38 - Cooperative Learning
38 - Cooperative Learning
38 - Cooperative Learning
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgement
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References
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Preface
This manual consists of two parts. Part One is a self-study document, which contains an
overview of cooperative learning strategies, theories, and practice and should be used during the
training as well as for future reference. Part Two consists of a number of training modules most
of which can be used independently of each other, depending on local needs. This manual also
includes a DVD that provides useful exemplars of Cooperative Learning at a number of different
grade levels (i.e., Grades 2, 5, and 8) and with different subject matter. Interestingly, the DVD
includes examples of Cooperative Learning applications at lower secondary school level, though
there is a common misconception that this methodology should only be used at primary level.
One of the modules provided in this manual provides some structured activities to use when
showing the DVD, so that it can be used most effectively. Nevertheless, teachers and student-
teachers will still gain a great deal of knowledge about Cooperative Learning simply from
watching this DVD, even if the time for discussion and training is limited.
While Co-operative Learning is usually understood to take in a wide array of learning techniques,
which stress increased opportunities for critical thinking and creative learning, these training
materials focus primarily on a somewhat lower set of expectations for teachers. Given the many
difficulties found in village schools (e.g., large class sizes, poor facilities, under qualified
teachers, etc.), the authors have stressed strategic interventions in the classroom, which are
cooperative in nature and which will enable students to spend more time on task than is possible
with more traditional teaching techniques. Because student achievement is usually correlated with
time on task, it is hoped that interventions of this nature will facilitate reductions in student
repetition rates, improved learning, more child friendly learning environments, as well as instil
values of team work and helping behavior in young children.
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Acknowledgement
World Education would like to thank USAID for its support of the revision and improvement of
this Cooperative Learning Manual, as a means of promoting important cross-cutting life skills in
critical and creative thinking in the classroom. World Education would also like to thank
Kampuchean Action for Primary Education for its permission to use its pre-existing materials and
manuals on Cooperative Learning, upon which the present document is based. Finally, World
Education would like to extend its thanks to the teachers and local educators at the Provincial
Teacher Training College of Kampong Cham, the District and Provincial Offices of Education,
and in particular in the schools of Kampong Cham who gave generously of their time and ideas in
the preparation of this document.
Kong Sonthara
Director, World Education-Cambodia
July 2009
Sao Vanna
Director, Kampuchean Action for Primary Education
July 2009
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CHAPTER 1
Classrooms are very social places but often when teachers think about learning the focus is on
individual learning and the social aspects are often viewed as a distraction and/or a nuisance. If,
however teachers are able to make positive use of this social aspect and the social arrangement of
the classroom then more learning would take place. Cooperative Learning improves students'
communication skills and enhances their ability to be successful in the world of work and to live
in the society.
During cooperative learning activities, each member of a team is responsible not only for learning
what is taught but also for helping team-mates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement.
Students work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and
complete it. In cooperative learning students will:
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CHAPTER 2
THE PURPOSE OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Applications of social learning to the classroom first began in the early 1970s. Since that time,
what we now know as ‘Cooperative Learning’ has been one of the most researched kinds of
instructional methodology used in the classroom. Much of this research has concluded that
cooperative learning strategies in the classroom have been highly successful, both in terms of
learning achievement as well as the development morals and values. International research
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! SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNICATION
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CHAPTER 3
ELEMENTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING
It is only if the main elements of cooperative learning take place in the lesson that efforts may be
expected to be more productive than competitive and individualistic efforts. The main elements
of Cooperative Learning are:
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• Messenger/collector – relays information with teacher of other groups, and gathers or returns
materials.
The required social skills to make cooperative learning activities successful may not happen
naturally. Teachers need to organise lessons so that there are opportunities for the following skills
to be developed;
• praising each other, promoting each other’s success
• listening, When older students have
• showing patience, become familiar with
• keeping each other on task
• Orally explaining how to solve problems
cooperative learning
• Teaching one's knowledge to other activities, then the teacher
• Checking for understanding can encourage additional
• Discussing concepts being learned
• Connecting present with past learning
social skills such as:
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One of the most commonly heard objections to having students work in groups is that some
group members will end up doing all the work and the learning, while others will sit ideally by or
be disruptive. This can occur because some students try to avoid working or because others want
to do everything. Activities to promote individual accountability and to keep all children involved
include:
• each student individually takes a quiz, completes a task, or writes an essay when the material
is studied.
• group members are called on at random to answer a question
• Each group member has a designated role to perform. These roles can rotate.
• Each member has different responsibilities for completing different parts of a group project.
For example, if the group need to make a presentation on Phnom Penh, one member would
write about the history, one member about the geography, one member about the economy,
one member about important buildings and landmarks.
In Cooperative
Learning, children must
still do some work as
individuals
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CHAPTER 4
HOW COOPERATIVE LEARNING IS USED IN THE
CLASSROOM
! Be sure that there is a clear division of labour in each group. Each student should know
clearly what it is that they have to do.
! Try to create a feeling of group pride in each student. Such feelings will help to strengthen
cooperation in the group and help students to work together better. A feeling of group
pride may be achieved by trying to
keep the membership of groups stable
and/or by allowing students to choose
a name for their group such as "Blue
Group" or "Lion Group".
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the year.
The teacher plays a crucial role in orchestrating and overseeing that group activities occur as
planned. In most cases, the teacher must be sure to establish him or herself as a firm figure in the
classroom but not so firm as to dominate the students. There are also some key duties that the
teacher must be responsible for. Consider some of the important responsibilities outlined below:
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CHAPTER 5
CLASSROOM ARRANGEMENTS THAT HELP WITH
COOPERATIVE LEARNING
7 Meters
not to other students. Monitoring/
Demonstration
Area for
Teacher
In implementing a cooperative learning
strategy in instruction, it is, therefore,
important that students be oriented towards
themselves (i.e. for group work) with the
teacher in a monitoring role. For this purpose,
the furniture arrangement suggested in the Scale : 1 cm = 0.5 meters
Monitoring/
Demonstration
may also be used Area for
Teacher
effectively.
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CHAPTER 6
In the following examples at different grade levels, a typical classroom task will be described
using traditional methods. Then, it will be revised to describe how the subject could be taught
using cooperative group strategies.
A major part of the Grade 1 curriculum is learning to recognize letters and the sounds that letters
make. In a traditional classroom, the day may begin with a large group meeting in which the
k t
teacher explains to students about the shape and sound of the letters and . The teacher may
then call on some students to come up to the board to identify words that start with these letters.
k
!
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In the second grade, students are starting to study words in greater depth. They must be able to
express the meaning of words using definitions which consist of more than one word (as in Grade
1), know its part of speech, and perhaps use these
words in an original sentence. A typical word study
lesson may find a teacher asking students to recite the
Because learning at the
definition of words from a lesson and to indicate lower primary level
whether it is a verb, a noun, or an adjective. emphasizes socialization as
A teacher using cooperative learning techniques, on
an important learning
the other hand, might develop a group activity which experience, it is natural to
is much more engaging and which helps students introduce children to
gain a much better grasp of word meanings through
actual usage. Using several sheets of paper cut into
cooperative groups at this
small squares, the teacher may make five identical early age.
sets of 15 or 20 words which students have studied
from the past several lessons. After having reviewed the various word lists with students, he then
distributes the word sets to each of the groups, which have been organized in the classroom.
Each group is told to sort the words into 4 categories:
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By the time that they enter the third grade, students are beginning to read with much greater
proficiency. Reading quickly with minimal diminution in comprehension, therefore, assumes a
place of greater importance in the curriculum. However, when teachers teach reading to a large
group as they are usually accustomed, they are particularly handicapped in monitoring the
reading speed of many students simultaneously. Typically, the teacher asks a student to read from
the text for a short period while the others supposedly follow along silently. Then the teacher
moves onto another student to start reading from where the previous student left off. At most, the
teacher may provide active practice to 10 or 12 students in a classroom in a 40 minute period.
The other two thirds of the class may or may not have been engaged in the reading lesson. And
certainly one can hardly blame the students if
they are not engaged. Aside from being There are many opportunities in
incredibly boring, reading in this manner
seems entirely without purpose except to
Co-operative Learning to engage
torture the student. students in purposeful reading
experiences that emphasize both
A different approach to reading using
Cooperative Learning techniques could be for
reading speed as well as
example, co-operative group exercises comprehension.
involving the reading of newspapers.
Newspapers are an extremely useful strategy through which to actively engage students in
reading. Students are now encountering newspapers with increasing frequency and seem to be
greatly intrigued by them, much more so than they are with reading the textbook.
As a co-operative reading exercise, a teacher might distribute the same newspaper issue to five or
six groups in the classroom. Each group receives one complete newspaper with perhaps four or
five sheets in it. The teacher then gives a short summary of an article, an advertisement, or even
a cartoon to the class and asks each group to find the article. In doing this activity, each student
might take a page of the newspaper and scan for the article that the teacher has described. If the
group size is quite large, two students might take a single page since newspaper pages are usually
quite large. When a group has found the article, they should all raise their hands. If the teacher
has organized this activity as a competition, the teacher might give the first group that finds the
article a point. This procedure is then repeated for additional articles.
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newspaper looking for the article to help his or her team score a point. The group spirit of the
activity is, therefore, once again important in facilitating high student engagement. And, of
course, all students in a group regardless of ability level will experience the thrill of succeeding
when the desired newspaper article is found.
History and Geography are two subjects, which sadly have been thought to encompass only
factual recall of places, dates, and names. Instruction of these two subjects in many Cambodian
classrooms emphasize only textbook reading (or blackboard reading if students do not have
textbooks) followed by some questions which the teacher directs to the class as a whole. Once
again, only one or two students can be actively engaged in the lesson at the same time. Imagine
how boring such a lesson must be. No wonder so many students want to drop out of school before
getting to Grade 5.
Co-operative Learning strategies can help to increase student participation and interest in History
and Geography Lessons while also bringing learning to a level higher than just rote recall of
information. Having students construct charts and diagrams, for example, might be one way of
keeping everyone in the class actively involved in a lesson on People's Way of Life. In such a
lesson, the teacher would organize about five groups in the classroom and ask each group to
make a table, which summarizes how the people live differently in some of the places that
students have studied (e.g., villages, cities, etc.). The categories in the table may be developed by
the teacher, or alternatively, if the students seem able, this may be left to the students themselves
to determine. Some crayons and one sheet of poster paper are distributed to each group for them
to make their table. In order to keep everyone involved in the activity, the teacher might suggest
that one or two students each take responsibility for researching the information on one group of
people to get the information required to fill in the table. When all the information has been
gathered, the students discuss it and fill in the table accordingly (see chart below.)
Constructing charts and diagrams of the sort described above is a learning task which requires
comparisons and contrasts of the information studied in the lesson. When the students do such
tasks, they are engaging not in rote recall of
information but in analysis of the relationships Cooperative Learning can
between social groups. Such tasks, therefore, in
addition to keeping everyone actively engaged facilitate the learning of higher
in the lesson also help to bring the lesson to a order thinking skills such as
much higher level of understanding. classification and ordering
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There are many other similar kinds of group science Co-operative Learning is a
activities that can be organized in this way. For
example, in groups, students can make graphs methodology, which is ably
summarizing the ages of students in the classroom or suited to facilitating student
where they come from as another participation in the learning
recording/classifying exercise. Or alternatively,
students can do simple investigatory experiments in of science
groups such as placing objects in a can of water to see
whether they sink or float. All the students in the group should record what is observed and
discuss what conclusions can be made about the density of each object. Students would conclude
that those objects which float (e.g., a leaf, the plastic cap of a pen) have low density while those
that sink (e.g., a rock, a paper clip) have higher density. Once again, a clear division of labour
should be set up in each group: one student might be responsible for collecting the objects,
another for placing the objects in the water, another for writing down the results, and so forth.
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CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION
During the last 10 years, many studies have been done to assess the effectiveness of Co-operative
Learning Methodologies. Almost all of these studies have validated the belief that such
methodologies are much more effective in bringing about higher achievement among students
than are traditional competitive strategies. Perhaps even more importantly, these studies have
found that cooperative learning strategies greatly enhance the motivation of low and middle
achieving students. It is also commonly understood that Cooperative Learning strategies not only
improve learning achievement but are also very effective in fostering social development and
instilling values of cooperation and helping behavior. Thus, this methodology is not only a
helpful tool for cognitive development but also for affective competencies as well.
Many teachers in Cambodia tend to prefer classroom activities, which stress competition among
individual students as the chief means through which to motivate them. While these methods
may be effective with a small handful of bright students,
they often have a devastating effect on the majority of Co-operative Learning
students who are not fast learners. The public nature of strategies greatly
competitive rewards and incentives leads to
embarrassment and anxiety for children who fail to enhance the motivation
succeed. When the anxiety and embarrassment are too of low and middle
great, children who know that they are not likely to win achieving students.
no matter how hard they try,
eventually drop out of active
learning. If teachers are really
trying to help all the students in
a classroom learn sufficient
literacy and numeracy skills, this
observation should be of great
concern to them.
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The facilitator should end this session by explaining that the same process could be used in the
classroom and students could make a colourful poster of the classroom rules. Distribute Handout
A.
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HANDOUT A
2. List Rules
Organise the class into groups.
Give each group a large piece of paper which is passed around the group and everybody writes on
the paper a classroom rule that they think is important. (Encourage them to make the rules
“positive” - so not starting with the word “don’t”)
6. Post Rules
Create a class wall display of the rules.
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1. Objectives
! Participants reflect on common classroom practices and the negative psychological dynamics
that often occur with more traditional teaching styles.
! Participants begin to understand the need for more varied teaching techniques.
2. Procedure
• The facilitator should begin the session by trying to evaluate the effectiveness of current
methods of teaching focusing especially on individualistic, competitive aspects of such
learning. This should establish set for the reading of the case study.
• The facilitator passes out the handout entitled, Case Study and Discussion Questions to each
participant (see Handout B).
• After reading the case study to participants, the facilitator has them answer the questions at
the bottom of the handout in small groups. Poster paper and marker pens should be
distributed so that discussions can be recorded and reported.
• The facilitator elicits group responses. This can be done in the form of group reporting (5
minutes per group) or as an open discussion. If the following points do not arise as a result of
the discussion, the facilitator should ensure that they are raised:
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Alternative Responses
How would you have handled this learning task differently? There are a number of different ways
in which this situation could have been dealt with more kindly. The teacher might have asked all
the other children to put their hands down and worked through a series of follow-up questions
with Sokha to get the right answer. Or the teacher might have organized the students so they
answered the question as a group. In this way, it is more likely that Sokha would have learned
the correct answer more discreetly from friends or if the answer was still wrong, at least
responsibility would have been distributed more evenly. Children as well as adults often feel that
there is safety in numbers. The latter way of handling this situation rests on an approach which is
described as "Co-operative learning."
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HANDOUT B
Identifying the Problem
Directions: Read the following case study and consider the questions below in your groups.
Record your answers on a sheet of poster paper for reporting back to the large group.
A teacher of a third grade class began her lesson by reviewing some points on grammar from the
previous lesson as follows:
Teacher: Children, who remembers what part of speech words such as dog, cat, and village
belong to?
(Twenty students quickly raise their hands. Another ten students try to hide themselves hoping
that the teacher will not call on them. She calls on Sokha.)
Sokha: Proverb?
(All the students in the class laugh.)
Teacher: No, that's not quite right.
(The students other than Sokha, whose face has gone red with embarrassment, raise their hands
again. Some of them are half way out of their seats calling…)
Teacher: Does anyone else know?
(Many students shout out)
Students: Me! Me!
(The teacher turns to another student named, Sopheap)
Teacher: Sopheap, can you help Sokha to answer the question?
Adapted from: Slavin, R.E., (1993) Cooperative Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice.
Discussion Questions
1. In your opinion, is the learning situation exemplified in the case study above desirable or
not. Give reasons for your answer.
2. What kind of effect do you think the occurrence of this kind of competitive questioning
has on the moral development of children? (e.g. does it make children considerate and
caring of one another? does it make children love learning, etc.)
3. Consider the question that the teacher directs to Sopheap (i.e. "can you help Sokha to
answer the question?"). Given the situation that has arisen, do you think Sopheap really
wants to answer the question to "help" Sokha? Explain.
4. If you were the teacher above, how would you have handled this learning task differently?
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1. Objectives
• Participants should now be ready for a description of some of the basic tenets and
characteristics of cooperative learning. This description should include its aims/purposes, its
advantages, and some basic techniques in its implementation.
2. Procedure
• The facilitator passes out copies of the Cooperative Learning Guide and asks participants to
read through pages 3 – 11, silently.
• After participants have finished reading, divide the group into four smaller groups and give one
of the following questions to each group to discuss and report back.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How does Co-operative Learning promote helping behavior?
(Answer: By creating situations in which children must work together to complete a
task, cooperation replaces competition.)
2. How does Co-operative Learning improve the motivation of children who learn more
slowly than others?
(Answer: By discouraging competitive situations, students who learn more slowly are
spared negative reinforcement for incorrect answers; slower students experience
success more frequently in solving learning tasks as a group which helps to make
learning a positive rather than a negative experience.)
3. List some of the techniques used to practice Co-operative Learning.
(Answer: Group seating arrangements; well defined tasks; establish a division of
labor in groups; keep group sizes under 8-9; use mixed ability groupings of students;
move back and forth between large and small group presentations; monitor group
work and provide support as necessary; allow students to help one another; make
sure students take responsibility for their own learning).
• A good way to bring closure to the discussion is for the facilitator to summarize some of the
major differences between traditional ways of teaching and Co-operative Learning. Before
doing this, the facilitator may distribute Handout C for participants to complete in their
groups. The chart shown in Handout C is reproduced below. Give about 10 minutes for this
activity.
• When groups have finished completing their handouts, lead a large group discussion in which a
large reproduction of the handout is posted on the board so that it can be comleted easily. Ask
each group to show how they filled out their tables. The facilitator may then start completing
the table, based on group responses.
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OPTIONAL
! The facilitator may also prepare desired answers on smaller cards based on the table below
Give one complete set of cards with appropriate answers to each group.
! The groups are then instructed to work together to match the cards to the proper place in their
handouts, as in the table below.
NOTIONAL REPSONSES
Parameter ! Traditional Teaching ! Co-operative
Learning
Student Learning Styles ! Individualistic/Competitive ! Group Learning/
Cooperative
Students Most Benefited ! High Achievers ! Middle and Low
Achievers
Efficiency in terms of Time ! Low/ Only a few students ! High/ Many students
Spent on Task are kept on task during are on task
any given lesson simultaneously
! The facilitator then checks the responses and discusses with the large group
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HANDOUT C
Comparing Traditional Teaching & Cooperative Learning
Directions: The facilitator will ask you to make a comparison between Traditional Teaching and
Cooperative Learning along several parameters shown in the table below. Based on the
parameters indicated in the left-hand column, make a comparison in the space provided in the
table by discussing this with the other members of your group.
7. Role of Teacher
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2. Procedure
! This session will require the viewing of a DVD exemplifying specific Cooperative Learning
Techniques. This DVD should be attached to the present manual.
! The facilitator should arrange the participants in groups and give out copies of Handout D,
which is taken from the Self-Study Materials described in Part 1.
! The participants are then asked to read Handout D and refresh their understanding of the
many aspects of Cooperative Learning.
! If the facilitator is confident to do so and the number of participants is not too large,
then a cooperative learning strategy should be adopted for this session, as would be used
in a classroom as follows:
1. Create heterogeneous groups – the grouping could be based on a mix of people from
different schools/Districts, or people with different jobs
2. Allow each group to select a name for the group
3. Ascribe roles and duties in the group (division of labor)
! Each group is given an aspect of Cooperative Learning from the handout to focus on during
observation of the DVD – if more than five groups divide Aspect 1 (i.e. 1.1 and 1.2).
! The groups make notes while watching the DVD of times when the aspect they are focused
on occurs.
! The reporter from each group gives feed back to the large group.
! In the large group, the facilitator should then lead a discussion using the following questions:
1. What materials did the teachers use for their lessons
2. Where did the lessons take place?
3. How did the students react to the lessons
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HANDOUT D
1. Positive Interdependence
Students perceive that they need each other in order to complete the group's task. The key to
doing this successfully to structure the group so that group members clearly get the message
that " I can only succeed and do well if the other members in my group also succeed and do
well".
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materials
5. Individual Accountability
• Each student individually takes a quiz, completes a task, or writes an essay when the material
is studied.
• Group members are called on at random to answer a question
• Each group member has a designated role to perform. These roles can rotate.
• Each member has different responsibilities for completing different parts of a group project
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2. Collaborative
(social) Skills
3. Processing
group interaction
4. Heterogeneous
Grouping (mixing
students)
5. Individual
Accountability
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2. Procedure
! The facilitator should arrange the participants in groups and give out copies of Handout E.
! For this activity, participants also need to refer to Handout D or Part 1 of this manual
! If the facilitator is confident to do so and the number of participants not too large, then
a cooperative learning strategy should be adopted for this session, as would be used in a
classroom as follows:
1. Create heterogeneous groups – the grouping could be based on a mix of people from
different schools/Districts, or people with different jobs
2. Allow each group to select a name for the group
3. Ascribe roles and duties in the group (division of labor)
! The facilitator explains that Handout E is a lesson plan for Grade 1 students and reads
through the stages of the lesson, making sure participants understand what is taking place.
! In their groups the participants discuss the lesson and try to see where cooperative learning
techniques have been used using make a list as shown below:
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! The facilitator should remember that the responses in the right hand column are suggested
only. Groups may come up with alternative answers that equally reasonable.
! One group is, then, chosen to give feedback and their answers are subsequently discussed
with all the participants.
! The facilitator should then lead a discussion to encourage brainstorming for ideas of other
cooperative learning techniques that could be added to the lesson, besides those already
indicated in the lesson plan.
! It might be advised for the facilitator to emphasize that there are more opportunities for
heterogeneous grouping of students in the higher grades than in the lower grades, particularly
with respect to students’ level of maturity and character development, since some students
may have developed more quickly than others since Grade 1.
! The facilitator then repeats the training process using Handout F, a lesson plan for Grade 5.
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HANDOUT E
!
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Individual Accountability
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HANDOUT F
Dividing Fractions
I. OBJECTIVES
• Students can divide fractions using concrete materials.
• Students can divide fractions by using the appropriate logarithm.
• Students can solve word problems involving the division of fractions.
II. TIME
• 1 Hour
III. MATERIALS
• Fractional Division Number Set (5 sets)
• Some word problems involving the division of fractions (written on cards or the blackboard)
IV. PROCEDURE
1. Establishing Set - Review of Division of Whole Numbers
• Arrange students so that they are sitting in five groups that contain an equal balance of boys and girls.
The groups then decide on a name. The teacher explains that the groups are to work together to make
sure that everybody in the group understands, one person should be the recorder and one person the
reporter. Marks will be given to the groups based on their achievement.
• Write a simple number problem on the board involving the division of whole numbers such as 6 ÷ 3.
Ask students the answer to this problem. Write out the answer on the board: 6 ÷ 3 = 2. Then ask
students what this answer means exactly. That is, how would you explain the meaning of this
number sentence in simple English? One way of saying this is that 6 ÷ 3 = 2 means that there are 2
sets of 3 in the number 6.
• When the teacher has finished reviewing the division of whole numbers in the way above, try to
apply similar reasoning to the division of fractions. For example, what does the number problem,
1 1
÷ = ? mean in simple language?
2 4
• Write the following conversion on the board: means “How many fourths are there in one
!
half?"
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• Write additional division problems involving fractions on the board and ask students to convert them
to a question using words in the same way.
When the teacher has finished with the conversions of division problems into language questions, pass out
a Fractional Division Set, consisting of a set of cards with different fractions marked on them, to each
group of students. Ask students to distribute the cards in the set equally to each student in their group so
that one student is holding all the cards marked , another those marked , etc.
• Point out that each card represents a fractional part of the card marked with a "1". For example, the
1
card marked is exactly one half of the card marked "1", while the card with is exactly one-half
4
of the card marked , etc.
!
1 1
• Return to the division problem which was converted to a language question above (i.e., ÷ = ?).
2 4
Ask the student who is holding the card marked one-half to place it in the middle of the table. Then
ask the student holding the cards marked with one quarter to place them under the card representing
one half as shown below:
!
• Given that "How many quarters are there in one half?", students should be
able to answer readily that the answer is "2." Thus, 2. Write similar division
problems on the board, which can be solved using the cards distributed to each group,
such as the following:
1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 3
÷ =? / ÷ =? / ÷ =? / ÷ =? / 1 ÷ =?
2 6 3 6 4 8 3 6 2 4
• In their groups, ask students to solve each of these division problems given above using the
cards provided.
! ! ! ! !
• Students discuss together to agree on an appropriate answer to each number problem and the
teacher will monitor any problems, which students seem unable to solve,
• When the group agrees on all the appropriate answers, one of the students records the answers
accordingly.
• The teacher then reviews the answers on board and gives points to each group, based on what
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they found.
4. Dividing Fractions Using a Logarithm
• When the teacher is satisfied that students are able to divide fractions using concrete materials,
return to the original problem:
• Ask students what happens if they invert the fraction one fourth and multiply it:
1 4 4 2
2 X 1 = 2 = 1
• When students see that this formula yields the same answer as they found by using concrete
materials, explain that inverting the divisor and multiplying is a short way of solving problems
involving the division of fractions.
• Let the students practice individually dividing following fractions using a logarithm:
1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 3
÷ =? / ÷ =? / ÷ =? / ÷ =? / 1 ÷ =?
2 6 3 6 4 8 3 6 2 4
Ly had three fourths of a tank of gas in his motorcycle. If he used one eighth of a tank of gas to go
back and forth to work each day, how many days would it be before he had used all the gas in his
motorcycle?
• Ask students in their groups to solve this problem first using the concrete materials distributed
earlier and then to check their answers by using the logarithm explained above. Monitor
individual group work.
• Ask a representative from each group to report on their answers. Review and correct as needed.
• Teacher reviews responses and assigns points for each group’s answer.
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Positive Interdependence
Individual Accountability
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2. Procedure
! Facilitator introduces this topic by explaining that Think, Pair, Share is a strategy designed
to provide students with "food for thought" on a given topic, enabling them to formulate
individual ideas and share these ideas with another student. It is a learning strategy developed
to encourage student classroom participation. Rather than using a basic recitation method in
which a teacher poses a question and one student offers a response, Think-Pair-Share
encourages a high degree of pupil response and can help keep students on task. The main idea
in each of the three parts of this strategy are summarized below:
Think During a lesson the teacher will pose a question and tell the students to think
about the answer quietly by themselves, ……
Pair Then, discuss the answer in pairs ……
Share And finally the teacher will ask students to give answers to the class
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HANDOUT G
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2. Procedure
! As a large group, lead a discussion with participants that identifies some of the most common
problems in using Cooperative Learning in the classroom. List these on the board.
! Using the list in the table below, make sure that all of the problems indicated are raised in the
large group discussion, if participants should fail to mention any.
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! When the facilitator has completed the discussion, pass out Handout H, which summarizes
the problems just discussed. Ask participants to discuss the problems in their groups and then
identify possible solutions. Participants may also add to the list if they think of other
problems.
! When each group has made a short list of solutions, review these possible solutions as a large
group. Use the solutions listed in the table above to help guide this discussion.
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HANDOUT H
Directions: In your groups, identify possible solutions to each of the problems identified in the
left-hand column. If you think of some problems not listed, please add them at the bottom of the
table and state a possible solution.
13.
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References
1. Cottel, Phillip G & Millis, Barbara J, (1998) Cooperative Learning for Higher Education
Faculty, Phoenix, Arizona: Oryx Press,
2. Johnson, David W & Johnson, Roger T, (1994) Learning together and alone. Cooperative,
Competitive and Individualistic Learning, Needham Heights, MA: Ally & Bacon Inc.
3. Slavin, R.E., (1990), Cooperative Learning, Theory, Research, and Practice, Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
4. Vygotsky, L.S (1962), Thought and Language, Cambridge MA: MIT Press
5. King, Alison, (1993) Sage on the Stage, Journal Article, College Teaching Vol. 41.
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