Many teachers try to pass off group work as cooperative
learning, but they are two different things. Group work usually ends up being a
group of people each doing their own thing next to someone else how is doing
the same thing. In cooperative learning, everyone learns and works together.
When students work in cooperative groups, they strive to
reach a certain task or goal together. The whole group is needed to reach that
goal – everyone has a role. Roles are just one part of cooperative learning
groups. It allows each person in the group to have something to contribute,
whether they are gathering materials, monitoring time, or writing down notes.
But the weight of those roles may vary, creating the illusion that everyone is
participating, but some people are still contributing more than others. One way
to combat this is to rotate roles, which we experienced in groups. We had a
stack of questions in which one person’s role was to fan the questions, one
person picked and read the question, another answered the question, and the
last person cheered them on and praised their answer. Some roles required more
effort than others, but we rotated so that everyone had a chance at every role
and to participate.
We also got to experience cooperative learning in which our
group had to reach a common goal together. We did an activity called “Let’s
Make Squares” where each of the four people in our group was given 3 strips of
colored paper, each of us having a different color. We had to make a certain
number of squares using all of the strips, but we could only touch our own
color. This required us to communicate with our group members and relied on each
other’s participation in order to reach our goal.
This experience made it very clear to me the difference
between cooperative learning and group work. Sure, students might like the idea
of working together on an assignment, but really, they are each doing their own
work and aren’t getting the full experience of learning from each other. Cooperative
learning takes a lot of planning and preparation, but it’s worth it to get
students to work together and learn from each other.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about the difference between group work & cooperative learning. Normally in group work there will always be students who sit back and let other members of the group do all the work. I think cooperative learning is a great way to ensure that all members are equally contributing. I think this would be a helpful tool to use in any class, regardless of the content area.