Discussion Group around Cooperative Learning
Teams Improve Learning
Posted July 25th, 2008 by Peter HenryThe new issue of the NEA Higher Education publication, The Advocate, has a very good and comprehensive article about the use of "team-based learning" in collegiate settings. (The online site is here.)
Readers should be aware, I am very big on the importance of what I have always called "cooperative groups", but which, I will now call "team-based learning", for which I offer an apology to the brothers Johnson at the University of Minnesota, who have done so much to foster cooperative learning over the decades.
You know, you take the same basic concepts and dress them up with a new name and, in America, you can really make some things happen!
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Learning by Explaining
Posted February 6th, 2008 by smillerThere is some interesting research out that confirms some of the things that Mr. H has been expounding on at this site.
Namely: when young people "explain" what it is that they are learning, it helps them to master the material. In other words, all that time spent in cooperative groups, reworking the concepts, occasionally cluing other students in, does actually help kids retain what is being taught.
I saw the article in Education Week: Learning From Explaining: Does It Matter If Mom Is Listening.
Here is the key graf:
read more »How Do People Learn?
Posted December 19th, 2007 by Peter HenryThose of us in education need to come to terms with this question, and in a major way.
Right now, the operative theory is that people learn by, well, a kind of enforced magical osmosis. Public schools put teachers in front of groups of 20-30 young people, sorted by age, and then give them a specific body of content that the teacher is to, what?, instill into their brains by a series of clever, or not so clever, activities--including lecture, reading, inquiry, experimentation, discussion--all lorded over by the threat of evaluation.
read more »Teaching Special Needs
Posted December 3rd, 2007 by arw1124I'm in one of my first education classes at ECU and we are supposed to write about something that bothers us about the new teaching standards. I'm not really sure if this is what number 2 of the standards is implying but I heard that they were trying to put special needs students into a regular classroom setting in order to get them socially prepared for life outside the classroom. This, to me, does not seem like a good idea because this will slow down the rest of the class. However, I do believe that they should get some interaction with students that don’t require special attention.
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Life Lesson Teachers
Posted November 11th, 2007 by Shelley YoungWhen I signed up for classes this semester, my major was Theatre Education. To make a long story short, or possibly not so short, all Theatre Ed. majors have to take two directing classes (in order) before going into their Senior 1 and 2 semesters. To get in the first directing class, you must be approved, and a junior. After being approved, added into the class, and have analyzed approximately 7 plays (two weeks into school), the student must take an analysis test. And what does this analysis test DO you ask?
read more »Cooperative Groups: Cooperation and Competition
Posted November 6th, 2007 by Peter HenryAll 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.
read more »First Responsibility of a Teacher: Create a Learning Community
Posted October 30th, 2007 by Peter HenryThere are a lot of myths about cooperative learning. Most of them disparage the technique as being "socialistic", or of "bringing everyone down" to the level of average, or of keeping good students from being able to earn the high grades they deserve.
I don't see any of these things, and I have used cooperative learning techniques for almost 20 years. Moreover, it has to be said: the most basic responsibility of any educator is to create a respectful, functioning, focussed classroom atmosphere, where learning about the subject at hand is the central concern.
To that end, in my experience, there is no better pedagogical approach than cooperative learning.
read more »What is cooperative learning?
Posted September 7th, 2007 by Peter HenryA lot of teachers think they use cooperative learning when, in fact, they are just doing group work. Cooperative learning, or even just the use of cooperative groups, is more complicated and rich than simply seating kids in a group, giving them a task and hoping for the best.
Here's a good basic synopsis of the elements that need to be present in a cooperative learning situation:
read more »Discussion Group Around Cooperative Learning
Posted August 25th, 2007 by Peter HenryHi everybody!
Here' the truth: my first year of teaching, I was an enthusiastic, fun, bright but lousy teacher. I had all kinds of energy, I loved trying to lead kids, I felt good when I tasted success, but by the end of the year I felt like a total failure.
Why?
Because, while kids generally liked me (except Lori Taylor who lowered an anti-Mr. Henry message on a string from the class on the floor above), I did not know how to constructively organize them around learning tasks.
If you get nothing else from this website, take this to heart: successful teaching consists in organizing students constructively around tasks, procedures and routines, so that their energy is channelled toward inquiry, collaboration and skill enhancement.
It is my firm conviction that the absolute best way to do this is to use cooperative groups. Every. Single. Day. That's what I have done now for 19 of my 20 years, (as I say, my first year I did not know what I was doing) and out of every trick and strategy I learned as an educator, none has been more important, more vital, more instrumental to my success than using cooperative groups.
I will detail for you the way, the methods and the means that I have used cooperative groups. My particular strategies and techniques may or may not work for you. I also believe that every teacher has to try to figure for themselves what techniques, strategies and pedagogy "fits" with their unique personality, so I would never say: "Do it the way that I do it."
On the other hand, every strategy, technique, trick and activity that I currently use, I have borrowed from someone else. True. I learned all this from other teachers. So, steal, and steal often what works for you.
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