Cooperative Groups: Cooperation and Competition

All right. Time to put some cards on the table. Face up.

I have been nibbling around the edges of explaining why and how cooperative learning has changed my life as a teacher--everything from multiplying learning to building a learning community--and now I want to explain how I do it. I call this strategy cooperative learning because I took the principles from the Johnson Brothers work at the University of Minnesota. In truth, though, it's a modified cooperative strategy that I have developed into a full-fledged way of organizing classroom activities and pedagogy on an everyday basis.

I think this could be used at any level, in any school or district across the country. So, go ahead--steal early and steal often.

First, a teacher has to decide upon and formalize a grading process which is going to "fit" with the cooperative group work she is going to structure.

In my case, I create a category in which "participation" is 33% of the overall grade. The participation column, because it is its own category, cannot be diluted or overwhelmed by scores earned on other activities or in other ways. And, in general, I like the idea of measuring participation separately, distinctly and accurately, because it gives students and parents high quality information about the collaborative people skills which that student possesses and which are so crucial for their overall success in life.

So, my high school students understand that 1/3 of their grade will come from participation. (I will show how that can be quantified down-thread.) Now, it is time to create groups.

As I mention elsewhere, for my money, there is not a better group size than three. Why? Bigger groups tend to shut kids out or encourage them to just be passive and let their partners do the work. Pairs put too much onus on the individual skill levels of each kid. But, three is perfect. It's the triangle. If there are disputes or differences about ideas, you need to win at least one other vote to prevail. If you can't get that one other vote, you have an instant taste of what it is like to be in the minority--on the outside looking in. Plus, given the activities that I structure, three is the best size for giving every student a chance to write, to speak and to facilitate.

Anyway, the basic way I do it is to form groups of three and assign each student to a group. Don't panic! The assigned groups will only last for one or two weeks, depending on the class and how intensively I am grading the groups. After the time elapses, I split the class up again and assign all new groups of three, making sure--with the computer's help--that everyone gets to have new partners.

In the mean time, you have a distinct social arrangement of three unique, mostly disparate souls. I start them off by making sure they introduce themselves and check in about some frivolous but fun topic, like: What did you dress up as for Halloween? Where is your favorite place to watch a sunset? If I gave you a 100 dollar bill right now and an hour to spend it, where would you go and what would you do? Things like that, so that the students get comfortable with each other.

See, you want the groups to bond with each other. You want them to pull for each other. You want them to be glad to return to class and see what their partners have done with their assignment or what happened to them over the weekend. I'm not talking about gobs of time here, just three minutes check-in time, one minute each, perhaps a couple times a week. Once the pump is primed and running, all the other activities during the week serve to further the bond, deepen the connection and fortify their common efforts.

The pedagogical principle here is that you want to develop the social capital of your class. You want kids to get to know, understand and value each other as human beings. You absolutely do. I can't imagine anything more harmful and deleterious to the school environment than asking kids to sit quietly in their chairs for an hour and not speak or interact with anyone. What are we thinking as educators???

There are multiple and profound benefits that flow from student interaction when successfully realized: lower affective levels, more trust and better discussions, less distrust, stereo-typing and prejudice, and, it contributes to the social capital in the building, which, in high school at least, can be very important in terms of creating school cohesion and reducing the kinds of tension that lead to cliques, fighting and turf wars.

And, don't forget, because you are rotating groups regularly, you are ensuring that every student gets to work with every other student eventually. Think about that in terms of the values of public education in a democracy: Every student will get to work in a face-to-face, fairly intensive way, with every other kid over time--no matter their gender, race, skin color, religion or ethnicity.

Where else in American society is it an expectation, or just a possibility, to meet, work with and be dependent upon, a random cross-section of other Americans who live in your town or neighborhood? Not too damn often, as far as I can tell.

Do you believe that public school is the best and perhaps last time that our citizenry will have a chance to mix and match in what we use to call the "public square"? I do. It is fundamental to our country and basic to my understanding of what a democracy is all about.

If our children can go through the school day and not have to talk or interact with anyone not already a part of their social circle, then what kind of society have we become?

Really. Think about that.

Anyway, there they are, groups of three, as many as 12 of them--at least in secondary school--arranged around the room. (I favor the horseshoe table arrangement BTW, an oblong circle that opens up the middle of the room so I can quickly be at a group's table in no time.)

Now is where the fun starts.

Each group understands that they will earn a score out of 20 points for that day's work. This does not constitute the only grade or scores they will earn--written work or individual work can also be completed and handed in during the week. The daily score out of 20 points is just their participation score--that is, as I define it and demonstrate it to them, how well they share, speak and listen, as well as participate in classroom discussions.

I literally keep a little chart on my lectern which has each group number and the day of the week on a kind of grid. Every time I see something positive, I mark a plus. Every time I see something less than that, I mark a squiggle or a minus. This may seem tedious, and certainly it could be if I were overly serious about it, but it really can be highly effective, painless and easy once you are good at it. I also keep the list of names in each group at the bottom so that, if a student is acting out individually, is tardy or absent or off-task, I have a way of charting that as well. In other words, I'm looking at groups, monitoring how they are doing and when necessary, keeping tabs on individuals as well.

But, I am not anal about any of this. You see, I want to create the gestalt of cooperation and sharing, and that's where my efforts go. That is a basically joyful, fun and playful process and so everything I do, form crediting positive group behaviors to pointing out poor ones, is done with a sense of humor, teasing and enjoyment. In my system, the scoring around the groupwork has got to be light, lively and fun--or else it will just become one more fake piece of drudgery, another hoop that students have to jump through to please the authority of the day.

So, let's say the students had a writing assignment, a journal say. They come into class and sit at their groups. I say: "Let's get out our journals. I want you to share verbally what it is that you wrote about in your journal. Take a full minute, you don't have to read it, just recap what is in it." The groups start in, and I circulate around with my chart to each group. Every group that has all three journals done and are sharing, I give that group a plus. Any student that does not have their journal done, I note that on the chart under their individual name. (Key point, one more time: I do this cheerfully and easily, without blame or shame. It's just information. High quality information as far as who is doing their work, but information nonetheless.)

Then, the class moves on into the day's lesson. Whatever we are working on, from reading a source and discussing it, to practicing a writing concept, to listening to presentations, I have an instant means of getting student engagement. How? I say: I want your group to take a couple of minutes and discuss what we have just read. What do you like about it? What seems like a problem or a limitation with this idea? Or, somesuch.

You see, with groups already primed and familiar with each other, and competing against each other in terms of sharing with the large group--not to mention that the students are totally inured to quick mini-consultations like this--the class explodes into conversation, as many conversations as there are groups.

Instructionally, it is an excellent break from lecture or reading or whatever task we are doing. And for the students, especially antsy adolescents, it is an excellent release and point of connection with several of their peers. And, of course, in terms of brain neurology, it is exactly the kind of short, quick enriching activity involving other human beings which has been shown to aid development of neural nodes and dendrites. In other words, this kind of quick repair to small discussions where you have real people listening and real ideas to express, is good practice on many levels.

Again, at any point, if I like what I see as I circulate the room, then I can reward positive behavior or sanction negative. Generally speaking, positive rewards flow to the entire group, whereas negative sanctions are restricted to individuals.

Now for the kicker. I have a beautiful fabric from Guatemala that I have wrapped around a nice sheet of parchment paper and decorated with a bolo tie and several colorful and shiny pins that have messages on them about the importance of learning, cooperation and diversity. The paper contains a short inspirational statement about my belief in the positive value of sharing between human beings and that, the human family is, in fact, "one nation, one people, one world". That is my "scroll". And, it sits on the table of the group that earned the highest group grade from the previous class session. (It does carry a small reward: two extra credit points on any item handed in on that day.)

I know this sounds counter-intuitive and impossible, if not corny, but, I have always been amazed at how much kids believe in the "scroll" and pursue winning it with such fervor. It is a point of pride amongst the motivated students to know that your group is special, that you have bonded and realized your mission. Actually, that is probably something that is coveted by all of us. And it sure works for the students in my classes.

How many times a week do I hear this: "Oh, look, we got the scroll.!" The underperforming kid is usually the one who picks it up and uses it as a badge to needle his friends, as in: "Look what good forturne just smiled on me." But, of course, any gloating is short-lived because yesterday is so yesterday in terms of learning, and you can bet that I am actively searching for that one excellent--and different--group to win the scroll for today's work.

So, groups generally try hard to work together, get everyone involved and participating because they understand that I put the highest value on cooperative performance as opposed to individual performance. The group that best exemplifies this earns the highest daily score, has the scroll on their table when class begins and becomes a kind of model that other groups look to in terms of improving their own performance.

In this way, I begin the process of getting kids to think in terms of each other, cooperation and success measured by group performance instead of being a bunch of atomized pupils hoping to keep themselves afloat in an anonymous class setting.

The overall effect really is remarkable. And remember, the daily points are only part of the participation grade--not the entire grade. I have other tricks for filling out the remainder of the participation grade, but even at that, it is only 1/3 of a student's overall grade, so no one is going to live or die based on being in one group, with one set of partners for one or two weeks. That's key: everyone gets to work with everyone, and anyone can rise in this system simply by doing their work and participating, even if, as a shy student, their biggest contribution is only centered around two other people.

So, far from being a millstone which determines a student's academic standing, the cooperative group format, kept light and lively by a teacher's sense of play and humor, is simply a way to organize student effort, focus their attention and keep their people skills always moving forward. The content learning is happening in multiple ways, constantly reinforced by the language and terms used in small group discussions. Meanwhile, the people skills blossom below the radar screen, and most students are not even conscious that it is happening.

I want to suspend here for today and let readers digest this much. But, this series will continue with my next entry as I refine the pedagogy around group activities and continue to discuss the cooperative strategies I employ.

We're just getting started here. And trust me: I would never send you out with this methodology and pedagogy without explaining the pitfalls, sharp corners and bottle-necks. So, hang in, hang on and come back for Part II--whenever that may be...

Hey, and invite someone into the conversation already! We're trying to grow a website here that is open-source, free and dedicated to excellence in public instruction. If you're down with that, life a finger and invite a friend.