Cooperative Learning

My initial reaction to reading about Cooperative Learning is that it is a fancy name for collaborative learning, or small group learning.  It claims to enhance both group and individual learning due to the way the groups are structured (building interdependence, designing interactive processes and creating individual accountability).  When Millis described some of the underlying premises of cooperative learning, like recognizing individual strengths and addressing individual needs, I felt like that was very similar to DI – Differentiated Instruction.  The shared sense of community Millis described sounded like too much of a fairy tale.  I worked with middle school students who were mean.  Many did not want to associate with kids from another cultural group, popularity class, and many times they were downright mean to kids with learning disabilities or social needs.  It was very sad.   I did agree, however, with Miller’s description of intrinsic motivation.  She compared that type of motivation to an ownership of learning.  When students are allowed to seek out learning, using their own style and working in their own way, I believe they are more motivated to succeed.  They have some control and learning becomes authentic, connected and purposeful. 

Grouping students can be a barrier – especially at the beginning of the year when you don’t know the kids that well and they don’t know one another.  You have to be flexible and ready to make quick decisions and perhaps changes.  One way to solve this issue would be to poll students in advance and then group them based on their MI (Multiple Intelligence) –their learning style.  Another way to group students would be to group them based on ability levels.  For instance if kids are gifted and talented or possess a deep understanding for the material already, they may need to be placed in a group that explores further, deeper yet, or a new and more advanced topic on their own. Heterogeneous Grouping is not always the best choice, but it works well when the concept is open-ended, unanswerable, includes multiple disciplines and is hands-on like an experiment or an activity. Homogeneous Grouping is more appropriate when students are struggling, lack recall on a particular topic, lack the background knowledge to fully comprehend the lesson, or are skill deficient. 

I suggest teachers use pre-assessments to determine all of the before-mentioned attributes before determining what type of grouping to use. 

There are many aspects of this model that I would use with learners today and in the future.  I agree with selecting heterogeneous groups.  There has been some research, however, that suggests the highest-level learners don’t gain as much as the lowest-level learners.  This is one disadvantage to using this model.  I would modify the groups often, depending on the project.

For example – and this really worked out well for my classes— I gave my students a questionnaire, assessing their technology skills, saving documents, resizing images, sending emails with attachments, etc. I asked them to rate themselves using a scale that went from “I can teach someone else how to do this activity” down to “I have never tried this before” to see what skills kids had.  I also included questions that assessed individual learning styles and how they felt about leading a group (Myers Brigg type questions).  I then pulled the data and grouped them by 1) computer skills, 2) leadership potential and 3) willingness to teach others.  The entire class lined up around the walls of the classroom in one large circle.  The desks were placed in groups of 6.  I went around and identified my ‘leaders’ first – and let them choose a table (separate tables – so as to have one leader per table), then I identified the ‘technology aficionados’ and let them pick a group.  I kept calling kids out by their strengths and letting them pick their groups.  So in the end, each group had one leader, one to two technology people, one artist/designer, one author/writer, etc.  The kids loved that they were (kind-of) picking their groups and that they were being grouped by likes and strengths (not grades or reading level).  This helped them ‘own their learning’ and they were so motivated because they were given jobs within their groups that they excelled at.  They weren’t allowed to ask me questions.  During the activity, they had to ask the appropriate person in their group their questions.  If the group couldn’t figure out the answer, the leader had to email me.  At first, I’d get a couple emails, but they got so they were working out the problems and solving them together as a group.  Groups were not allowed to talk between groups.  I actually walked around with a Flip camera video-taping the kids.  I was astonished at the depth of learning taking place.  The kids were pumped too.  It was a great experience, and I tried to replicate it often for the rest of the year.

In the Engineering example, written by Haller, et al, and notice the students were working on problem solving.  I can see why cooperative learning was so affective with this type of learning.  The students already are stakeholders; they chose their major and so the instructor had student buy-in already.  The students all possessed enough math and science background knowledge so as to be able to contribute to finding solutions to problems.  The most difficult barrier for them was the social aspect of working in a group.  Some of the students had to truly learn how to communicate with others instead of always playing the role of the ‘pupil’ by asking questions and receiving answers.  This was good for all members of the group to learn.  It is easy to just take over and do their work for them; it is much more difficult to discuss things and loosen the reigns – scaffold a team member’s learning.  So socially, I would say they all benefited from the experiences.  This exercise taught each group member to understand fundamental differences all people possess.

There are quite a few web-based tools designed for collaboration and cooperative learning.  I highly recommend learners share documents using an online dropbox or Evernote.  Google docs offers online collaboration synchronously.  Wikis are somewhat synchronous – whoever is writing on the wiki has to have control of the lock because only one person may write at a time.  When I have used Google docs in the past, we used the presentation mode (like PPT) and we all wrote in a unique color of our choosing.  My classmates knew if the font was green, it was me writing.  We could add slides and change their order as needed.  Wiggio is another online collaboration tool I am currently using.  It is free and you can chat, email, hold meetings, poll, and create to-do lists, share calendars, documents, and more – all in one workspace.  Did I mention it is free?  Check it out!

Resources:

Millis, Barbara. (2002) Enhancing Learning –and More!—Through Cooperative Learning

Haller, C., Gallagher, V., Weldon, T., & Felder, R. (2000). Dynamics of Peer Education in Cooperative Learning Workgroups. North Carolina State University.