Cooperative learning

Cooperative work has been shown to be a powerful means for learning and developing "high order thinking skills", the thinking skills that lead to meaningful learning. But how can we implement this work methodology in the classroom, without increasing our workload even more?

Here I am to tell you all about it!

Thanks to Vygotsky, we know that the most meaningful learning occurs when there is an interaction, whose main medium is the language, between the learner and an individual who has a certain knowledge about a certain subject; the latter can be the teacher, but also a fellow "expert".

For this reason, in recent years, driven by a competence-based curriculum, teachers have opted for the use of didactic methodologies that favour cooperative learning.

Some Kagan's stuctures

The main characteristics of this type of dynamics are:

- Heterogeneous groups made up of pupils who can contribute with different knowledge and levels of competence, in order to create a final product (not necessarily physical) that is better than what would be generated as a result of an individual work.

- Positive interaction generated by appropriate communication (social and civic competence, communication in mother tongue, or foreign language if in English).

- Individual responsibility demonstrated through a presentation to the class (sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, mother tongue competence, or foreign competence if they are doing it in English, digital competence if they are using the computer to research and present).

- Equal participation through a proportional distribution of the work among the team members.

- Simultaneous interaction of group members, who engage in dialogue to make shared decisions.

- Face-to-face interaction.

As can be seen, there are many competences that can be developed through this work methodology, but... How can it be implemented in the classroom?

The 5 basic structures and the skills 

that learners develop when they use them

Take note of this name: Dr Spencer Kagan. This PhD in psychology was a pioneer in the cooperative learning movement. He has dedicated his life's work to helping educators create more cooperative and interactive lessons that produce smarter, more caring and cooperative learners by designing more than 200 structures that can be incorporated into any lesson without changing a single comma of the work we have already planned. I personally use a few of them, according to my didactic needs and I can corroborate that in addition to facilitating reflection, dialogue and active learning, they are very powerful tools when it comes to motivating and engaging children in whatever subject we decide to deal with in class. As Mr Kagan tells us, there are 5 structures that are most commonly used in the classroom and that we should definitely learn to handle before moving on to the others:

- Rally Robin/table: students take turns in pairs to respond orally/written to a question or problem posed by the teacher.

- Timed, pair, share: in pairs, a pupil shares with a partner their knowledge or ideas on a topic announced by the teacher for a pre-set time, while the partner listens. The pairs then switch roles. Finally, each pair shares their ideas with the rest of the class (optional).

- Round Robin/table: students take turns in their teams to respond orally/written to a question or problem posed by the teacher.

- Rally coach: partners take turns solving successive problems: one solves a problem while the other observes, listens, checks, coaches if necessary and praises.

- Stand up, hand up, pair up: students stand up, raise their hand and quickly find a partner to share or discuss a task, given by the teacher, using Rally Robin or Timed, pair, share structures.

My students use them very often and I can assure you that I always get 100% participation and willingness to share with others, which increases attention and helps meaningful learning processes. 

Have no doubt!

--> Quiero leer este post en castellano

On teamwork, problem solving and motivation

Summer has always brought new life experiences into my professional life, however, the one which has just ended will definitely be remembered as a special one. I experienced something that you could recreate in your own classroom, especially during these first days of school, when children are starting to get acquainted with each other again or for the very first time.

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that during the month of July I usually run a summer camp in an outdoor environment  with students not older than 6, where the main activities are games, songs, and crafts to help them learn some basic grammar and vocabulary. After this summer I can definitely say that little kids are easy to understand and work with; believe me, if they like the activity you have planned, 
they'll do it but if they don't, they'll get distracted by anything more interesting, and that's all. Simple and easy to grab.

Unexpectedly, this time I ended up working with slightly older children: a group of 6/8 girls, aged 6 to 9 , who had already started developing their own personalities, which made them completely different from one another, and especially sensitive to impolite leadership attempts. They made it clear from the very first day that this Summer Camp had to be totally different.

First of all I pointed out how essential it was to be polite to each other so that nobody would get offended: I introduced the frequent use of  'please' and 'thank you' and reminded them to use suggestions and express opinions instead of giving orders. This way, instead of saying 'do this and that' they would use should, might or would; in other words, they were being forced to use grammar like never before.
But not only that! The icing on the cake was the ban on the word 'NO' in any form: a more understanding 'YES, BUT…' had to be used instead.

The second step  focused on creating cooperation instead of competition by using team building games. Just by luck, I found a copy of "Silly Sports and Goofy Games", by Dr Spencer Kagan, on my overflowing bookcase,  which was exactly what I needed. Over the following weeks we played games such as  "Movement Chain", "Instamatic", "Detective", "Smile if You Love Me", and "Maze Walker", where the girls worked together to build a maze with their own stuff and all the leaves, rocks, sticks and pine needles they could find in the garden.

Furthermore, in order to encourage relationship skills and equal participation, every time an activity required splitting them into different teams, I made the groups by drawing from a bunch of popsicle sticks with their names on them; this way they couldn't complain about the group they ended up in, because, as I would tell them, 'the sticks rule'.

The third step was to begin each Monday by offering a selection of 3 or 4 week group projects, to choose from: a play, a dance show, the opening ceremony of the Olympics, etc.  Each time the main goal was to sit together and decide who was going to do what, how to do it, who was going to wear this or that costume, how to arrange the stage, etc. without screaming, arguing or crying. Once everybody was happy with the decisions, I would participate in the process and add my own suggestions and ideas. They would work together on the project for the following 3 days until, on Friday, they would present it to the other groups.

It was awesome to witness the development of their relationships and the way they ended up working together, communicating politely, making decisions which would suit everybody, showing enthusiasm, rehearsing in the afternoons to come well prepared the next morning. The atmosphere was so friendly and engaging that even the shy ones or those who weren't feeling so confident ended up improving their English speaking skills which you can read about on my  parents' comments page.  

Oh! And the shows themselves were amazing!