Before the first group assignment that I work on with my kids every year I make sure that they understand two guiding principles about cooperative learning or group projects.
- The “All Flash & No Cash” mentality should not and must not exist. Somewhere along the way, we became more concerned with the glitz and the glamour and stopped caring about the substance of the product they are actually handing in. Scratch that. We didn’t stop caring. We just realized that it’s easier to grade the aesthetics of how something looks than it is to look critically at the thinking that kids have put into the assignment and provide them with constructive feedback about how to improve. It takes a lot of time, effort, and concentration to have kids perform deep thinking activities and provide them with substantial analysis than it does to look at something and say “that’s so pretty”.
- Group projects require that group members TALK to each other and develop a deeper meaning of a complex problem, which goes on to result in an even deeper solution created by students collaboratively. When kids get a project, break it up into chunks, each cover their own material, and then hand in one product that should not qualify as a group project. Those are simply projects where every student gets a different topic and they hand in one assignment. Group projects require for them to chunk it (as they normally do) and then generate connections and ideas that integrate the big concepts and thoughts from each of his/her sections. It drives me crazy when kids hand in a “group project” that is loosely-coupled and disjointed simply because the only point at which they start to talk to each other about their findings is the day before it’s due.
These two items above are what I would refer to as misconceptions of cooperative learning. A project can be “beautiful” and still indicate no deep thinking or learning, and every group can hand in a project without building any bridges to each other’s topics.
Students are definitely capable of breaking through these two barriers, but it will only happen with guidance and encouragement from the teacher. This type of reinforcement does not happen in every classroom even though it should. Kids are aware that if they create pretty projects then their academic analysis does not have to be first rate. We need to change that. Kids are also aware that more often than not they won’t be urged to combine their ideas for deeper understanding. We need to change that.
I urge us all to continually revamp and revisit the way we observe cooperative learning projects as a whole. How we go about assigning them, how we go about developing them, and how students are completing them. As we venture more and more into student-led learning, it is important that we keep academics at the forefront and emphasize the qualities of good integrative thinking.
Otherwise, we might as well trash the whole concept.
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You’re really talking about the difference between co-operative and collaborative learning and there are different reasons for using each of these. Well designed collaborative ‘projects’ (for want of a better word) can be very powerful. They work well for gifted students and everyone has a differnt task to perform to present the final product. This makes collaborative learning better for differentiation and makes sure that everyone has something to do at their own level. Cooperative groups often end up with the gifted or brighter student doing an inordinate amount of work – or being held back by the rest of the students in the group. Its all about management and teacher planning.
Robyn,
What you are saying is exactly what I am trying to get my students and everyone else, to realize is absolutely the wrong way to go about co-operative learning or collaborative learning or any other type of group-based project. Your point about “everyone has a different task to perform to present the final product” is why many projects are so disjointed and why groups that present at conferences never provide any overlap or explanation as to how material fits together. The segway to those presentations is almost always “and now so-and-so will talk about…” There needs to be overlap and further discussion between group members to ensure that these assignments are completed in a way that emphasizes the point of the assignment; not one or two students’ intellect. Their intellect will show through by the strength of their particular work and by their ability to develop connections that are vastly superior to the rest of the group members.
I agree that some students end up putting in more work and time than others, but they should never be held back by the rest of their group. Part of what makes someone “gifted” or “bright” is their ability to push full ahead regardless of the people they have to work with. The reality is your last statement: “Its [sic] all about management and teacher planning.” If any of the issues you are describing above are occurring, it’s because the teacher is poorly managing and poorly planning the assignment.
Part of being a “gifted” student knows how to play to your own strengths even when the others around you are not at that level.
Thanks for your input!
Hi Aaron
Maybe I should have explained what comes first – when I was teaching, I used collaborative learning more than co-operative because I like to build differentiation into all my teaching (I am actually a gifted ed consultant). I take your point about the disjointedness, but I always started with co-operation and moved into collaboration, where the group would initially plan together then meet at regular intervals to make the connections between what they were doing so that in the end they produced a common product that everyone had had input to. An ‘expert jigsaw’ works well.
A teacher I was working with did it like this – the class were looking at life in Medieval Times. The students (Yr 5 and 6 mixed ability) were put into group of 4. They had to meet initially to plan who was doing what, however she had one bright student in each group. As the other 3 were working through an inquiry-based approach to develop their knowledge (with teacher and student developed strategies), the group of bright kids were exploring to find out how books were produced in the Middle Ages. In the end they all came together in their groups again and each group produced a ‘medieval book’ about life in Medieval times. The teacher was really great at asking the kids pertinent questions to ensure higher order thinking and deep learning – and the kids made lots of connections between all their learning.
I like your points about deep thinking and learning. A friend and I have produced several books with higher order thinking skills and strategies but in our work with teachers we have found that this doesn’t necessarily lead to deep learning or even higher order thinking. We are more and more convinced that the key is in questioning – both by the teacher and the students. Some of the work we have done in questioning has had prfound impacts in classrooms!