Co-Operative Learning

Co-operative Learning

Introduction

Group work is something that we do not manage well in our department, but this should change very quickly with the use of co-operative learning structures. We do not allow students the opportunity to peer tutor one another and sometimes this can be the best way that a child can learn, develop or consolidate a topic within our curriculum. I am not for one second suggesting that every lesson be taken up by teamwork or paired work but a healthy balance of these along with exercises from books and worksheets can only improve learning within our department.

So why co-operative learning? It improves social skills, working together, ethnic and cross sex relations. All skills that students should be taking with them into their work place.

Teams

Ideally teams should consist of four students. Ways in which this can be done are students choose teams themselves, picking names from a hat or staff assigning students to teams. The first two ways could potentially have your four weakest students in the same group and if this is something you continue for some time could create a ‘loser group’. The third way is by far the most effective way of producing the teams.

The idea behind choosing teams of four is that it allows pair work within groups which doubles participation and opens twice as many lines of communication compared to teams of three. Teams larger than four often do not lead to enough participation and they are harder to manage.

The ideal team should consist of a high achiever, a low achiever and two middle achievers. Your room does not need re-arranging because ideally each team member should have easy access to a common piece of paper, so four students can easily sit around one desk. The best formation of a group around a desk is as follows:

Co-operative learning involves simultaneous interaction among students. This simple fact goes a long way toward explaining the advantage of co-operative learning over traditional teaching. In the traditional classroom one person at a time speaks, usually the teacher, but occasionally a student when called upon by a teacher. This allows very little time per pupil for active participation.

If your class does not divide exactly by four use the following guidelines: With one student left over, place that student where he/she would best learn or help others. With two students left over, steal a student from one of the teams of four so you have two teams of three (here one student might be allocated two numbers when numbering off 1 – 4). With three students left over keep them as a team of three.

Teams should work together for a period of time, a whole term or a half term and then new teams should be formed. This allows students to work with others and not to rely on single members of a team.

Structures

A structure is a content free way of organising the interaction of individuals. For example the most common structure we use every day in our lessons is; we ask a question, students who want to respond put their hands up, we choose a student, they attempt to answer it, we respond. This is a competitive structure because the students compete for the attention and praise of us and that creates negative interdependence among the students – as one student is called upon the others lose their chance to be called on. Further to this, a failure to give the desired response increases chances for others to receive attention and praise. So the students in this structure get more excited waving their hands with joy as they realise that someone else in the room has failed. Students begin to hope for failure.

There is a distinction to be made between structure, contents and activities. A structure is a content free “how” of instruction. It is the social organisation of the classroom, involving a series of steps or elements which define interaction patterns. The content is a “what” of instruction. When you plug content into a structure you have an activity.

When you use Numbered Heads Together (structure) to consolidate Pythagoras Theorem (content) you have an activity. We will try and use many structures in our classrooms in order to promote positive interdependence with our students.

Numbered Heads Together

Numbered Heads Together is a marvellous antidote to Whole-Class Question-Answer which often boils down to a conversation between the teacher and the high achievers in the room with the rest of the class being between semi-interested and comatose.

This is a very simple structure consisting of four steps:

1. Students number off – each student has a different number 1 – 4. For teams of three one student would possess two numbers. For teams of five two students may possess the same number.

1. Teacher asks/sets a question – Instead of asking “What is twenty percent of £300”, the teacher might say “Make sure everyone on your table knows how to find twenty percent of £300. To quicken the process the teacher might set a time frame. Students can then either do one of two things, work independently or work together.

1. Heads together – students quite literally get their heads together and come up with a team answer. If you prefer students working independently first on whiteboards then the students must have a signal for putting their heads together (thumb up).

1. Teacher randomly selects a number – a four sided dice or pieces of paper with the numbers 1-4 written on can be used to randomly select a student from each group. That student then stands up and presents their team answer to the teacher. The teacher then does their bit by questioning the students who are stood up for explanations of their team answer

Rally Coach

This is a worksheet related structure. If you just told students to work in groups on a worksheet, first of all very little communication would take place, but after half an hour the high achiever has finished theirs the middle achiever is half way through and the low achiever is stuck on the first problem or doing the wrong method and has begun disrupting the rest of the class. However, if you applied a structure to it in a way that students had to work at the slowest person’s rate and they had to communicate at regular times then the learning that will take place will increase. Using Rally Coach all of the students stay on task and work together to master the worksheet skill.

1. Pair work – teams break into their shoulder pairs (person that they are sat next to). Partners work on a worksheet. One student works on a problem while the other ‘coaches’. That is they watch and help but don’t answer the question for their partner.

1. Coach checks – the coach checks the work for agreement. If the pair don’t agree on the answer they may ask the other pair from their team. If all four don’t agree on an answer they ask for the teacher to help.

1. Switch roles – When the partners agree on an answer they switch roles and the second person does the next problem whilst the person who answered first coaches.

1. Team check – when two problems have been done the team gets together and compares answers. If they disagree and are unable to figure out why then they ask the teacher for help.

1. Pair work – the teams split again and work on the next pair of problems in the same way. This continues until the worksheet is finished and the teams agree on all answers.

Rally Coach is a particularly good structure for practising new skills. The worksheets have to be designed so that it is split in half for each pair to work on a half and a line included for each team check after pairs of questions. An example for the worksheet might be as follows:

The key to designing a worksheet is to not make pairs of questions the same otherwise person two will just copy the method.

Roundtable

This is a very simple co-operative learning structure which can be used with any subject matter. It can be used as a starter or a plenary.

1. The problem – the teacher asks a question with many possible answers (eg list of prime numbers, formula you need to know etc).

1. Students Contribute – students make a list on a piece of paper or whiteboard, each writing one answer and then passing it to the next person on his/her left. The paper or whiteboard literally goes round the table,

Roundtable can be used in a variety of ways. It can be used with little or no time pressure or may be structured in a race like format, with recognition given to the team with the most correct answers.

Round Robin

This is a structure suitable for a starter or plenary part of a lesson. It is a word association activity. Students work with a partner from their team and the teacher sets a topic/category/question with multiple answers eg “Quadrilaterals.” The students then take it in turn to say as many answers as possible, one at a time each. Answers are not recorded but pairs could be used at the end of each topic and the rest of the class can either agree/disagree or add answers that they got in their pairs.

Find Someone Who…

Students each receive a worksheet for this activity. They wander round the room until the teacher announces, “Find someone who knows.” They are to find someone in the class who knows an answer to a question on the worksheet. After interviewing that person they are to write the answer/working out in their own words. The person who helped must sign it off on the worksheet. They cannot write an answer on their worksheet unless they have “Found someone who knows,” interviewed that person, and had the person sign indicating that the answer is correct.

One very nice feature of this structure is that a low ability student who initially knew very little on the worksheet, after filling in one or two answers may assume high status as they become someone who knows.

Mix Freeze Group

This structure works well as a review of a topic but only if numerical answers can be worked out for an answer. The students mill around the room. The teacher calls “Freeze.” The teacher then asks a question, such as “What is the third square number?” Students are to quickly group according to the answer – in this case they would form groups of nine. The students left over must go to “Lost and Found”, which is by the teacher. The rule is that a student cannot go to Lost and Found twice in a row, so on the next question classmates must group with those students first.

Quiz-Quiz Trade

This is a great structure for using as a starter to a lesson. Every student must be given a card with a question AND the correct answer on it.

1. Pair up – students must stand up wander round and pair up with someone they don’t sit with.

1. Quiz-quiz trade – the students ask each other their questions, if either get the question wrong the person asking the question attempts to explain the answer as they have it in front of them. Once they are both happy and have asked each other they swap cards.

1. High five – when the students have swapped cards they must place their hands high in the air and wander round trying to find another student with their hand up. In order to pair up again they must high five that student and begin the quiz-quiz trade process again.

Turn-4-Review

Turn-4-Review makes otherwise boring review material or exam questions game-like. This structure can be used for any level of questions, textbook, worksheet, interactive whiteboard, past exam questions.

1. Number Off – team mates number off 1 through 4.

1. Turn over question card – students turn over a question card. The card reads: “Team member 2, Read Question 6.” The team member follows the instruction. Students take a little time to think about the question in silence.

1. Turn over answer card – students turn over an answer card. The card dictates which student will answer the question: “Team member 4, Answer the question.” This student attempts to answer question 6. Students then take time to think over what was said or written down.

1. Turn over check leader card – students turn over a check leader card. This card says which student is to lead the group in checking the validity of the answer: “Team member 2, Lead the Team Check.” The check leader does not do all the checking. Rather, he or she leads the group in checking. Students as a team consider the answer to decide if it is correct.

1. Turn over checker card – students turn over a checker card. This card says which student works through the working out checking it whilst the team are being lead by the check leader: “Team member 1 check the working.” Work with the check leader and the rest of the group in checking the work and the answer.

This can be repeated for as many rounds of questions as you would like. Cards need to be made in advance.

Telephone

Telephone is very simple. One member from each team is told to go out of the room. The teacher then explains a Maths concept eg long division. The member outside joins the group and their team mates teach that student everything they can about the concept. Team mates are highly motivated because the student who was absent takes a test on the material, and the score is the team score. Most importantly it promotes listening and expressive oral language.

The only issue with this is the time outside so students may be given a task to complete outside the classroom whilst they are absent from the room.

Partners

Very similar to Telephone but without students being outside the classroom and without the pressure on the one student being tested and that score representing the team’s score. Two topics are chosen and relevant materials are given to each set of pairs along with a question to test the pairs on that topic. It might be that a revision sheet from CGP books and an exam question are given and the pairs have to be able to explain how they did it to the other pair in their team.

1. Partners are formed within teams – often the high and low ability achievers are partners as are the two middle achievers.

1. Class divides: partners sit together – topic 1 partners are all on one side of the room, topic 2’s on the other.

1. Materials are distributed – materials often consist of some reading and a worksheet. Worksheets should be designed to stimulate higher-level thinking.

1. Students master materials.

1. Partners consult with same topic partners – partners consult with other partners sitting next to them; they check for correctness, completeness, and different points of view.

1. Partners prepare to present & tutor – partners analyse critical features and decide on teaching strategy; students are encouraged to make visuals and other teaching aids; they must evaluate what is important to teach, how to determine if learning has occurred in their team mates.

1. Teams reunite; partners present & tutor – partners work as a team, dividing the workload as they teach the other partners in their team. After presenting material, partners check for understanding and tutor their team mates. Practice is distributed: topic 1 partners share, topic 2 partners share; topic 1 partners tutor, then, finally, topic 2 partners tutor.

1. Individual assessment – an individual quiz or essay, or Numbered Heads Together is used to asses whether individuals have mastered the topic.

1. Team processing – team mates reflect over the process. How did we do as teachers? as learners? How could we do better next time? What social skills did we use? Which should we use next time?

1. Scoring & recognition – an optional step, often not included, is to have some form of scoring and/or recognition system. The scoring system can be based on student improvement. The recognition system can recognise individual, team, and class accomplishments.

Who am I?

Who am I is a very strong structure designed to get students interacting with their classmates. This structure fosters a positive class tone because students are having fun with many classmates.

1. Cards placed on backs – pictures, words or numbers are placed on students backs.