I am a pre-service teacher seeking advice or any suggestions that will help me answer a question that I have. How can I as a general education teacher teach children to work together with one another (cooperatively) and accept the different learning needs and styles that each one of them possess. I am interested in lessons or activities on cooperative learning and how to make sure that I can get my students to work together with other students who may or may not have a learning disability.
Thanks
Michelle
Re: Cooperative Learning
Here are some different ways to teach cooperative learning. First of all, separate your students into different groups then have each student take on a different role. For example, each student in the group could be a recorder, checker, organizer and time keeper. Another way to integrate cooperative learning is have each group accomplish a certain task. Once this is finished, have the students become a part of the evaluative process. Another activity for cooperative learning is to have the students do a language arts activity. For instance, have them make charts as a group or write stories and share ideas in their groups. One other activity that might work is pair share. Pair the students up and have them brainstorm about what they want to present to tehclass. After they are finished, the learning groups will listen to the the other groups in the classroom. The pros of this activity are that it will include more diversity and the students are able to practice their listening skills.
Another suggesstion is to check out the website, www.lessonplanz.com and www2.truman.edu/~v176/helphint.html.
Hi—I’m certified to teach both elementary ed and sped.
To me, there are two main factors involved: 1. Measurement of project success (aka grades); 2. Roles students perform in cooperative learning projects.
If your scoring guide (rubric) is heavily into the traditional learning stuff like spelling, facts, perfect look, etc., sped kids will likely be viewed as group baggage. I believe a key element to working in groups is to build team spirit. That spirit should be a hefty part of the grade. Do you have Spencer Kagan’s book? If not, I highly recommend it for cooperative learning situations. He’s about a genius in this department.
Be sure to assign many different roles—and be sure that they are diverse enough to fit the learning style of the cooperative groups you have established.
In a 6th grade inclusion classroom, I had some non-readers and some kids near gifted status. We were doing a literature circle format (Harvey Daniels). The kids in their groups decided on modifying the roles. One group with our EMH student decided (with his input) that he would be the artist more often, but would pair with another member for the other roles. (I had made sure that there were strong, compassionate types in his group who would be supportive of his selection of words or passages of interest.) My LD’s did fine in discussion, they just needed a group member to scribe or they interpreted their own writing.
If the class climate is one where everyone feels safe to be who they are—no jokes, teasing, name-calling permitted and incidents are handled *every* time—then most kids feel okay to have a weakness and figure out a way to overcome and participate.
Some of these kids had never done a piece of literature in the reg classroom before. They learned a lot about social behaviors as well as vocabulary and literature elements.
Some of the most profound connections came from my LD’s who had never opened their mouth in class before. I loved it!