Cooperative Exercises

Introducing Students to Cooperative Learning

For complex projects, very clear directions at the start of the assignment will reduce the amount of confusion that will develop from the different perspectives and standards that will be brought to bear on it. Group work may add an extra degree of uncertainty, especially if the students have done little cooperative learning before.

In addition to a detailed description of the assignment itself (perhaps with a rubric or other information on how it will be graded), it may help to explain cooperative learning to your students:

1. They will be depending on one another to accomplish the project. At this point, you'll want to mention any group grades.
2. They are required to meet and actually work together, either in class or online to complete their project.
3. They are still individually accountable. There will be some individual grading, and you will intervene if they let the group down.
4. Tolerance of their teammates is vital and, if the project is to be successful, they will need make and accept constructive criticism.
5. The last step of the project includes a review, so the students can examine their work and progress, determine how the group and the exercise helped them, and come up with ideas to make the next project even more effective.

Study guides or lists of questions to structure discussion can also be helpful for a student group's first ventures into cooperative learning.

Typical Projects

Starting Point modules are rich in activities that can be adapted for cooperative learning:

• Indoor Labs: especially if a written report is involved
• Outdoor Labs: again, especially if they do a written report
• Independent Research Projects: works well with jigsawing, can involve data or models
• Peer Review: works well with pairs
• Interactive Cases: these open-ended investigations require cooperation
• Team Games: you'll want to add individual accountability
• Interactive Role-Playing: scenarios and roles can be written to ensure that all students are part of cooperative teams
• Reviewing journal articles: You may want to create interdependence by assigning several articles and give different ones to different group members.

Monitoring Progress

You'll want to either directly observe group at work, or require progress reports. Often, this is a good way to identify interpersonal problems that could derail the group or questions that the group may need answered before they make more progress.

• One way to do this is to walk between groups if they are working in class, in lab, or on a field trip and listen in, occasionally asking questions.
• Another way is to have them keep in touch with an online bulletin board (which would also allow them to exchange files, including project drafts, easily).
• Alternatively, you could ask for periodic progress reports.