Inquiry Ideas

Share with us your ideas for inquiry. Write a post with your inquiry questions, a summary of your process, and any other ideas you have on this project.

Maybe we could help each other work through issues in your inquiry. Please feel free to share whatever.

The link to the blog that shared the old children's book is here.

Cooperative Learning

Some of you mentioned that you'd like some ideas or tips for cooperative learning. As an eMINTS Instructional Specialist, I train teachers in using cooperative learning activities as well as use some of the strategies and elements in my own facilitation. From this work and my own experience, I've put together this blog post.

Elements of Cooperative Learning
Depending on who you ask, cooperative learning has four or five elements that should be present every time. Otherwise, it's just group work. I'm focusing on the four elements as pointed out by Kagan.

• Positive Interdependence - "All for one, one for all" sort of describes positive interdependence. This is the idea that if I succeed, you will also succeed. The challenge is in designing lessons or utilizing structures that make this happen. To me, this is the most important aspect of cooperative learning. PI can be supported through team building, common group goals, shared resources, specific roles, and group rewards.
  
• Individual Accountability - Each student is responsible for contributing to the task. That means that each member of a group should have his/her unique portion of a task, not everyone doing the exact same thing. This can be accomplished through assigning individual roles or dividing the content among group members.
• Equal Participation - Each member of a group has equal participation time. This has to be a requirement or expectation built into an activity. Don't let that wallflower sit to the side while others dominate the work.
• Simultaneous Interaction - All students should be visibly engaged at the same time.Faco Reduce the down time and give every group member a specific role to be worked on simultaneously. This will cause your classroom to be noisier than usual, but it's worth it.

Time to Reflect
Although not specified by Kagan, many cooperative learning advocates feel it is imperitive for these strategies to incorporate some sort of group processing. This is a good teaching practice overall. You've got to develop that meta cognition.

Reasons NOT to Use Cooperative Learning
Many teachers have many excuses for not using cooperative learning. However, for every excuse, there is a reasonable response.

• Real World Competition - Teachers feel that students should be able to complete tasks on their own in order to prepare for the real world. While this is partially true, it should also be noted that most jobs require people to work together in collaboration.
• Difficult to Manage - Many feel that it is difficult to manage a noisy room of simultaneous activity. I'd argue that it's not anymore difficult than doing quiet, whole-class, teacher-centered teaching. There are just different strategies that need to be practiced and employed.
• Cooperative Learning Is Overdone - Cooperative groups are not necessary for every assignment. When they are, it rarely feels rewarding. Plus, instructors often leave out any development of collaborative skills. So, teachers avoid cooperative learning all together. The truth is that your students need a variety of approaches and perspectives, cooperative learning being one of them.
• Mediocrity Rules - Teachers are often concerned that their higher-achieving students can be dragged down by cooperative groups. However, the best way to learn content and processes is often to teach it to others. Also, cooperative groups allow these students to learn and develop other skills such as leadership and collaboration. Every student can benefit from that.

Factors to Consider
When using cooperative groups, there are several factors to consider. It's not just about putting students into groups and letting them go.

• Homogeneous vs. Heterogeneous Grouping - Do you want all the students in a group to be alike in some way or do you want to mix abilities and perspectives?
• Size - Typically, groups of two, three, or four work best.
• Grouping Method - Depending on the task, there can be times for random grouping, but purposefully grouping students can meet very specific goals.
• Student Preferences - In order to avoid conflict or time off task, considering student preferences can really help. Don't always pair the Hatfields and McCoys or BFF's for the best results.
• Strengths and Needs - Find skills that compliment or fill in holes with your student groups.

Social Skills
Students do not always know how to cooperate or interact with their peers. We have to teach social skills. For cooperative learning to work, students must know how to treat each other in a proper manner. The time that is saved by not having to put out "fires" is worth the time spent teaching students how to interact.

Cooperative Learning Structures
Below are a few websites with structures that have the elements and ideas I've shared in this post. Also, I've included a link to my Delicious bookmarks for cooperative learning to fill in any gaps.

• Cooperative Learning Structures - This site divides the structures into two categories: Basic and Advanced. For those who are just trying out cooperative learning or aren't sure of its benefits, try the basic structures. The advanced structures are not difficult. They just require more of a commitment.
• Kagan Cooperative Learning - This resource is a collection of Kagan strategies that include a description of the strategy, steps, and tips for implementation.
• My Delicious Bookmarks - These are bookmarks of resources that support cooperative learning in the classroom.
  

Boy Trouble

Below is a link that relates directly to many of the topics discussed in our group. It is from Instructor Magazine published by Scholastic. Any thoughts on it?

Link

(I fixed it.-Zac)

You're the man

You want me to WRITE!?!?! Ahh Maaan!

I have only read through chapters 1 and 2 and so far I am not shocked or surprised. Boys are struggling in the current, traditional classrooms. Writing is boring.

As Kindergarten teachers, we continuously compete for children's attention with Bakugan and Kung Fu Panda among others. One observation is that I can't help but notice how the kiddos (mainly boys) would rather spend more time named "Anakin" or "The Red Ranger" than answering by their given name. Heck, one boy knows all the characters in Star Wars, but after 114 days of school cannot name the other boys in the classroom. There seems to be a disconnect here. Could it be that children are more and more being introduced to the outside world through electronic media rather than face to face socialization. In a movie or a video game, effortless (perceived) connections are made with the characters. Is it any surprise that boys are giving up and retreating from uneasy situations resulting from peer encounters, especially when teachers (like myself) are telling them to quit playing rough and settle down?

In a nutshell... if it is so easy to not write and have fun, why bother? How can we make writing attractive to young boys when other stimuli are so readily available?

Continuing research

I will be using the same research question I used last year.

Does Having a Male as a Teacher Change Students Perceptions?

I think it will be interesting to see how the perceptions of students who have had a male for the entire school year compare to those students who only had me for 16 weeks.

Boy Writers

While reading the book, "Boy Writers", I noticed a real interesting quote. "Girls tend to 'attack' a writing assignment and get it done quickly. Boys, on the other hand, tend to ponder and fester about what they are going to write." I'm not real sure about all classrooms, but this is definitely not the case in my student teaching classroom. Sure, there are girls who are good writers and get theirs done quickly. However, there is a greater number of boys in the classroom who have written some fantastic pieces thus far and are more creative. Most of the boys jump right in and can write for hours. I think its all about the teacher's personal perceptions of what their students writing is to look like. We can't be biased about what writing needs to look like when the student's are expressing themselves. Let them be creative, school appropriate of course, and express themselves as writers!

Who the Hell Was That Guy?

   So, as it turns out, I am not the only male in my grade level in my district.  How exciting!  I met two others today at a district meeting.  This was quite surprising since this is our third or fourth meeting of the year.  One of them is a student teacher, and I wish him all the best.  The other one, is a first year teacher.  As I said, this was the first time I've seen him.  As it turns out, he hadn't cleared space is his schedule to make it before.  (Hearsay from his co-worker: "What are they (the district) going to do?  Fire me?")  Later in the day, I had another session with him where he sat in the back and declined to participate ("No, I'm good") when asked.

   I don't think I've ever been more upset at a person's attitude.  There's already a huge stigma on male teachers and the last thing I want is for one of our own to degrade our image.  I'm not the best teacher.  I never will be.  However, I know that I want to be a better teacher than I am now.  It's going to take work... lots of work.  "You should never stop learning" is a cliché, but it became a cliché because there's near inarguable truth to it.  I'm a huge advocate of getting more men in the classroom, as you could guess, but I'm a fan of getting the right men in the classroom.  Maybe he's not a lost cause, but the passive-aggressive stance that he's taken towards his professional development thus far, doesn't instill confidence in me.  I hope he can turn it around and become an example of what a great male teacher can be.