I think this is probably one of the most poorly implemented teaching techniques in schools today. Cooperative learning is not putting students in a group and having them complete an assignment together!! There is a specific design to cooperative learning that must be followed through for it to be effective. A lot of preparation goes into developing a cooperative learning assignment, and it must have a true structure that allows for individual and collective responsibilities. I find that this is very seldom the case, as teachers will give almost any assignment to students and call it “cooperative learning” simply because they can work in groups together. Inevitably, one or two students end up doing the majority of the work and the others get credit simply for being part of the group.
True, cooperative learning does have its benefits, but I think one of the biggest drawbacks to cooperative learning is that there very often is an ineffective division of tasks when the group is allowed to divide responsibilities on its own. The less ambitious students will always quickly volunteer for what they perceive as the “easiest” job. Or, students will instinctively volunteer for tasks based upon which tasks they are “good at” and are thus the easiest for them. The unfortunate result is that students gain very little practice in the areas they need the most help in. Again, effective lessons using cooperative learning include a great deal of preparation beforehand, and I think they are really only effective when the teacher chooses not only the groups, but the individual responsibilities of each group member based not upon what each member is good at, but based upon which skills each member needs the most practice at developing. I think teachers need to go through the steps and assign each member of the group a responsibility to ensure that cooperative learning is a worthwhile teaching strategy.
And we have to always remember that we cannot implement any single strategy all the time and hope it will be effective! Moderation is the key!
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Paul,
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is poorly implemented but I believe that this is a result, in part, of teachers not wanting to take the time to plan for such activities. We talked about this in PLCs at my school and the first excuse was we don't have the time to put this together. Well while I agree that it is time consuming, if the unit is important enough and you really want to students to understand and retain the information then you will have to make the extra sacrifice and diligently plan the lesson using the strategies and components that are a part of cooperative learning. I for one have a real interest in using this strategy because I like the entire concept and in the past I created my own activity using this method and the end result was great. My students turned in wonderful projects that I still have today.