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(More customer reviews)Cooperative learning can be defined as: concepts and strategies for enhancing student-student interaction. Since the 1970s, an impressive body of work on cooperative learning has developed in the areas of theory, research, and practical application. Lynda Baloche's book, "The collaborative classroom: Empowering learning" contributes to this work by bringing together ideas from many different authors in the field, as well as adding ideas of her own.
Lynda is a former classroom teacher who is a university professor helping educate other teachers - both those currently teaching and those preparing to teach - in the eastern U.S. The features of her book I like most are:
1.As mentioned already, the work of many others is synthesized 2. The ideas are illustrated by many examples across a wide range of subject areas and age groups, from kindergarten to senior high school. 3.One of the most useful means of illustrating ideas is through scenarios that show cooperative learning in action in a variety of classrooms. 4.A large number of cooperative learning techniques are described with sample applications. 5.Materials for classroom use are provided. 6.Attention is paid to making cooperative learning work in untracked classrooms. 7.Each chapter ends with cooperative learning activities for teachers to use to review, discuss, and apply the chapter's ideas.
After an initial chapter on the benefits of working together in the classroom and beyond, the other ten chapters are divided into three parts. Part one consists of three chapters that help us understand key psycho-social variables involved in group interaction. Chapter two looks at the classroom as a group and the importance of shared values. The third chapter provides insights on how groups function in the context of multicultural societies, including how status differences among group members arise and can be treated. Chapter four describes the need for cooperation throughout the school and the school community. Among the concepts dealt with here are parental involvement and conflict resolution.
Part one of the book looked at cooperation in a fairly general way. Part two focuses more specifically on cooperation among small groups of students. Five elements are seen as key to realizing the potential of this cooperation. These elements are: positive interdependence, simultaneous interaction, individual responsibility, interpersonal and small-group learning skills, and reflection and planning. The chapters in Part two help us understand how to facilitate the existence of these elements. This is what the author calls the "discipline of cooperation".
Chapter five describes two types of groups and how they function. Base groups last for a year or more, providing a kind of support group for each student. On the other end of the spectrum in terms of duration are informal groups that last only for one activity. The main type of cooperative learning group is called the formal learning group. Such groups are described in Chapter six along with nine ways of fostering positive interdependence among the members of the groups.
Chapter seven offers many ideas for helping students with another of the key elements of cooperative learning: interpersonal and small-group learning skills. The next chapter, eight, discusses the cooperative learning element of reflecting on past learning and planning for future learning, while chapter nine tackles the thorny issues of individual responsibility within groups and assessment of group work. The last chapter in Part two examines teachers' roles in the cooperative learning, such as seating, size and composition of groups, and lesson planning.
The book's final part consists of just one fairly short chapter, but it involves an essential aspect of the implementation of cooperative learning. This part is entitled "Developing commitment to an exciting profession". Among the themes dealt with are cooperation among teachers, teacher inquiry, and developing purpose and vision. After this final chapter, a list of books for further reading is offered in addition to the standard list of references and the subject and author indexes.
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This guide for current teachers and future teachers provides them with the necessary skills to create classrooms where cooperation is a way of helping to empower students and themselves as learners. The book answers the difficult questions that teachers often ask about cooperative learning such as, "Why should I use cooperation?", and "When, how, and how much should I use cooperation?". Both pre-service and in-service teachers have extensively field-tested the models, examples, and scenarios featured in this book developed to help them acquire a new understanding and appreciation of the power of working together.
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