What is Cooperative Learning?
"Cooperative Learning is a relationship in a group of students that
requires positive interdependence (a sense of sink or swim together), individual
accountability (each of us has to contribute and learn), interpersonal
skills (communication, trust, leadership, decision making, and conflict
resolution), face-to-face promotive interaction, and processing (reflecting
on how well the team is functioning and how to function even better)."
[Johnson and Johnson] To me, the biggest difference between cooperative
learning and old-fashioned "group work" is the structures. In cooperative
learning, the teacher/leader provides structures to insure cooperation
for that event and to teach behaviors that will lead to cooperation in
other situations.
Where can I learn more about Cooperative Learning?
The two leading expert organizations in the field of Cooperative Learning are The Cooperative Learning Center at The University of Minnesota (led by Roger T. Johnson and David W. Johnson) and Kagan Publishing and Professional Development (led by Spencer Kagan). I am personally more familiar with Kagan because that is what I learned through professional development workshops at The Lamplighter School where I taught for 21 years. For acquiring information on the topic on your own, The Cooperative Learning Center is a non-profit organization and much of their information is available on-line. Kagan Publishing and Professional Development probably has more materials available in a wider and deeper variety of fields and applications. But at Kagain Publishing, you have to buy the books.
A real nice overview of Cooperative Learning that compares Kagan and the Johnsons is on the "Active Learning Center" web page. I know nothing of this group and most of their links don't work, but the overview of cooperative learning is great!
The Kagan website has "a bucketload" of pages that can't be accessed through a specific URL...lots of clicking on the right buttons. So I've copied the information from three of their pages that I felt were most informative to beginning users of cooperative structures and have linked them below.
10 Most Frequently Asked Questions About Cooperative Learning
Listing of Some Cooperative Structures
Books Available from Kagan Publishing (Note: prices are from Fall 2000)
This chart lists some of the structures we've used in class and describes ways you might be able to use it in your classes. I will update this chart throughout the semester. Please help me out and remind me if I forget an activity or if you can think of other applications.
| Which
structure(s) were used |
What we did | Purpose | Other applications/ benefits of this structure |
| Swap 'n Stop
Line Up (or Loop) |
Everyone filled out an index about themselves. We walked around and "swapped" cards, then when we stopped. One person called out the name on his/her card, that person came and stood next to person #1. Person #2 called out the name on his/her card, etc. until someone had Person #1 on their card and that was the loop. Then we went around the loop and told a fact about the person who was on our card. | Our purpose was to simply get to know more about each other. | If you're studying the presidents of the United States, create index
cards for each president. Swap, then stop. Students arrange themselves
in chronological order of the presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson,
Madison,...).
Swap 'n Stop is also an effective cooperative structure to use with
Mix 'n Match. (Do Swap 'n Stop to do the "mixing" then the students find
their match.):
|