Cooperative Learning

Task Specialization Designs

Task specialization designs create intense interdependence among teammates because teammates must depend on each others’ efforts.

Pairs

Half the students in the class are given material to master and the other half are given other material to master. Students with the same material sit together and can help each other. Then the students find a partner who had different material, and teach each other what they have mastered.

Telephone

One student from each team steps out of the room. The teacher reads a very short story to the class. The absent student returns and the teammates teach the student everything they can about the story. This promotes listening and expressive oral language as a communicative competence.

Partners

  1. Partners are formed within teams. Often the high and low achiever are partners, as are the two middle students.
  2. Class divides: partners sit together. Topic 1 partners are all on one side of the class; topic 2s on the other.
  3. Materials are distributed. Materials often consist of some reading and a worksheet. Worksheets are designed to stimulate higher-level thinking.
  4. Students master materials.
  5. 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.
  6. Partners prepare to present and tutor. Partners analyze critical features and decide on a teaching strategy; students are encouraged to make visuals and other teaching aids; they must evaluate what is important to teach and how to determine if learning has occurred in their teammates.
  1. Teams reunite; partners present and tutor. Partners work as a team, dividing the labor as they teach the other partner in their team. After presenting material, partners check for understanding and tutor their teammates. Practice is distributed: topic 1 partners share, topic 2 partners share; topic 1 partners tutor, then, finally, topic 2 partners tutor.
  2. Individual assessment. An individual quiz or essay, or Numbered Heads Together is used to assess individual mastery.
  3. Team processing. Teammates reflect back 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?
  4. Scoring and recognition. An optional step, often not included, is to have some form or scoring and/or recognition system. The scoring system can be based on student improvement. The recognition system can recognize individual, team, and class accomplishments.

Jigsaw

Each student on the team specializes in one aspect of the learning unit, meets with students from other teams with the corresponding aspect, and after mastering the material, returns to the team to teach his/her teammates.

Within Team Jigsaw

Step 1: Independent work. Each student from a team works independently to master a bit of new material.

Step 2: Students share. Students do a Roundrobin within teams to share the new knowledge with their teammates.

Step 3: Individual assessment. There is assessment of all of the students on all of the material.

Team Jigsaw

Team Jigsaw has each team become an expert on one topic and then its teammembers spread out to share their new knowledge with the rest of the class.

Workstation Jigsaw

Students go to expert groups with a worksheet, but they do not turn to a text for the answers. One expert team may be viewing a filmstrip, another working with instructional cards, a third with informative articles, and so on. They then report back to their teams on the information they have learned, as in original Jigsaw.

Partner Expert Group Jigsaw

Here, curriculum is divided into four parts and each student on a team is assigned one part.

Step 1: Partners formed. The student is assigned a partner from another team.

Step 2: Partners master materials. The partners, working, as a pair, meet to master the material.

Step 3: Expert groups meet. The same-topic pairs meet in expert groups to discuss the material.

Step 4: Partners practice presentation. The partners meet again to prepare and practice the presentation they will make to their team.

Step 5: Experts present to teams. The teams reconvene and the experts make their presentations.

Original Jigsaw

Each student is provided with only part of the learning materials, but is evaluated on how well he or she could master the whole unit. Each student on a team had but one piece of a jigsaw puzzle, but needed to complete the whole picture. The most difficult part of original Jigsaw is that each of the individual sections must be written so that they are comprehensible by themselves.

Jigsaw II

Step 1: Introduce the idea of Jigsaw II. Tell the students they will be working on a team. Each teammember will have a special topic to learn about. After the students read the material, they will meet with members of other teams who have the same special topic and discuss your topic, and then the students will return to their team as an expert to teach their teammates about their topic. Finally, everyone will be quizzed on all topics.

Step 2: Inform students of their team assignments. Read the names of the members of each team and point out a place for the team to assemble.

Step 3: Pass out reading material and expert sheets. Tell the students that they will become the experts on a particular topic and then teach it to their teammates. Tell them to read carefully, as they are the one who will be teaching their teammates.

Step 4: Assign topics and begin reading. Go from team to team assigning students to topics. Make the assignments randomly. As you assign topics, have students begin reading.

Step 5: Finish reading. Let the students finish their reading.

Step 6: Introduce expert groups. Tell students they will have a chance to discuss their topics with others who have the same topic. They will talk about the topic to decide which information is most important. The teacher will then appoint a leader for each expert group. The leader’s job is to get every student in the expert group to help add ideas. When the students are in their expert groups, have them start discussing their topics. Work with each expert group, one at a time, to help them structure their task and use the time effectively.

Step 7: Experts report. Have students return to their teams and report on what they learned in their expert groups. The students should emphasize the main points and anticipate what might be on a quiz.

Step 8: Quiz. Students put away materials and take the quiz.

Cooperative Learning

Project Designs

Project designs are content-free ways of organizing the classroom around cooperative projects.

Co-op Co-op

The emphasis in this philosophy is on bringing out and nourishing the natural intelligent, creative, and expressive tendencies among students. This is structured to maximize the opportunity for small groups of students to work together to further their own understanding and development. How the classroom is structured is an important, if not the most important, form of communication we make to students. In Co-op Co-op, the structure communicates that the teacher values the interests and abilities of the students.

Elements of Co-op Co-op

The point of this activity is to allow students to work together in small groups, first to advance their understanding of themselves and the world, and then to provide them with the opportunity to share that new understanding with their peers.

Step 1: Students-centered class discussion. Students are encouraged to discover and express their own interests in the subject to be covered. The aim of the discussion is to increase the students’ involvement in the learning unit by uncovering and stimulating their curiosity.

Step 2: Selection of student learning teams. Students may be assigned to teams or may be allowed to pick their teams.

Step 3: Teambuilding and cooperative skill development. Each team needs to feel that they are a “we”.

Step 4: Team topic selection. The teams are allowed to select topics. The team can cooperate most fully in realizing the class goals if they choose a topic related to the interests of the class. The teacher circulates during this time as a facilitator.

Step 5: Minitopic selection. Individual students select minitopics, each of which covers one aspect of the team topic. Each minitopic must provide a unique contribution to the team effort. All members need to make an important contribution.

Step 6: Minitopic preparation. Students may work individually on their minitopics. The preparation may involve library research, data gathering via interviews or experimentation, creation of an individual project, introspection, or an expressive activity such as writing or painting.

Step 7: Minitopic presentation. The students present their minitopics to their teammates. Following minitopic presentations teammates are able to discuss the team topic like a panel of experts. A division of labor within the teams may be encouraged so that one teammate may take notes, another play critic, another supporter, and another check for points of convergence and divergence in the information.

Step 8: Preparation of team presentations. The teams are encouraged to incorporate all minitopic material in the team presentation.

Step 9: Team presentations. The students are encouraged to make full use of classroom facilities.

Step 10: Reflection and evaluation. Students are asked to reflect on their use of social skills. Evaluation takes place on three levels: (1) team presentations are evaluated by the class, (2) individual contributions to the team effort are evaluated by teammates, (3) individual write-up or presentation of the minitopic by each student is evaluate by the teacher.

Scheduling Co-op Co-op

Mini Co-op projects can be carried out in one day. An intensive two- week Co-op project for the last two weeks of a long unit becomes a welcome addition for the students and teacher. This allows the students extend, reinforce, and integrate the knowledge they have acquired over the quarter.

Group Investigation

Group investigation is designed to provide students with broad and diverse learning experiences. Group investigation is particularly effective in increasing higher-level cognitive abilities among students.

Stages in Group-Investigation

  1. Identifying the topic and organizing pupils into research groups. Students should be grouped heterogeneously when possible.
  2. Planning the learning task. Group members or pairs of group members determine subtopics for investigation. Groups decide what and how to study, and they set the goals of learning.
  3. Carrying out the investigation. Multilateral communication is stressed as students communicate with collaborators, teacher, other groups, and other resource persons. They gather information, analyze and evaluate the data and reach conclusions.
  4. Preparing the final report. The investigation culminates in a report, event, or summary.
  5. Presenting the final report. Exhibitions, skits, debates, and reports are acceptable formats.
  6. Evaluation. Assessment of higher-level learning is emphasized. Teachers and students may collaborate on evaluations.

Co-op Jigsaw I: Experts Report

In co-op jigsaw each student first becomes an expert on an assigned topic, meeting with experts on the same topic from other teams. As a group of experts, they make a presentation to the whole class. When students return to their teams, they put their information together to create a novel group project.

Co-op Jigsaw II: Teams Report

In Co-op Jigsaw II, experts do not report to the class, rather teams report to the class, each on a different topic. Students go to expert groups to learn basic principles and information. When they come back to their teams they apply those principles and information to a specific problem.

Cooperative Learning

Co-op Lesson Planning

Four different approaches to planning cooperative lessons can be adopted.

(1)Insert-A-Structure

(2)Prefab Design

(3)Modified Prefab Design

(4)Freestyle Design

A structure consists of a series of structure elements. A lesson design consists of a series of design elements. An element of a structure is an action or interaction in a classroom. An element of a lesson design is a sub-objective of the lesson design.

Elements of Effective Instruction

  1. Setting objectives. The first step is to decide exactly what you wish to accomplish with the lesson.
  2. Teaching to the objective. The activities in the lesson are sequenced to move toward the objective.
  3. Monitoring and adjusting. The teacher elicits and checks observable behavior of students to interpret progress toward the objectives.
  4. Applying principles of learning. Teachers promote learning by having students ready to learn and actively involved. The teacher integrates cognitive and affective elements of a lesson, alternates periods of input and periods of student output, structures for success, gives immediate feedback, provides time to reflect on how well learning is occurring, and provides closure and transference opportunities.

Choose a Game Plan

Insert-A-Structure A Think-Pair-Share is a simple structure. First a problem is posed. Then students think about the question individually. Next, students pair up to discuss the question. Finally, students discuss the question as a team.

Prefab Design The teacher can select and implement a prefabricated cooperative learning lesson design. Some objectives are best reached by certain designs while other objectives are better reached by other designs. To implement this, take a barren design and use it as a framework for creating learning experiences.

Modify a Prefab Design A lesson design may be tailored to fit teacher-defined objectives. To modify a design is not merely to implement it with a different structure, but rather to add or subtract a design element. Each of the lesson designs is composed of a series of design elements.

Create a Freestyle Lesson To plan a good lesson, you may use the criteria below:

  1. Teambuilding. When I get done with the lesson, will the teammembers feel better about themselves as a team and about working together?
  2. Classbuilding. When I get done with the lesson, will the students have interacted with classmates other than their teammates in a supportive way, and fell better about being part of this class?
  3. Mastery. When I get done with the lesson, will the students know something they did not know before, and be able to perform better on an objective test related to the objective?
  4. Thinking skills. When I get done with the lessons, will the students have sharpened their thinking skills, be more likely to ask themselves a critical question, more analytic, have a clearer evaluative framework, be more likely to apply information to a new context, or be better able to put discreet bodies of information together in a meaningful category system?

The Dozen Design Elements

  1. Anticipatory Set Activities which motivate the student to learn the content get them “set” to learn. Use surprise, active participation, experience directly related to the learning objective, and student discovery of the importance of a topic all create a set to learn. The most important part is providing some experience which is contrary to expectations. Roundtable, Team Interviews, Roundrobin, Team Discussion.
  2. Closure These are activities which allow students to summarize the learning experience, and to relate it to other learnings. Closure helps students “own” the learning. Three-Step Interview, Roundrobin, Think-Write-Share, Individual Write, Inside-Outside Circle.
  3. Reflection This is a time for students to look back over the lesson, assessing how well a skill has been used. 4S Brainstorming, Roundtable, Team Discussion.
  4. Input This is best done through modeling, whether it be teacher demonstration or teams serving as the model for other teams. Paired Reading, Partners, Jigsaw, Co-op Co-op, Teacher Talk, Videos, Live Television Programs, Guest Speakers, Presentations by members of an upper grade class.
  5. Guided Practice Teachers or peers monitor while a student or team practices, providing feedback and opportunities to correct or improve responses. The teacher checks for understanding of instructions, as well as new material. Pairs Check, Numbered Heads Together, Flashcard Game, Turn-4-Review, Inside-Outside Circle, Same-Different, Match Mind, Paraphrase Passport, Team Test Taking for Practice.
  6. Independent Practice This should follow guided practice and should not occur until there has been a high degree of mastery during guided practice. Send-A-Problem, Independent Writing, Step 4 of Numbered Heads Together, Blackboard Share, Stand and Share, Mini-Topic Presentations, Jigsaw Expert Presentations.
  7. Assessment This can be formal or informal and can be done by the teacher, teammates, or classmates. Numbered Heads Together, Inside-Outside Circle, Choral Responses, Slate Responses, Blackboard Share, Stand and Share, Teacher Questioning, Weekly Quizzes and Improvement Scoring.
  8. Feedback Feedback provides the learner with specific knowledge of results and recognition of accomplishments.