As I am reading about Cooperative Education, I cannot help but to be tormented by ambivalent feelings about this philosophy, overall. On the one hand, cooperative education has an enormous amount of empirical evidence to suggest that symbiotic relationships between group members greatly facilitates the learning process: once again we are told that education does not take place in a vacuum, and in the real world, we cooperate with others as we delve into educational experiences.
On the other hand, one notices that evaluation is norm-referenced rather than criterion-referenced. This adds fuel to the fire of the distracters of cooperation who point out that under cooperative education, it’s about the group, not about the individual learner. Some go as far as to say that cooperative education furthers a socialist agenda. That, to me, is a bit extreme: parts of cooperative education make too much sense, such as shared understanding, to dismiss it in such a manner. Years ago I learned more about architecture from fellow classmates than I did from the instructor. Then again, taking the instructor into consideration, I had to learn from my fellow classmates.
In many ways, this approach seems too good to be true. I am thinking of classes where there were a couple of disenfranchised students who sat at the back of the room, apathy written all over their faces. I am wondering how these students would interact with their fellow classmates if given the chance to share their insights and experience. Who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised.
There appears to be several effective techniques for handling students of varying degrees of motivation. I would have to see them in operation to pass judgment.
One of the concepts that has been mentioned in relation to this approach is that of students teaching other students, and the powerful effect doing so has on the student’s own learning. Stephen Covey wrote an immensely popular book in 1989 called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. After presenting and elaborating on the habits, he recommends that the reader teach others what he/she had learned, reasoning that when we teach something, we learn it twice. This is excellent advice for anyone in the educational or business world, and I am delighted to see its inclusion in the Cooperative Learning approach.
I would not hesitate to use this method to teach aspiring drafters, at least not if they were all together in the same room and therefore able to gauge each others’ reactions. I have seen this approach used before first hand, and it works.
My gut instinct is that Cooperative Education could be a nightmare if used in an online environment. Previous experiences have afforded me the opportunity to notice how people interact when meetings are held strictly online. It was certainly be interesting to observe the group dynamics involved as normally introverted personalities transform into more extroverted ones in an online environment. One sometimes needs a referee to control the competitive member and encourage the unmotivated.
The old standbys such as Elluminate and Skype would be essential to provide an ambience in which 2-5 students could cooperate online and share with each other as they engage in a group project.
I definitely agree with what you said about when students have to teach others, they learn the material better. I have experienced this first hand. Also, even though it may sound like a chaotic model to use in the online environment, I think it could work. I think it would work especially well if different students were provided with different roles. Elluminate and Skype would definitely be essential for this model!
ReplyDeleteHi Al, you bring up some interesting points. I would say that cooperative learning is great for those that have an inter-personal learning style. There are many that learn very well in groups. I personally enjoy group learning. To say that it works with intra-personal students can be where the challenge comes in. Independent students may not be as likely to be successful in a group learning setting, unless the group has a blend of independent work activities that will allow the independent students to feel in their learning zone.
ReplyDeleteYou raise some interesting ideas. Although this method has potential to be a very effective tool, it also has a great deal of potential to be disastrous. I believe it is one of those things that one just has to keep trying until it is perfected. The first time I attempted cooperative learning, I was less than pleased with the results. After I took a step back and assessed the situation, I found that the some things could have been done differently on my part. I have had much better experiences since then.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this process could be disastrous. I mentioned to Hyun-Duck that when I have worked with corporate groups on team or collaborative projects, even if there are clear roles and responsibilities, things can still fall apart. It always seems to come down to that same old alignment issue. It there is not alignment on the process and the goals then it tends to get messy!!!!
ReplyDeleteAl,
ReplyDeleteSome majors and subjects lend themselves to a cooperative learning environment such as architecture. I agree that it would be interesting to see how disenfranchised students interact within the cooperative group. I believe that working with peers would give them a revised enjoyment of the content and class.
When learning the best way for retention to occur, it should be a requirement to teach it to another person. Covey is right, teaching will help you learn the content twice.
So, I find it interesting that you are a fan of Guided Design but are skeptical of cooperative learning - interesting because in my mind I saw the two as being so similar, only slightly different in emphasis. I appreciate your point about the disenfranchised students - I think the article talked about the frustration that can result from having a "constant pupil" in the group. I wonder if a limitation of this approach is that it may work for a majority of students but be frustrating for students at either ends of the bell curve spectrum? But then perhaps this limitation could be minimized by assembling the right mix of individuals in a given group.
ReplyDelete