Cooperative Learning: Student Control and Responsiblity

After having read chapter three, Transforming Learning with Unique, Powerful Technology, a concept truly resonated with me. This concept is Cooperative learning. There are many different aspects of this that I really came to enjoy; however, there is one that truly stood out. Personally, I never did well in group activities and found that worked much more effectively when I worked individually. When using cooperative learning there are so many benefits, some of which I wish I had been able to use.

As mentioned above, I really struggled with group work when I was in school and much preferred working individually. It wasn't that I didn't get along with the people in my groups, but rather that I didn't trust them to hold up their end of the bargain when it came to doing their share of the work. For this reason I love the idea of cooperative learning. The book explains an example of this well in reference to group activity. The text explains it as the students playing different roles. One student would be note taker, writer, artist, researcher, and presenter. By doing this, you could incorporate part of each students grade as participation in the group while mostly judging their grade on the assignment by the quality of their individual work. It allows student who work better in groups to have access to multiple peer editors to bounce ideas off as well as allowing the student who works more effectively independently to do so while also still participating in the group. Collaboration in a classroom is definitely one of the main keys to success and without it the classrooms would not function near as well as they do.

As a future teacher, cooperative learning is definitely something that I would like to incorporate into my classroom. I feel it is the best of both worlds in regards to extroverted and introverted students. The students that prefer to work alone still get to do so, but also have a group of peers readily available to double check that work, ensuring the quality of said work. It also helps the students who work best when able to bounce their ideas off of fellow students. In addition, the technique allows students to exploit their strengths while working on their weaknesses. For instance, someone who is a fluent public speaker would most likely volunteer for the position of presenter. However, a teacher could also adjust the system so that the people in the group rotate in order for the students to work on every position available in the group from presenter to note taker.

Overall, I think that if cooperative learning was applied correctly in the classroom, it would reap incredibly beneficial for both the students and the teachers.

In the last discussion topic we had I mentioned using memes in presentations, so I decided to incorporate one in this piece of work. As cooperative learning increases student control and responsibility, I thought the following would be appropriate in relevance to the students feelings.

Maloy W. Robert, Et. Al. (2007). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Pearson.