A lively conversation has erupted in a circle of five students. In the discussion of John Grisham's book "Bleachers", they debate whether Neely Crenshaw was right to punch his high school football coach during half time. This spirited discussion is the result of a successful cooperative learning group.

Each student has assumed one of the roles in the group: discussion director, passage master, vocabulary guru, summarizer, or illustrator.

Their goal in this group assignment is to read a mutually agreed up on novel, have discussion meetings and decide what needs to be learned in the novel. They decide on the questions to be discussed, they teach each other the vocabulary and they share their theories and analysis of the book. The teacher's role in this unit is facilitator.

This is an example of a cooperative learning group that is used in a high school English class. This type of cooperative learning activity is common in classrooms of every curriculum area.

What some teachers and others do not realize is that there is a difference between cooperative learning groups and working in groups.

In order for an activity to be a cooperative learning group, it requires students to be goal oriented with an end product in mind. Each student takes on a role in the completion of this group project.

Working in a groups is assigning for example a worksheet and then allowing students to work in groups to find the answer. Unfortunately what usually happens in this activity is one or two students do the work and the entire group reaps the benefits grade wise. Working in groups is usually ineffectual and does not promote higher level thinking skills or high achievement in students.

Cooperative learning groups accelerate student achievement in several ways.

1)Encourages participation of all members of the group
2)Challenges students to think and analyze on higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy
3)Teaches decision making
4)Incorporates cooperation and team building
5)Promotes self-esteem
6)Promotes socialization

Here are a few ways to incorporate cooperative learning activities. Brainstorming activities can be held in which small groups of student brainstorm answers and then each group reports back to the class. Another type includes jigsaws in which each student is responsible for one part of a project. This has individual and group goals in mind. Having a student who understands a concept well teach that concept to a small group of students. This can work very effectively in math.

Cooperative learning groups can be a very effective way to teach. If students have roles and an end product in mind it leads to higher level thinking and valuable lessons on student led discussion versus teacher led discussion.

The teacher has to step back and let the students discover the questions and the answers instead of telling the students all the answers and they just recite the simple information back.

In a cooperative learning group the students explain to the teacher the content that is important to know. It can be difficult for teachers to let go and trust students to draw the best conclusions, but the benefits by far outweigh any risks. When students are in charge of the discoveries, they step out of being passive victims to an assignment and instead move toward being leaders and thinkers.

Learn more about this author, MJ Suttor.
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