221+Agenda+-+10.31.13

Whadya Think?
Post questions, comments, ideas to discuss based on your professional engagement research on Discussion-Based Instruction.

**In your comment, please pose a question that arose directly from at least two resources you accessed in preparation. Refer to the resources in your comment.**

(To post - 1) Sign in, 2) Click "edit", 3) Type your entry, 4) Sign your post (three tildes ~), 5) Click "save")

Cooperative learning promotes social interaction between students and if practiced effectively can form a social support group for all students. My personal favorite thing about collaborative learning is that it takes students’ differences, which normally has negative connotation, and uses them to its advantage. Differing viewpoints provides greater and broader insight into a topic. It also helps to develop a more thorough thesis from group discussion that satisfies all members of the group. Cooperative learning allows teachers to instantly give feedback and assess the students and helps students to feel that they are valuable and matter more when it comes to the operation of everyday class. With respect to introverts, this may not be the most effective teaching method. But with that being said you can provide a possible pair and share method as an introduction to these group discussions to make all students more comfortable. user:treuter2

Cooperative learning is a good tool to promote interaction among students in a classroom. Sometimes cooperative learning is essential for students to develop a social bond in their classes. I think cooperative learning can be a very effective teaching technique because students are working together in a way they would not typically. Teachers can give students feedback which can be very useful. Students are offered the opportunity to provide valuable contributions to class work that may not be shared in an individual assignment. I like cooperative learning because students share their ideas and thinking with others that they usually do not. In a math class I think cooperative learning could be dangerous if students are sharing the wrong ideas with others. It is important to make sure each group is on task in a math classroom using a cooperative learning technique. user:emilys932

Cooperative learning is a great way to increase a sense of camaraderie in the classroom and allow students to work in a different setting than they are used to. Working in groups can be beneficial for a few reasons, one being that students are no longer just constricted to their own ideas, when working with groups students will be exposed to many different points of view (as long as the classroom has the right open environment) and it can help them to think differently about a topic. Cooperative learning can also help students to learn the correct ways to work in groups which can be very beneficial in their future lives, and careers. I know that Susan Cain argues that Cooperative learning is not necessarily beneficial for introverts, but I believe that whether you love being surrounded by people, or absolutely hate it, it's very important that everyone goes into the world with the skills to work well with others and voice their opinions strongly and confidently, and cooperative learning is a great way to do that. Labs are a great place for cooperative learning in a science classroom, I think it's really important that students work together when developing hypotheses and performing experiments. user:mheckman12

Cooperative learning is an essential tool for any classroom. Promoting interaction among students can help students participate in a way that they would not normally do under Direct Instruction or Text Based. Much like Discussion based learning, each individual students has an opportunity to add valuable information or outlooks on the class activity. Though all of the sharing can be a great learning tool, it can also have the potential to have a detrimental effect on learning if students are sharing an incorrect piece of information while writing it off as the truth. The class could possibly get stuck into thinking a certain way and that would dismantle the goals and knowledge that the teacher has been working towards. My question in regards to Cooperative Learning is how much freedom in group work is too much freedom? user:awestby11

Cooperative learning is a good way to have students learn more within a lesson. Having a group of students work together to form insights and share thoughts is a great way to better understand concepts. Having students that work at different paces and who are at different levels work together in the same group can be effective in the way that students can learn from each other. However, negative aspects of this could include some students not participating within the group while the other students give all the input and the whole group gets credit. I feel like cooperative learning is very similar to discussion based learning in the way that you form your ideas in groups first and then come back together with the entire class to share what you've learned. I think cooperative learning would work better if the lesson is taught thoroughly. The students need to understand the lesson before forming anymore ideas concerning the lesson. Otherwise I think the students could cooperatively come up with the wrong ideas concerning the lesson. I think you need to make sure the students have the understanding of the lesson before letting them go off into their groups to talk about it more. user:victoria_m1

In my opinion, Cooperative learning at least in my experience has tended to be more negative than positive. However, I believe when done correctly and effectively it can have a tremendous impact. I don't always think it is beneficial to put students in groups based on ability. I've never been a huge fan of that method. I think when a variety of different leveled students work together it can push students, which can be a good thing. To me Cooperative Learning sounds like a mixture of a group project, and discussion based lesson. Cooperative Learning would probably be best in a subject such as Science, where students can work together in a hands on setting. I can also see how it could work in a disciple like English or History though, by breaking the class into smaller groups, almost like discussion groups. user:Christina_R1

I find it exciting that cooperative learning is the new leading approach to classroom instruction (according to “The Essential Elements of Cooperative Learning in the Classroom”). Recent studies have shown that cooperative learning in diverse school settings has had very positive effects. Cooperative learning has resulted in higher test scores, improved social skills, greater cooperation between different ethnic and racial groups, higher self-esteem, and greater understanding of the academic material. We’ve learned in our “Teaching in the Middle School” course that middle school students learn well best when they interact their peers. They do not want to listen to adults talk at them all day long; they want to talk with each other. If teachers can keep the students on-task with a fascinating lesson, then student cooperative learning could be profound. user:julia1286

Cooperative learning, in my experience, has been helpful in every single subject I've taken. Looking at it from a teacher's standpoint, I see many good outcomes supporting the use of this teaching strategy. First off, it is a great opportunity for students to interact with other peers and to grow socially. I also think that this is an amazing opportunity for differentiation. By mixing up students with different skill levels in this environment, you will allow the higher-learners to help the lower-learners while also reinforcing their own knowledge. When done this way, it is a valuable tool for all subjects. user:jarmour500

I think cooperative learning is really important for kids, especially middle school kids because it really can help kids who don't normally participate, participate and get them involved. Not only is that helpful for the classroom, but it is also very helpful for the students social lives and it gives them confidence to speak their minds in public and not be absolutely horrified what other people think. There are problem with cooperative learning though, and that could be one student really wants a good grade while the other just wants to pass. Some students will put in way more effort than other students in cooperative learning and that isn't fair because most of the time they receive the same grade. It is really hard to tell who in the group is working and who in the group is slacking off just trying to tack on to the student giving all the effort. This is an important tactic of teaching though because students seem to learn best while working with other students, so it is a necessary way of teaching but it must be used in the correct way, or certain kids will be working way to hard, while others just coast by. user:pauljm12

As I reflect upon what I read and what I watched on cooperative learning, it brings me back to how my high school robotics team was run. The students had the area(s) they wished to be proficient in, and pre-season a student worked with the group of people with similar interests. However, when it came down to the build season, teams of students from all areas of proficiency were together. Their goal was to complete their assigned part of the robot, and make sure that it also worked with the other parts that the other teams were building. So not only were they cooperating within a specific discipline, they were cooperating on a smaller project that built into a larger one. As someone who, upon reflection, sees that my personal learning style incorporates a lot of cooperative learning, I want to take what I know and what I learn to a classroom and help other students learn. I feel that for some students, environments like this are the only social interaction they receive, and even then it can be touch and go. user:ElizabethB0

Cooperative Learning comes across to me as perhaps the most difficult and challenging teaching style we have studied thus far. There are so many moving parts if you will, and much success relies on proper preparation. Good Preparation for Cooperative Learning starts with not only knowing content and establishing a clear achievable goal for the lesson, but also knowing your students. One must know their students so they know how to appropriately assign students into groups and set them up for success. In my opinion, groups of three to four students are best with a mix of sexes and ethnicities. Uniting diversity into one encourages students to learn from one another, broadening horizons and opening one's eyes in a healthy way. So, with a well-stated goal and good group placements, students can learn through jig-saw activities or activities that spilt the kids in half providing students on one side to discuss one perspective of an argument, and the other group of students to discuss the other. When doing this, it is essential to understand why Cooperative Learning is different from typical group work. This is true because group work typically only acknowledges what the large group as a whole does. There is only one grade and a group's work can be considered a success if only extraverts dominant the workload. Yet, in Cooperative Learning everyone must contribute for success. There is more individuality accounted for here. This is a much more relaxed, welcoming environment for introverts that inspires such students to participate more. Thus, in all I do have great interest in Cooperative Learning. This largely is because it is a constructivist style and I enjoy that because I believe it helps students maintain information and knowledge for longer periods of time because they are making connections on their own. Although, this will be difficult to achieve as much time, thought, and attention to detail must be given for such a lesson to pay off. user:rercoliRobert E

-7:45-8:00: Library -MSP School Data -Students' Reading Data -Classroom Use of Data -8:00-8:45: Rotations 1. Creating Your Own Classroom data (15 min) 2. Student Growth Data (15 min) 3. Early Warning System (15 min)
 * 7:40 - 8:45 - Garry Middle School - Common Core Training**


 * 8:50-9:15- Close up shop at Garry and Travel back to GU**

1. What did you learn? 2. How could you imagine using these systems as a teacher? 3. Questions it raised?
 * 9:15 - 10:00 - Debrief Garry Experience with John**


 * 10:00 - 10:10 - Review (Christine)**
 * Notetaker - Robert
 * Photographer - Miranda
 * Reviewer - Emily

__Christine Review for Thursday October 24__

-What are you going to be for Halloween? -Max Review- Heads Up 7 Up -Teaching Demos: Jackie, Tyler, and Christina -Discussion Based Learning -edTPA- 3 Tasks

10:10-10:15- EdTPA questions? -Classes for Next Year? -How wil we prepare? -This will happen during student teaching -Practice round with all the tasks before student teaching through classes

1**0:15 - 10:25 - Discuss Cooperative Learning**
 * Generate a list of management considerations

__What is good?__ -Discussion Based, encourages participation of all students, hopefully students are engaged -Individual aspect to it, everyone must put in effort to achieve -Grows/ blends social aspects of all students -Includes students who may feel socially excluded -Students generally like to work with peers -Can be helpful to teach other students- power of teaching -Group Interdependence -Collaboration skills -Chance for students to energy/ let some energy out

__What is not so good? (Potential Breakdowns)__ -Students might want to talk/ hang on (Off Task) -Group Dynamics -Disadvantages of ability grouping, can limit variety of perspectives -Single rider, one man show -Students must be prepared -Introverts/ students uncomfortable

-Given parts- examples/ non-examples -Look fors -Cooperative learning doesn’t work by accident -See if students are excited and on task -Not strategy, but what you do -Tasks that are worth doing -Teacher must be a model of behavior and discussion skills and expectations -Can’t assume students don’t know how to work in groups -High maintenance for the teacher -Tie it up so whole experience is brought together
 * 10:25-10:35- Rubric **


 * Housekeeping:**
 * **CL activity guide due on Thursday**
 * **Teaching demos:**
 * **1.Sam**
 * **2.Victoria**
 * **3.Robert**