Which of the following statements about the benefits of cooperative learning is false?
a. Students generally possess the social skills necessary to make cooperative learning successful, and most of the time teachers will just need to remind students of effective group behavior.
b. Research suggests that high-achieving students benefit from constructing explanations for their peers, and lower-achieving students benefit from their peers' explanations.
c. Well-crafted cooperative learning activities include both group goals and individual accountability.
d. Cooperative learning can facilitate not only academic growth but also motivate increased student independence.
Question 2
Ms. Lewellyn says, I'm thinking about starting to use cooperative learning in my class, but I'm not sure how to get started. I've had them do some paired workquizzing each other over spelling words, checking each other's papers. I'm ready to move them into groups of four. What I should do next to make this go smoothly? In response, you say,
a. Put your students into heterogeneous groups and give them a multiday, multi-step project to complete together..
b. Ask students to identify peers with whom they'd like to be grouped and then set up groups accordingly..
c. Have a class discussion about what it takes for people to work together cooperatively, and address concrete behaviors that you will teach and reinforce with students..
d. Give student groups a simple task to complete together, and when it's done, talk about what parts went well and what parts didn't..