Foundation Coalition: Active/Cooperative Learning

Smith -
Transcript: Planning Cooperative Learning Lessons "Getting Started"

. . . Almost anything can be redesigned to be done in a cooperative format. But, it’s important to have variety. Not everybody learns in the same way, different people appreciate different kinds of things, and so [make] sure that you orchestrate some variety. And then, in the design of the cooperative learning experiences, [think] about what’s the objective: what is it that I want students to know, to be able to do; what procedures do I want them to be familiar with? And then we would add a second type of objective: what kind of teamwork skills would I like . . . to emphasize in this cooperative lesson or experience? So like all good instruction, you have to start with a sense of purpose: what is it that we want students to be able to do? This is getting easier now with ABET because of the outcomes—the ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, where we’re being asked to look at what is it that graduates are able to do.

Then the next piece is making sure you really clearly structure the accountability and interdependence. Those are the key aspects, and they really need to be designed into the experience. I’m kind of skirting around your question to address what kinds of tasks. I think that the more complex the material, the more dense it is, the more challenging it is, the more helpful it is for students to have other students to work with to master the material. More routine tasks, simpler tasks—probably it’s better to let students work on them on their own. But when it’s really complex and it’s really demanding, then you probably want to think about having students work in groups.

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