What is cooperative learning?
Cooperative learning is a strategy
that is used to have students work collectively together. There are various elements that are included
into cooperative learning, such as positive independence, individual
accountability, face-to-face interaction, interpersonal skills, and group processing. According
to Teacher Vision, “Cooperative learning is a successful teaching
strategy in which small teams, each with students of different ability levels,
use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a
subject. Each member of a team is responsible, not only for learning what is
taught, but also for helping his or her teammates learn—thus creating an
atmosphere of achievement” (p.1). Through cooperative learning, students are
learning how to work together as a team and by them sharing their thoughts,
they are learning how to take turns and building upon their social skills. The
goal for cooperative learning is for the teacher to motivate the students and
have them work together to complete the task. Planning
When Lindsay and I were planning our
cooperative
lesson, we wanted the fourth grade students to be engaged and working
together as a team. However we wanted them to know what it was like to fulfill
a role and how important it is to stay on top of the role they were given. After
seeing how engaged the students were with the iPads and the web-based Voki
project, we thought the students would love to create their own newspapers on a
cause that lead to the American Revolution. We decide that the students could
pick what event they wanted to do and from what perspective they are going to
write it from. The students were going to be divided into groups of five and
each group will have five different roles. It was important that the students worked
individually on their role they were assigned and then collaborate together as
a group. Lindsay and I thought it was important to take notes on the students
performance during this time and if they stay on task or not. When the students
finished their newspapers, they watched a GoAnimate Presentation Tip video that
could help them learn how to present when they talk in front of the class. It
was important that for this lesson the students did not fool around, laugh and
ask each other in front of the classroom when they are presenting. Lindsay and
I thought that they should share with the class what event they chose, why they
chose it, and how they may be persuading a reader to join their side. Having
the students share their newspapers opens up ideas for the class and allows
them to see what their peers did and how they went about it. Lindsay and I also
believed that they should evaluate themselves and their group members. It is
important for students to see what they could improve upon next time and what
worked out the best for their teamwork.
Implementation
Lindsay and I will present four pictures that will activate the student’s prior knowledge about the content of the American Revolution. The students will be asked to hold thumbs up if they agree with their peers statement or thumbs down if they do not agree with the statement and then they will explain why. The students will be asked what it means to be a team player and the expected responses Lindsay and I are looking for are team players work together, listen to each other’s ideas, and contribute to the work. The students will then watch the GoAnimate video that is on Presentation Tips, which will help the students when they present their project later on. This was important for the students to see because when the fourth graders presented their Voki’s on Wednesday, they did not have the proper skills. After the students watch this video, I will ask them what the four tips are and then say, “Excellent, today, you are going to need to take what you know about the causes of the American Revolution and teamwork skills to create a newspaper that could have been circulated at the time of the Revolution.”
The students will then be placed into pre-assigned groups, which
will be five groups of five and one group of six. Each group will create a
newspaper that could have been circulated during the time of the causes leading
to the American Revolution. During his time, both the British and the colonists
were trying to persuade people to join their side, therefore the fourth graders
had to write their newspaper to persuade someone to join their side for a
specific event. During this time, Lindsay and I will use the PowerPoint presentation to show the
students an example of how a newspaper is designed and that all newspapers have
different layouts. This was a good
visual example for the students before they started to create their newspapers.
Lindsay will show the students a model of our newspaper we created and explain
the roles we took when creating it. Lindsay then explained to the fourth
graders the rubric that they will be follow for their newspaper project. The
students will then be introduced to the five group roles of the newspaper
article, such as the editor (leader), reporter (writer), fact-checker
(researcher), photographer (drawer), and designer. Lindsay and I will explain
to the students that we will be circulating throughout the room to ensure that
everyone is doing their individual role and that they are following the
cooperative expectations. At the end of the lesson, the students had to fill
out an evaluation sheet for themselves and their group members. Now the students will have the opportunity
to go into their assigned groups and choose who will take on each role for the
newspaper. The group of six students will have two reporters and each reporter
should work individually and then they could work together.
Each group will practice for a
couple minutes of what each group member will say during their group
presentation. It is very important for the students to remember the
presentation tips that were announced in the beginning of the lesson. To wrap
up the lesson, each group will share their newspaper to the class. Once every
group presents their newspaper, the groups will come back together and discuss
ideas on what they could improve on next time and why it is important to do so.
For independent practice, each student will be given a constructed-response
worksheet. The student will need to consider an event from another group and
write a paragraph justifying why that event was appropriate for the group to
persuade people to join their side. The students will be a rubric on the back
of this worksheet that the students can refer to if needed.
Reflection
For the introduction, the students
were given political cartoons and they were asked various questions about them.
At this point, the students
are used to looking at pictures of the American Revolution and telling Lindsay
and I what event it is and what happened. However in this lesson, we wanted
more than just that; I pushed the students to describe more and tell me how
both sides felt. The political cartoons were different than just pictures from
events, even though it was the same concept. As students stated their ideas,
the rest of the students had to put thumbs up if they agreed with what their
classmate was saying or thumbs down it they did not agree. This allowed me to
see where everyone was with the political cartoon. If a student had their thumb
down, I would ask them why they do not agree and sometimes they were correct,
or they were just confused. This allowed the students to actively participate
and this also helped them pay attention. The political cartoons effectively
promoted the students’ thinking about the content they have learned and it
motivated them to raise their hand to be called on to answer the questions. I
noticed that in this lesson introduction, the students that did not participate
regularly started to raise their hands and seemed to feel more confident with
their comments regarding the political cartoon. When the students watched the GoAnimate presentation tips video,
they found it very funny, however they were paying attention. Once the video
was over, the students were asked to repeat the rules for presenting and they
knew all of them. From the previous lesson the students were laughing,
slouching and not speaking loud and clear when they were presenting their
Voki’s. The GoAnimate video led to great results later in the lesson and I
believe that it motivated students to practice and use these tips when they
were presenting today. When the students had to present their newspapers, the
students all improved on their presentation skills. I can see that
reminding the students how to present, did improve their presentations today.
The students were motivating each other within the group and broke down who was
going to talk and what they were going to talk about for their group
presentation.
By reviewing the rubric it helped the fourth graders understand
what we are looking for in their newspapers and how they should go about doing
it. By explaining to them the task step by step, it decreased the amount of
questions asked during the assignment and also allowed the students to think
what they should be doing for their specific role. The students were allowed to
pick their roles; my partner and I thought it would be beneficial for the
students to pick their roles, since everyone has different skills and talents.
Telling the fourth graders what we expect them to get on the rubric, allowed
the to display their higher level thinking and many students were thinking more
creatively. When the students began to start their newspaper, many of them were
trying to think of creative facts, captions, and titles. The students were very
excited they were getting paper that had tea dye on it with burnt edges from
fire. The fourth graders were all engaged at all times during this activity and
kept referring back to the rubric that was given to them in their group folder. Each group member got the
opportunity to select the roles they wanted in this assignment. Lindsay and I
thought it would be best for this project that each student got to pick the
role they wanted within their group. Instead of group members arguing because
they wanted to switch with someone else, by having the students pick what they
wanted, they couldn’t complain as much. Since the students picked their
assigned roles, they were more likely to succeed and complete their personal
role. In the groups that I observed, every student was working on his or her
particular role and sometimes they would make suggestions to another group
member about their role. Each student increased their individual accountability
for their personal role and completing this assignment as a group. When the fourth graders were creating their newspapers,
they had twenty-five minutes to finish and then each group had to present their
newspaper to the class. By providing a rubric for the newspaper, the students
were able to check and make sure that they included everything. The rubric was
a guideline for each group to make sure they have enough detail, title,
pictures, etc. for their newspaper. There was a timer on the SmartBoard in
front of the classroom, which allowed the students to keep track of how they
are managing their time during his assignment. I believe the timer helped most
groups stay self-regulated and motivated to finish their role in the group.
However there was one group that kept getting side tracked and I needed to
remind them to keep their eyes on the timer because they need to finish their
newspaper and then present it to the class. The students were encouraged to
take responsibility for their own role and make sure their group members are
staying on task.
The observation checklist helped me see the social skills
within each group. This checklist allowed me to be organized when I monitored
the student’s progress toward meeting their goal for social interaction. This
checklist also made it easy for me to keep track of all the students completing
their work and if they are staying on task or not. It was important for this
assignment that the students worked together as a team and communicated with
each other. Many groups were exchanging ideas for the layout of the newspaper
and their thoughts on what the newspaper should be about. This observation
checklist allowed me to keep track of all the students’ work in progress for
the newspaper assignment. Having an observation checklist also is useful
because I could go back and see how a student did or remind myself what
happened during the group work when grading the newspaper assignment.
Thank you for reading,
Works Cited
What
Is Cooperative Learning, and What Does It Do? (n.d.). Retrieved March 14, 2015,
from https://www.teachervision.com/cooperative-learning/teaching-methods/48448.html
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