When I go back and reflect on our last class, the things I remember most are the activities we performed. As I said in class, while professor was explaining the instructions for the "Let's make squares" activity, I became totally lost. I would have asked her to repeat the instructions (which I am sure everyone would have loved), but because I knew we were working in teams, I decided that I would trust my group to let them explain it again to me. I feel like the idea of TRUST is a huge concept in regards to cooperative learning, and it was evident throughout that entire activity. I had to trust my three partners that they will all adequately perform their assigned roles in order to achieve our goal. I had no say in what role they were given, how they should perform it, or critique what they were doing wrong. I simply performed my own role, and trusted that we would each work to the best of out abilities within our assigned roles. Without trust, the group wouldn't perform effectively.
I feel like this is said constantly in our classroom, and in the education field in general, but teachers absolutely MUST know their students extremely well before implementing co-op learning into their classroom. I was thinking before this blog about my 2nd lesson I am going to teach this week, and thought quickly about a co-op learning activity, but shut it down immediately. I have no idea which students would work well with whom, nor the strengths/weaknesses of the class. I essentially, don't know which students have the trust of their classmates, and which ones don't. Cooperative learning can be extremely beneficial to use in a classroom at a certain time, but it could also be a train wreck if improperly utilized.
For the times when cooperative learning can be effective in one of my classrooms, I will be very excited and enthusiastic to implement it. It must be so rewarding for the teacher who implements co-op learning, gets heavy student involvement, and walks around the room watching his/her students all working as a group to achieve success. I recall a Daniels and Zemelman chapter that discussed community in the classroom. I believe THAT is community; all students utilizing their strengths as an individual and a blossoming learner on a "team," to overcome a challenge and learn something in the process. It allows students to grow as individuals inside the classroom, in school, and on the biggest stage, the one that we eventually want all of our students to achieve in, SOCIETY.
For the times when cooperative learning can be effective in one of my classrooms, I will be very excited and enthusiastic to implement it. It must be so rewarding for the teacher who implements co-op learning, gets heavy student involvement, and walks around the room watching his/her students all working as a group to achieve success. I recall a Daniels and Zemelman chapter that discussed community in the classroom. I believe THAT is community; all students utilizing their strengths as an individual and a blossoming learner on a "team," to overcome a challenge and learn something in the process. It allows students to grow as individuals inside the classroom, in school, and on the biggest stage, the one that we eventually want all of our students to achieve in, SOCIETY.
Trust is definitely a theme that has been evident in our class this semester. It was something that I had really never thought about in other education classes. Trusting other group members is also something that I noticed, but for different reasons. When working in groups I like to make sure that everyone in the group is participating equally. I sometimes don't like working in groups because some don't put in as much effort or expect others just to do their job. In our class, this was not the case. I really liked working in our groups because everyone contributed equally. This goes along with what you said that we, as teachers, have to know our students and know which work well together and which don't. This can eliminate unequal participation and allow for all students to enjoy cooperative learning.
ReplyDeleteI agree that trusting and knowing your peers is an important aspect of cooperative learning groups. If you don't relate well or trust the people you are working with, it becomes difficult to work together towards a common task. This is not something you can jump right in to at the beginning of the school year. You really have to know your students and they need to know each other.
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