Reflection 5

Students from different school districts working on a collective project in concert or just a crowd of students talking about a lecture are instances of collaborative learning. Collaborative learning is instructing and learning by putting students in groups to scrutinize a major query or produce a significant project.

Cooperative learning is a precise kind of collaborative learning. In this learning, students work as one in little sets on an ordered activity, but they are accountable for their own work; the work of the group however is evaluated as one.

Cooperative groups are created so that students can learn to work together as one. By being placed in small groups, students can contribute their strengths to the group. They can also strengthen their meager skills. They learn to deal with disagreements because when working as a group, everyone will not always have the same ideas, but because they are working in a group, they must learn to work out the setbacks they come across so they can be a productive team.

Cooperative learning is more than just putting students in miniature groups and telling them to work together. Like many things in life, there is a guide to cooperative learning. Before beginning to instruct based on cooperative learning, there are three things to consider.

The first thing one must take into consideration is that students need to be put into groups where they feel that they are not in harms reach, but they are still being challenged. This means that you do not put a feeble but smart student in a group with the class bully. However, you should still put that student with other students that will challenge her mind.

The second thing is that the groups must be undersize, that way each student will be able to contribute. Do not put seven students in a group where the required assignment is for them to find only three instances of irony in Flowers for Algernon.

The third and final thing is you must make sure the directions you give the students for the work they have to do is not vague. So, as an instructor, it is your duty to make sure the students understand exactly what it is they must do at all times.

As we can now see, cooperative learning and collaborative learning works hand in hand with one another to promote togetherness in the classroom.