SED 407 -- Cooperative Learning

The Learning Pyramid

Image taken from: http://www.funstuffonly.com/teachconcepts.html

When I sat down to try and define cooperative learning, I found myself focusing on what it is not; it’s not *just* group work, it’s not students teaching each other, it’s not any easy way for teachers to avoid lecture, etc. I also became a little confused by the difference between collaborative learning and cooperative learning; aren’t they the same thing? After doing a bit of research, collaborative learning seems more like an umbrella term for a variety of classroom activities that require students to collaborate and learn from each other in small group settings. Cooperative learning is a specific type of collaborative learning where students work together to achieve shared learning goals. Each group member is responsible for fulfilling a specific role and for ensuring that the other group members reach the common learning goal.

Even though I couldn’t really articulate it at first, I feel confident that I intuitively understand what a cooperative learning activity should achieve. We’ve definitely done some great ones in SED 406, and I can even remember a particularly effective one from a high school English class, although I didn’t know what it was called at the time. I still remember details about George Orwell’s background, including that his real name was Eric Arthur Blair, which was something I was responsible for discussing in my group in a class I took almost 20 years ago! I generally think cooperative learning activities are fantastic, when they are carefully planned and implemented. I think it’s also important to point out the potential pitfalls that can make the experience more frustrating than useful.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t love the cooperative “Let’s Make Squares” activity that we did in class, but I learned a lot about cooperative learning from the experience. One thing that I learned is that the group dynamics are very important; the strengths/weaknesses and personalities of the group members will play a big role in the success of the activity. Something else that I took from the activity is that it is important to give enough time. The Squares activity seemed a little rushed, and I felt like I didn’t have time to settle into my role and absorb the rules of the activity. And finally, it is important to make sure that everyone who is in the group feels like they have a voice. Even though I enjoy activities that employ spatial reasoning, in some ways I preferred the activity we did later, because everyone had their designated time to speak and there was no competition to finish first. I’m not averse to competition, but I didn’t feel like it added much to the Squares activity. I will definitely be using cooperative learning in my classes, but I will probably wait until I feel like I have a good understanding of my students’ abilities before trying to implement them.

When I was doing some research to try and better understand cooperative learning, I found some good resources. Hopefully some of them will be useful to others.

-I like this video I found from the University of Saskatchewan describing the structure and benefits of cooperative learning. It isn’t a very dynamic video, just this one woman speaking, but I like her gentle optimism and clear descriptions. And her accent makes me homesick.

-I also found this really useful diagram, outlining the steps involved in cooperative learning. It includes things to remember before, during, and after implementation of a cooperative learning activity. I wasn’t able to format it to an appropriate size for this blog page, but I’ll include the link: http://www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/images/cooplearningebook.gif

-I found the link to the above diagram in a more extensive, wiki-style document from the University of Georgia that is a great summary of cooperative learning, including descriptions of different types of activities and things to watch out for during the activities: http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Cooperative_Learning