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4. tEAcHIng mEtHodoLogy
skills. Collaborative skills include leader-
ship, decision making, communication, trust
building, and conflict management.
5. Group Processing: Groups need specific
time to discuss how well they are achieving
their goals and maintaining effective work-
ing relationships among members, Group
processing can be accomplished by asking
students to complete such tasks as: (a) List
at least three member actions that helped the
group be successful, or (b) List one action
that could be added to make the group even
more successful tomorrow. Instructors also
monitor the groups and give feedback on
how well the groups are working together
to the groups and the class as a whole.
Cooperative learning is a formalized active learn-
ing structure involves students working together
in small groups to accomplish shared learning
goals and to maximize their own and each other's
learning. Their work indicates that students exhibit
a higher level of individual achievement, develop
more positive interpersonal relationships, and
achieve greater levels of academic self-esteem
when participating in a successful cooperative
learning environment (Johnson, et al., 1991;
Johnson, et al., 1992).
However, cooperation is more than being
physically near other students, discussing mate-
rial with other students, helping others, or sharing
materials amongst a group, and instructors must
be careful when implementing cooperative learn-
ing in the classroom. For a cooperative learning
experience to be successful, it is essential that the
following five elements be integrated into the ac-
tivity (Johnson, et al., 1991; Johnson, et al., 1992)
When including cooperative learning in the
classroom, the instructor should do so after care-
ful planning. Also, the students may be more
receptive to the experience if the instructor shares
some thoughts about cooperative learning and the
benefits to be gained by the activity.
In our classes, the students should be able to
do group work ; in fact much of the assessment
takes the form of performance presentations
in which two students from each group act as
directors in a given week. The remaining group
members are just helping, so it is important
that they have reliable access to the directions
in advance of each week's performance. The
student's on-line collaboration can work on their
joint presentations at a distance from each other.
I have to oversee the group interactions to check
that groups weren't copying from each other and
to ensure that directions were posted on time, so
I helped to set that up.
It should be noted that there is a big differ-
ence from one module to another. So in modules
where the tutor has told the students that they will
log-on to the on-line discussion at such and such
a time and they give replies and responses to the
student's exchange - then you see the majority
of students participating.
1. Positive Interdependence: Students per-
ceive that they need each other in order to
complete the group task.
2. Face-to-Face Interaction: Students pro-
mote each others' learning by helping,
sharing, and encouraging efforts to learn.
Students explain, discuss, and teach what
they know to classmates. Groups are physi-
cally structured (i.e., around a small table)
so that students sit and talk through each
aspect of the assignment.
3. Individual Accountability: Each student's
performance is frequently assessed, and
the results are given to the group and the
individual. Giving an individual test to each
student or randomly selecting one group
member to give the answer accomplishes
individual accountability.
4. Interpersonal and Small Group Skills:
Groups cannot function effectively if stu-
dents do not have and use the required social
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