Cooperative Learning
Patricia Diaz – Gonzalo Gonzalez
4. The role of the abilities and systems of the language
Cooperative groups increase opportunities for students to produce and comprehend language and
to obtain modeling and feedback from their peers. Much of the value of cooperative learning lies in
the way that teamwork encourages students to engage in such high-level thinking skills as
analyzing, explaining, synthesizing, and elaborating.
Interactive tasks also naturally stimulate and develop the students' cognitive, linguistic, and social
abilities. Cooperative activities integrate the acquisition of these skills and create powerful learning
opportunities. Such interactive experiences are particularly valuable for students who are learning
English as a second language, who face simultaneously the challenges of language acquisition,
academic learning, and social adaptation. By stimulating language input and output, cooperative
strategies provide English learners with natural settings in which they can derive and express
meaning from academic content (McGroarty, 1993, and Swain, 1985).
5. Steps of the typical class
In cooperative learning there are different class activities:
1. Jigsaw -
6. Numbered Heads Together (Kagan)
2. Think-Pair-Share –
7. Team Pair Solo (Kagan)-
3. Three-Step Interview (Kagan) -
8. Circle the Sage (Kagan)-
4. RoundRobin Brainstorming (Kagan)-
9. Partners (Kagan) -
5. Three-minute review -
However, we will focus on the most popular, the jigsaw activity:
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Groups with five students are set up.
Each group member is assigned some unique material to learn and then to teach to his
group members.
To help in the learning, students across the class working on the same sub-section, get
together to decide what is important and how to teach it.
After practice in these "expert" groups the original group reform and students teach each
other. (Wood, p. 17)
Tests or assessment follows.
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/intech/cooperativelearning.htm#elements
6. 2 or 3 Disadvantages and advantages
Advantages
1. Promote greater achievement
motivation, more intrinsic motivation,
more persistence in completing the
tasks, and greater continuing
motivation to learn.
2. Cooperative learning experiences also
result in more positive attitudes toward
the subject area and instructor.
3. Cooperative learning experiences also
result in higher levels of self-esteem,
healthier processes for deriving
conclusions about one's self worth,
and greater psychological health than
do competitive and individualistic
learning experiences.
(Johnson & Johnson, 1983)
Disadvantages
1. Working in groups can often involve situations
where the group moves to fast for a student. It
allows work to get done without knowing that
every person in that group actually
understands what was done.
2. Another disadvantage can be if one group
member doesn't contribute as much as the
others do. This will often leave the other
members frustrated and the student who isn't
contributing won't really learn anything.
3. When people get into a group, they have a
tendency to get off task. This can take away
from the amount of material learned. Learning
also may be inhibited if one person assumes
all the work.
http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/cl/story/
middlecc/TSCMD.htm
7. Decide which of Brown’s principles are present
We think that the principles present in cooperative learning are:
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Automaticity
Meaningful Learning
Willingness to Communicate
Interlanguage