Facilitating Cooperative Learning in the Classroom

Cooperative learning is a powerful tool that many teachers employ in their classrooms. Cooperative learning gives the students opportunities to develop independence and leadership skills. Cooperative learning provides opportunities for learning via various modalities. It gives the students ownership of the learning, and thereby, allows the students to learn the material better than they would have through traditional lecture. However, the proper use of cooperative learning in the classroom takes time and practice. Many teachers fail in their use of cooperative learning because they do not take enough time to properly prepare their students for a cooperative learning task. These teachers also fail because they do not facilitate the cooperative learning properly. By coaching the students how to work in cooperative learning groups, teachers will have a greater success in using this method of teaching.

Content and Skills

Decide before setting up cooperative learning groups what content and skills the students should be responsible. Setting the goals of the cooperative learning to meet state standards is an important start. What kind of practice should these cooperative learning groups afford the students? Rubrics should be provided to the students. These rubrics will be used by the students to assess their own accomplishments in the cooperative learning groups. The rubrics will also be employed by the teacher in assessing whether or not the standards, goals, and skills were achieved in the cooperative learning group.

Organization

Cooperative learning groups require a different method of organization. Often this is overlooked by teachers. The students and the teacher quickly become disorganized. The flow of paper in and out of the classroom is a mess. It is important to figure out a organization method before setting up the cooperative learning groups. A teacher should be able to answer the following questions before employing cooperative learning groups as a teaching technique.

Where are common materials such as paper, rulers, colored pencils, and other needs going to be stored?
How and when will they be distributed in the class?
How will they be cleaned up?
Will the students be allowed to walk around during the cooperative learning groups to access materials, or will they need to stay put?
How will the desks be set up for work sessions?
Where and how will students turn in daily assignments within the cooperative learning group?
How is the teacher planning on monitoring progress within the cooperative learning groups each day? Without answering these questions and preparing your students to follow through with the organization plan, a cooperative learning group assignment can quickly degrade.

When to intervene

It is important during the cooperative learning group sessions for the teacher to facilitate the learning process. The teacher should be meeting/monitoring each group during the cooperative learning session. The teacher should also be prepared to intervene when the students are off task and when the students have trouble understanding part of the assignment. Teachers should also intervene in the case of personal conflicts and when the students are having trouble completing the assignment or organizing the task.

By properly facilitating cooperative learning groups in the classroom, teachers can provide meaningful assignments to students and allow them to learn in a new and interesting method.