Cooperative learning is an essential part of today’s classroom. Every student will need the skills to work with other people when they leave school, so it is necessary to teach these skills to students in school. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007) suggest using a variety of grouping strategies for implementing cooperative learning as well as grouping the students both formally and informally. Grouping is a major aspect of social learning, the environment that the students are exposed to will affect how they learn as well as the content that they learn (Orey, 2001).
Once your students are grouped to maximize their learning experience, it is then important to choose the right strategy to encourage social learning. One of the most interesting strategies Pitler et al (2007) introduced was the idea of having the students create a movie to describe what they learned. In this project the students are physically creating an artifact while each member is responsible for affecting the other students learning in their group, as well as their class through their presentation (Orey, 2001). The creation of a movie requires many different skills such as writing, organizing, understanding the content, filming, and editing. By having a group of students create the movie rather than an individual student, the quality of the work will be much higher. Also, the variety of skills and content that the students are exposed to in the movie creation project is much broader than if they were working on a PowerPoint presentation or some other related application.
Another interesting strategy that Pitler et al (2007) introduced was interactive web resources. There are a large variety of web sources the students could use to encourage social learning. One way students could use the web would be to use “ask the expert” sites, where they correspond via a web board or email with an expert in the field (Pitler et al, 2007). Another interesting application is the Kepals, which are electronic pen pals (Pitler et al, 2007). With both of this web based applications students learning experience will vary depending on with whom they are corresponding, and that is in essence what social learning is all about, that the types of interactions students have will affect the type of information as well as the way that they learn (Orey, 2001).
No matter what a student does for a career they will be required to interact with other people to accomplish their professional goals. By exposing the students to social learning via cooperative strategies, the students will learn the necessary skills to be successful. The more practice students have with working with others the better they will be at it. Also, the more exposure students have to others, the more likely they are to learn a wide variety of information due to the social aspect of learning.
Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
I agree that the students need to learn to work with people who have different abilities, learning styles, and personalities. If these skills are learned at the young age and improved throughout schooling, the students will be able to work as a team. I like your idea of creating a movie. In elementary school, as part of literature, the students put on plays. I can have the students film themselves and create a video. They would be able to view the video with the rest of their classmates. It also is a way to help those who are shy perform.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how the video project could help the shy students perform. Thank you for bringing that to my attention that is a great point.
ReplyDelete