I must say that I use it both at the elementary levels of the university experience—freshman and sophomore classes—as well as [in] upper-division classes. Seven years ago or so . . . when it was still a relatively new phenomenon in the engineering school, I would have to explain to every group of students why I was going to employ this strategy. Now that it has become much more commonplace at ASU and in the engineering school, I find it necessary only to tell the freshman—and even then just briefly because they have heard about it or seen it themselves in their high school classes. The upper-division students at ASU are quite familiar and, for the most part, quite comfortable with it. All I need to say these days, especially for the upper-division classes, is that we are going to use active or cooperative learning strategies in this classroom, and that’s it. And they’re prepared to go.

[With] the freshmen, who may not know about cooperative learning, I do need to spend more time describing why we do carry out cooperative learning rather than have a traditional lecture. I try to explain to them that the process of learning and working in teams is analogous to how they will probably find themselves working in the workplace when they leave the university. Since they are engineering students, most will go on to work for engineering firms—like Motorola or Honeywell—and there teamwork is the norm. It is necessary to learn how to become part of the team, because the projects that one works on outside the university are far too complicated for any one individual to accomplish. The training that they get through team learning will apply immediately to the teamwork that [they] will have to do in industry, but it also has additional pedagogical benefits, too. They will become better learners. .
                             

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