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Cooperative Learning Groups & Activities

 

Everyone's talking about Cooperative Learning Groups, where students work together and practice team-building skills while they are learning.  Why do we use Cooperative Learning Groups?  

Our room gets messy! The kids get noisy!  Why do it?!

 

Cooperative Learning Groups actually create an atmosphere of cooperation because they are based on team-building.  There is not one answer.  There are just as many reasons to do cooperative learning groups as there are activities.  Here are a few:

 

  • Prepares students to communicate in the "real world"

  • Develops oral communication skills

  • Improves students recall of "text context" in reading

  • Creates an environment of student centered learning

  • Enables use of problem solving techniques

  • Weaker students improve when paired with higher students

 

 

 

Some examples of Collaborative Learning Activities include:

  • Think-Ink-Pair-Share - this activity invoves explaining answers/ideas to another student.  The teacher poses a question to the class.  The students write their responses, and then share it with a student nearby.  The students have the opportunity to clarify their positions.  The teacher can use students' answers to illustrate important  points or facilitate a whole class discussion.​

  • Think-Aloud-Pair-Problem-Solving (TAPPS) - this activity is a problem solving activity where students work in pairs and take turns being the "solver" and the "listener."  The team is given a problem to solve.  The "solver" talks through their reasoning process as they solve a problem.  The "listener" encourages the "solver" to think aloud and asks for clarification as needed.  When the pair solves their given problem, they alternate roles to solve a new problem.

  • Jigsaw Classroom - in this activity, each student is assigned a jigsaw group (home group).  The day's lesson is divided into three segments, the number of students in each jigsaw group (it will vary with each class).  If it is a social studies lesson about Martin Luther King, each student in the jigsaw group will be given a specific portion of his life to learn about.  The students who are given "childhood" will all go to their group to research and discuss their topic. The other two groups will be given different topics.  When the groups have worked together with their individual groups to become familiar with their topic, they will return to their jigsaw group to share what they have learned.  The group will now come together with their individual parts, and can work together to write a paper as a cooperative group.​ 

  • Word Wall - This can be used for any subject and can be used with pairs or in a group. Students will be asked to come up with as many ideas as possible on a particular topic, and document them on a piece of blank paper.  When directed, they will be asked to post them somewhere in the classroom so that all of the students' responses will be seen.  Students can peruse the responses or each group can come up one by one to share their responses.

  • Cool Down - Have each of the students write down some of the important lessons they remember learning that day. Then give each student a chance to share one point to the group.

  • Numbered Heads Together is a cooperative strategy where the teacher asks a question and then calls on one of the students with a raised hand. In the Numbered Heads Together approach, the teacher has students number off from one to four, for example. She reads a question, and then tells the students to “put their heads together” to develop a complete answer to the question. When the teacher calls out a number, the students in each group with that number raise their hands to respond. This type of learning strategy facilitates collaboration while at the same time promoting individual accountability. It also gives confidence to lower achievers because they know they will have the correct answer to give to the class.

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