Tools+for+Effective+Cooperative+Learning

New technology and research can help teachers solve old challenges of cooperative learning. Pitler recommends a positive interdependence among group members in which all “sink or swim” together. Such a structure simultaneously motivates students and promotes helping skills and cooperation. However, in my experience as an educator, I have always been concerned about using such an interdependent structure because of the social consequences I feared a student might suffer to seeming to make the team fail.

Pitler’s recommendations on cooperative learning paired with Spencer Kagan’s (1994) specific group structures provide strategies that would help prevent a sense of group failure while still fostering positive interdependence. Kagan’s classroom-based strategies, like “think-pair-share” and “team pair solo” give students a chance to process information together as it is learned. Following Pitler’s recommendation to “combine cooperative learning with other classroom structures,” (Pitler 140) Kagan’s strategies can be followed or combined with longer group projects.

A single learning unit should include a variety of structures and strategies. By combining classroom cooperative structures with computer-based structures, a teacher can move through several group structures in a class period. For a recent project on mood in my classroom, students engaged in a think-pair-share on different types of moods, then worked in small groups to brainstorm settings, stories, and synonyms related to specific moods. After thinking together, they completed independent posters on edu.glogster.com. Finally, they proofread together through the website’s messaging system and created a group portfolio before we reviewed them all together as a class. Students were creative together and on their own, but were still ultimately responsible for each other.

I would like to incorporate some of the more long-term cooperative learning projects suggested by Pitler, which would require more interdependence. Creating a product is a satisfying experience that can be made more powerful by including an interpersonal element.

Pitler, H., Hubbel, E., Kuhn, M., &Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 139-154.