What are your initial reactions to this theory/model?
- When I read these articles on cooperative learning, it sounded similar to guided learning. I like the idea of students working as a team to learn. As stated in Haller’s research article “A key assumption of cooperative learning is that students working in groups will learn from and teach one another.” The idea of groups of people learning together is very common in the corporate world. The group’s grades /evaluations of success are based on all the members’ participation. In the software and engineering fields there are many groups that are working on coming up with competitive designs for specific products.
What are barriers to its use?
- The barriers in cooperative learning seem to be very similar to guided group learning. They basically, revolve around team dynamics. One barrier that I can think of is students with an intrapersonal learning style. They are not as likely to be as successful with cooperative learning, since it is an interpersonal learning style.
- Another issue that has to be considered is the dynamics that each team member brings. A team with too many strong personalities may cause the team to flounder, due to personal achievement goals, group disagreements, and infighting.
Would you attempt to use this theory/model with the students you are currently teaching or hope to teach in the future? Why or why not? Could elements of the theory/model be modified so that it would work with your current/future students?
- The research article Johnson stated “five basic elements have emerged as critical to cooperative work in classrooms: positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face promotive interaction, social skills, and group processing.” I noticed that many of the articles are based on research in a university setting. Being an elementary teacher, I wonder how many of these five basic elements are achievable with young students. Since younger students are still learning how to get along socially, there may be more effort required by the teacher to help the students learn good team dynamics.
Since we are taking learning theories/models that were not necessarily created with the Web in mind and turning them into Web modules, what Web-based tools or resources could be leveraged to carry out this learning theory/model online?
- I believe the idea of cooperative learning can be implemented in web modules. By using logs and blogs, students are able to interact and reflect on learned materials, while away from the classroom. Blogs can also help intrapersonal learners in the group to feel more in their learning zone. Having real world projects for the teams to select (giving choice) can help foster more team motivation and interest.
You made a good point about using this model with younger students. I agree that there would be a lot more effort required, but I think it would be beneficial in the end for the students and teacher. The teacher would probably have to take more time to model to students and give demonstrations, but I think this model could work with younger students. Also, you made a great point about blogging. Students would be able to interact and comment on each others' blogs, while individually working on their own blog for those who work better independently.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the concerns about using this model with a younger population. Their social skills are still developing and that is part of what we do during the day is teach them how to interact and act socially. I think in order for this to be successful, the students would need to be mature enough to handle it and be responsive to suggestions and feedback.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about the barriers being team dynamics. I would imagine elementary children are lacking the most in this area of social development simply due to their age and lack of experience. I would think you would need to spend short amounts of time using cooperative learning with this age group and make sure it is only when children are exploring open-ended questions.
ReplyDeleteBut remember, kids can learn a lot from making mistakes -- your students probably have less fear and anxiety in this department as compared with high school students who have to put on a show for their peers. So have fun, allowing the kids to try to figure things out for themselves.
It is also challenging to think about giving over control to teaching some of the subject matter to individual students. If you have a team of four with each learning one content segment A-B-C-D, and one of the students is apathetic and doesn't do a good job learning their segment (say segment C) and co-teaching it to peers, then do those students just miss out on learning segment C? I guess the idea is you have peer pressure with interdependence and if students realize they need to know all four parts to be successful, they'll put pressure on each other to do their part. Real-life, though, as I've worked on many projects with adults who didn't do their part, and the group product suffered as a result. Frustrating, yes, but you learn to bring people along orally or end up doing more by yourself.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that making the transition into PBL can (and research shows it has been) be a difficult transition for students. I agree. And, draw a connection to another statement you made, you also mentioned that this approach is less applicable for younger groups (I also agree). But, I wonder, if this approach could be modified and simplified for implementation to younger groups of students. If this were commonly done in elementary schools, then again in middle school, and eventually in high school and college, the transition would be slow and gradual. Of course, coordinating this and convincing such a large amount of educators that the approach is helpful and worthwhile is another thing altogether. But it raises and interesting idea (at least in my mind).
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