About this Book

This book provides specific strategies for the classroom teacher beginning to use cooperative learning or improving the use of cooprative learning. It explains conceptually what cooperative learning is and what makes it work. Cooperative learning is presented as a technique that helps raise the achievement of all students; helps build positive relationships among students; and gives students experiences necessary for healthy social, psychological, and cognitive development. Cooperative learning replaces the mass-production, competitive organizational structure of most classrooms and schools with a team-based, high-performance organizational structure. In most classrooms, it is recommended that cooperative learning be used 60 to 80 percent of the time. The teacher's role in implementing cooperative learning includes: (1) pre-instructional decisions (selecting instructional materials and objectives, assigning students to groups, arranging the classroom, and assigning roles); (2) taskwork and teamwork (explaining the academic task, structuring positive interdependence, and specifying desired behaviors); (3) executing the cooperative lesson, which includes monitoring students' behavior and providing closure; and (4) post-lesson activities (evaluating the quality and quantity of learning, and analyzing group effectiveness). (Contains 23 references.) (JDD)