Cooperative Learning

Grouping when Writing

Writing can often seem like it is solely an individual task, but it can often be a great way for students to collaborate and think about the content together. I have seen success in writing collaboratively in the Social Studies/History content area. I have observed students work together to develop a script, and record a portion of a unit. For 5th grade, students were divided into groups to create movies about the thirteen colonies. Each group was to work on a script together before recording. Each student had a expert topic that they had to make sure the script covered such as government, religion, important figures, climate, etc. In this situation, each student had to contribute something important that they learned into the writing. I found it amazing that students were able to work on one script together through google doc sharing.

Heterogeneous/Homogeneous Grouping

Heterogeneous: Mix groups by making sure that there are a mixture of not only a range of learning levels (High, average, low, GATE, Special needs, ELL) but also a mixture of various strengths and interests.

Homogeneous: Mix groups by similar learning ability and differentiate by giving each group a different type of activity/project. For example, advanced learners/GATE may have a more challenging project than that of a group of students who are English Language Learners. I would use this grouping method for the above project.

Gardner’s Intelligences

Before I describe various group configurations, let us first review Gardner’s Intelligences:

(Infographic Credit: http://leoniemathilde.weebly.com/gardners-mi.html)

Now let’s discuss some various grouping configurations based on these intelligences:

1. Whole Group: With whole group instruction, alternating or using more than one intelligence at a time during instruction would be beneficial to the students. If content needs to be reviewed using a different intelligence to review, will help those students whose intelligence wasn’t used in the first go around. An example might be playing an audio version of the textbook for students to either listen or read along with and then having students take notes by writing or drawing. By doing this you would be involving spatial, musical, intrapersonal, and linguistic. For review, having students role play what they learned would involve interpersonal and bodily/kinesthetic intelligences.
2. Small Group: Small groups are a great way to cater to the strengths of students. They can be divided so that each student has a role that suits their intelligence. Alternatively, you could group students with similar intelligences together, and have each group create different projects, each one based on the same content, but with different end products. For the writing/movie project mentioned earlier, small groups would be best. You can assign students different roles such as director (Interpersonal), Writer (Linguistic), Recorder (Spatial), Editor (Musical), Actor (Bodily/Kinesthetic), Researcher (Intrapersonal/Mathematical).
3. Pairing: Pairing students that have opposite/different intelligences can help students find strengths in their peers and learn to work together for a common purpose.
4. Individual Design: Giving students individual learning activities that cater to their strengths inside and outside a collaborative group, will keep students motivated and engaged in the learning process.

Cooperative Learning as a Benefit

Grouping students can have many benefits on their learning. Cooperative groups allow teachers to teach grade level content creatively while differentiating to each student. It also allows students to learn the content by using their learning strengths and to become more engaged in the learning process. In simplistic terms, it allows teachers to teach and students to learn.