Foundation Coalition: Active/Cooperative Learning

Linder
Transcript: Preparing Your Students for Teamwork "Setting the Climate"

Well, I’m a big believer in doing everything out front, and not necessarily hiding my purpose or intentions from the students. And I think treating them as adults and letting them in on what’s going on is very important. It builds trust between the instructor and the class. I often encounter students who are resentful about working in groups because of the experiences they’ve had in what you [Ledlow] and others have called “old-style” group work, where you [teachers] assign a paper to a team of students and give them no way of actually accomplishing that task other than [telling them that] somehow they’re supposed to figure it out. So I explain to students who are reluctant that cooperative learning is really different than group work; and we try to construct groups that are effective, that work together well, and that really produce, and that the learning then is enhanced for everybody. Usually they’re willing to give it a try, and if we have some early successes and people begin to enjoy the process, then that phase [of reluctance] goes away after awhile.

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