CHAPTER 11
Engaged Learning:
Cooperation and Community
Social Processes in Learning
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Positive and Negative Effects
Peers- Students often surround
themselves with those with shared
interests and activities
Adults- Parents & Teachers serve as role
models
Collaboration & Cooperation
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Collaboration- A philosophy about how to deal
with people that respects differences, shares
authority, and builds on the knowledge of others.
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Cooperation- Working together with others to
reach a shared goal
Cooperative Learning
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Cooperative Learning- Arrangement in which
students work in mixed-ability groups and are
rewarded on the basis of group success.
Elements of Cooperative Learning
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Face to Face student interaction
Positive independence
Individual accountability
Collaboration skills
Members monitor group progress
Misuses of Cooperative Learning
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Students rush through their work
Unsure students support group
misconceptions
Used as social time
One “expert” quickly does the work
Students that feel like they aren’t needed
do no contribute
Designs for Cooperation
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Reciprocal Questioning: Approach where groups
of two or three students ask and answer each
other’s questions after a lesson or presentation
Students create questions and take turns
answering them and encourages deep thinking
on the topic
Question stems to facilitate reciprocal
questioning: What would happen if…? Or What
is the meaning of…? Or What do you think
causes…?
Designs for Cooperation
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Scripted Cooperation: A learning strategy in
which two students take turns summarizing
material and critiquing the summaries
Can include any task or subject
Example: students read a passage, one gives a
summary and other critiques it then students
work together to form information, then
partners switch roles
Guidelines for Cooperative Learning
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Fit group size and composition to your learning
goals
Assign appropriate roles
Make sure you assume a supporting role as the
teacher
Move around and monitor the groups
Start small and simple until you and students
know how to use cooperative methods
Using Cooperative Learning Wisely
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Special needs: not always best for special needs
students especially with hard to grasp subjects
Often have problems with social relations and
puts them in situation to be rejected
Often have difficulties with new concepts and
can frustrate the student and explainer in
reciprocal questioning and scripted cooperation
Using Cooperative Learning Wisely
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Gifted students: do not always benefit
from cooperative learning when groups
are of mixed ability
Pace is often too slow, simple, or
repetitious
Fall into role of teacher or do all the work
Allow gifted students complex tasks at
different levels to keep interest
Using Cooperative Learning Wisely
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ELL Students: students with backgrounds of 2 or
more languages can help students of those
languages
Receive more language practice
Smaller groups may be less anxiety provoking
Jigsaw: A cooperative structure in which each
member of a group is responsible for teaching
other members one section of the material
Forces students to talk, interact, and explain and
makes everyone's contribution important
Constructive Conflict Resolution
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Important because conflicts are inevitable
and necessary for learning (Piaget’s
conceptual change)
Often conflicts are resolved in destructive
ways or not at all
Often able to correct misunderstandings if
argue about conflicting wrong answers
Peer Harassment
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Common form is bullying or teasing and
harassment
In a study, 60% students said we bullied while
teachers thought only 16%
National survey found 33% of students were
bullied moderately or frequently
Do not tolerate teasing of someone less
powerful/popular or racial, ethnic, or religious
slurs
What Can Teacher’s Do?
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Practice conflict management: steers students
away from lives of violence
Do’s in class: be careful of others feelings, use
humor gently and carefully, ask whether teasing
hurts someone’s feelings, accept teasing if one
teases, tell other’s if hurts feelings, know
difference between friendly and malicious
teasing, read other’s body language, help a
weaker student when ridiculed
What Can Teacher’s Do?
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Don’ts in class: tease someone you don’t know
well, tease about sex, tease about body, tease
about family, tease on a topic when asked not
to, tease someone who is having a bad day, be
thin skinned about teasing that is meant to be
friendly, hide feelings about being teased
Conflicts mostly over resources and preferences
90% resolved destructively or not at all
Peer Mediation and Negotiation
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Johnson’s 5 step negotiating strategy
1. Jointly define the conflict
2. Exchange positions and interests
3. Reverse perspectives
4. Invent at least three agreements that allow
mutual gain
5. Reach an integrative agreement
Have student mediators that rotate everyday
Successful in younger and older students
Civic Values
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Understandings and beliefs that hold the
community together
Learned through direct teaching,
modeling, literature, and discussions
“Concerns Box”: Students can put in
concerns and comments; a class meeting
ensues to talk about these issues
Respect begins with the teacher
Character Education: To be or not
to be…
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To be: families not teaching well enough, school
violence, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol use
Not to be: concerned with narrow set of
program strategies to achieve not actual
character education, students do this just
because extrinsic rewards and never fully
understand, believe should fix structure of
schools to be more just and caring instead of
the students
Getting Started on Community
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Ask students what it would take for class to work for
them and tell class what it takes for class to work for you
Often overlaps with one another and fosters good
cooperation and community
Have class meetings to discuss what is working and not
working
Create a classroom constitution
Have “Trouble Baskets” for students so can see
dispositions of students
Have students give you a word they don’t know they
heard and talk to them privately about it
Belonging
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Competitive environment based on race, gender, or
ethnicity makes students more likely to act out or
withdraw
More likely to bond with schools when emphasis is on
personal improvement and students feel respected and
supported by teachers
Care about students: academically and personal, make
classes interesting, be fair and honest, make sure
students understand, ask if something is wrong if seem
upset, notice when students are absent and why, and
use humor in classes
Trust and respect students and care about them as
learners and people
Violence In Schools
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With a trend of school shootings in the mid of
late 1990’s and early 2000’s, schools and
society have been looking for answers
Suggested “solutions” for prevention of school
violence include:
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Early Identification of potential troublemakers by
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Student informant
Searches of students property and web postings
Metal detectors
Better gun control
Censorship of the media
Real solutions and band aids
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The solutions that many give might help control
the situations to an extent but not entirely
“solve” them
What many questions teachers and adults
should be asking is:
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What is it about the atmosphere of schools that make these
students desperate, diabolical, and callous?
Why do they seek revenge or a twisted notion of glory, by
shooting their classmates?
Real solutions and band aids
Questions continued:
 In what ways have they felt rejected, ignored,
humiliated, or treated unfairly at school?
 Do schools care as much about developing
students characters as well as their intellect?
 Can schools do a better job at creating inclusive,
caring communities with positive role models for
students?
What we can do
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Teach acceptance and compassion
Be firm and insistent with students to learn,
while caring about them as well
Studies have shown that “really tough students”
respect teachers who show an interest in them
Service learning outside the classroom can help
promote moral and political development in
adolescents
The end!