin Brainstorming Kagan- Class is divided into small groups 4 to 6 with one person appointed as the recorder. A question is posed with many answers and students are given time to think about answers. After the think time, members of the team share responses with one another round robin style. The recorder writes down the answers of the group members. The person next to the recorder starts and each person in the group in order gives an answer until time is called. 5. Three-minute review - Teachers stop any time during a lecture or discussion and give teams three minutes to review what has been said, ask clarifying questions or answer questions. 6. Numbered Heads Together Kagan - A team of four is established. Each member is given numbers of 1, 2, 3, 4. Questions are asked of the group. Groups work together to answer the question so that all can verbally answer the question. Teacher calls out a number two and each two is asked to give the answer. 7. Team Pair Solo Kagan- Students do problems first as a team, then with a partner, and finally on their own. It is designed to motivate students to tackle and succeed at problems which initially are beyond their ability. It is based on a simple notion of mediated learning. Students can do more things with help mediation than they can do alone. By allowing them to work on problems they could not do alone, first as a team and then with a partner, they progress to a point they can do alone that which at first they could do only with help.