Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning, by definition, is a very successful teaching strategy where there are small teams of students, each with different levels of abilities, who use a variety of learning activities to improve the understanding of the subject they are working on. This type of learning is so important to have in the classroom, to help increase the success of the students. There are so many types of grouping that you can use in the classroom to achieve the highest level of understanding. If we group appropriately, we can use grouping fully to our advantage. Two ways that we can group our students is through homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping. Homogeneous grouping is when you place students with similar abilities into one group. Heterogeneous grouping is when you place students with various abilities into a group, such as mixing ELLs and Special education students into the general education groups. If I were to use homogeneous grouping, I would strategically place the students who were at the same level of learning together, place the ELL students together, etc. If I were to use heterogeneous grouping, I would place one ELL student in a group with at least one general education student who was excelling in the subject, so they could help guide them and help them grasp a better understanding of what they’re learning. 

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is another way that we can group students together. There are 9 types of intelligences: naturalist (nature smart), musical (sound smart), logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart), existential (life smart), interpersonal (people smart), bodily-kinesthetic (body smart), and linguistic (word smart). There are so many ways that we could group using the intelligences. You could group them simply by the intelligence that they identify with. You could group them in smaller groups where maybe you place a naturalist with a one who favors logic and math. You can place one who is body smart with someone who is word smart. You can have each person work individually, and they can take the lesson from their strong point, or we can have them look at the lesson through different eyes and challenge themselves to do something they wouldn’t usually go with. There are so many ways that you can group your students to challenge them and to help them get a better understanding, and to maybe see the learning from a different point of view. Cooperative learning, I believe, increases student performance in the best of ways. While there are students who groan and moan about having to do group work, once they get started they actually enjoy the work, and they tend to get more out of it, because they’re learning from their peers and they’re learning in a way that they wouldn’t have done otherwise. Yes, we as teachers teach them all that we can, but sometimes learning from their peers gets to them in a way that we couldn't. We can offer different types of learning within our classroom. We can offer different activities for the different types of intelligences, so that we have practice differentiation in our class. Grouping and differentiation is one of the best things that can practice in our classes.