Teaching Cooperative Learning: The Challenge for Teacher Education

4. Cooperative Learning In Teacher Education: A Four-Year Model

CHAPTER 4 Cooperative Learning In Teacher Education A Four-Year Model JOELLEN HARRIS AND BOB HANLEY from the pressures of raising national standards to the complex demands of increasingly diverse classrooms, the teaching profession faces great challenges in the twenty-first century. The preservice education of teachers must equip them to meet effectively these competing demands. Fortunately, cooperative learning is a proven strategy that, when used properly, has increased the academic success of students as well as promoted social growth. For this reason, the teacher education program at Anderson College (Anderson, South Carolina) has integrated cooperative learning throughout the academic program for preservice teachers. For insight into our use of cooperative learning, we provide a description of the cooperative learning program and the concept of a developmental approach that utilizes four models of cooperative learning—the structural approach (Kagan, 1990), the conceptual approach (Johnson & Johnson, 1987; Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1987), Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) (Slavin, 1983, 1989), and the complex instruction approach (Cohen, 1994). We also identify the challenges for each model and provide an overview of the management of the cooperative learning system. In addition, we conclude with insights gained from our experiences as well as recommendations for teacher educators who want to include cooperative learning as an integral part of a teacher education program. At Anderson College, cooperative learning has become integrated into the philosophical foundation of our teacher education program. This interest in 65 cooperative learning began several years ago when Dr. Joellen Harris was named head of the teacher education program. She had received formal training in student team learning developed through Johns Hopkins University and in the Johnsons’ “Learning Together” approach of cooperative learning; she had studied both complex instruction developed by Liz Cohen, and the structural approach originated by Spencer Kagan. Because of her strong beliefs in cooperative learning’s academic application, she began to promote this strategy as a theoretical framework to guide classroom management and instruction. Her enthusiasm and success in utilizing cooperative learning have led seven other Anderson College professors to participate in a semester-long course on cooperative learning in order to be able to use it in their classrooms and to help them to prepare teacher candidates with basic concepts and strategies. As a result, cooperative learning has become a significant teaching strategy for both our education faculty and our teacher candidates. Its influence is readily seen in the conceptual framework that guides the teacher education program. With the central metaphor of teacher as builder, the program strives to produce teachers who are competent builders of knowledge, committed builders of community, and caring builders of values. We believe the teacher who utilizes cooperative learning as the foundation for instruction taps into a powerful vehicle for fostering student learning. As a committed builder of community, a teacher promotes collaboration within the classroom and stimulates the growth of learning communities. Through the application of the principles of cooperative learning, teachers are able to perform these roles effectively. By implementing cooperative learning, teachers also help students to develop values as they build classroom communities characterized by respect, responsibility , discipline, service, and grace. Such attitudes are marked by actions of recognition, respect, and acceptance. By enlisting the dynamic power of cooperative learning, teachers may foster patterns of behavior that lead to recognition of the importance of self and the recognition of the importance of others that are essential for the multicultural classrooms of today. OVERVIEW OF THE FOUR-YEAR MODEL Beginning as simply a small component within one course, cooperative learning currently serves as a major component of each of the four years in the teacher candidates’ program. The particular structure of our cooperative learning program has developed from insights gained from earlier experiences. One important key is that we see progressions at work in our program for cooperative learning. First, the college students enter their education courses as freshmen with little or no knowledge of cooperative learning strategies and often unfairly label them. For example, some freshmen have had teachers who were not suffi66 Joellen Harris and Bob Hanley ciently trained and used cooperative learning incorrectly. A common complaint here is that student work resulted in group grades without individual accountability . Kagan (1995) identifies seven reasons that he opposes group grades, including their unfairness, their tendency to weaken motivation, and their failure to hold the individual student accountable. Such misuse of cooperative learning has led to strong opposition from...