Using Cooperative Learning to Teach Mineralogy (and Other Courses Too!)
Summary
This chapter is concerned primarily with how the content of a mineralogy course can be organized so that the students are more active and conscientious learners. This chapter is divided into three sections: Section I briefly describes the fundamentals of cooperative learning: why it's important and what is essential. Section II describes a variety of cooperative learning structures and their uses. Section III provides more detailed descriptions of cooperative learning activities specifically for a mineralogy class.
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Context
Audience
This activity is designed for an undergraduate required course in mineralogy and is generally for sophomore or junior level students.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
How the activity is situated in the course
This activity is a stand-alone exercise, but is part of a larger volume of classroom and laboratory activities from "Teaching Mineralogy," a workbook published by the Mineralogical Society of America, Brady, J., Mogk, D. W., and Perkins, D., (editors), 1997,406 pp.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
This chapter is concerned primarily with how the content of a mineralogy course can be organized so that the students are more active and conscientious learners. It is fairly common for students to work in groups in mineralogy labs, if only to maximize available resources. Effective lessons that help students go beyond just "working in a group" can be designed with careful application of a conceptual model of cooperative learning (Johnson et al., 1993), and many strategies, or structures (Kagan, 1992), that are simply ways to organize groups efficiently. This chapter is divided into three sections: Section I briefly describes the fundamentals of cooperative learning: why it's important and what is essential. Section II describes a variety of cooperative learning structures and their uses. Section III provides more detailed descriptions of cooperative learning activities specifically for a mineralogy class.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Other skills goals for this activity
This chapter provides tips for cooperative learning and group work.
Description of the activity/assignment
This chapter is concerned primarily with how the content of a mineralogy course can be organized so that the students are more active and conscientious learners. This chapter is divided into three sections: Section I briefly describes the fundamentals of cooperative learning: why it's important and what is essential. Section II describes a variety of cooperative learning structures and their uses. Section III provides more detailed descriptions of cooperative learning activities specifically for a mineralogy class.
Determining whether students have met the goals
Tips for assessment are included in the download associated with this activity.
More information about assessment tools and techniques.Teaching materials and tips
Other Materials
- Chapter/Activity (Word file) (Microsoft Word 100kB May9 08)
- Chapter/Activity (PDF) (Acrobat (PDF) 137kB May9 08)
Supporting references/URLs
Brady, J., Mogk, D. W., and Perkins, D., (editors), 1997, Teaching Mineralogy, a workbook published by the Mineralogical Society of America, 406 pp.
Mineralogical Society of America - Join today!
A complete reference list may be found within the download associated with this activity sheet (see above).
Mineralogical Society of America - Join today!
A complete reference list may be found within the download associated with this activity sheet (see above).