The Co-operative Learning Lesson Sequence

Design lessons for co-operation and implement lessons for inclusion to build learners’ relationship based on trust, care, co-operation and respect

Research has shown that for optimal learning to take place, learners need to feel emotionally safe and be able to constructive meet their basic social needs. These include the need to be seen, heard, valued and included; the need to have influence and make meaningful contributions to the learning experience, and to feel liked. These feelings affect the classroom atmosphere and learners’ motivation to learn.

The Co-operative Learning Lesson Sequence provides a framework to design lessons that develop learners’ intrinsic motivation to learn together and the social skills to maintain high performing learning teams for improved learning.

Design for Co-operation

To make sure that learners want to and are able to learn together co-operatively, the CL teacher designs all groupwork tasks with the Five CL principles (Click here to review the principles: GAPPS re CL WHEEL). The CL People Organisers are pre-designed groupwork tasks using the five principles which equal participation, accountability, social skills development and group processing. (Click here for explanation of CL people organizers* see following.) They can be used for each aspect of the lesson sequence: classbuilding, teambuilding, practicing social skills while addressing learning area outcomes, mastery learning and conceptual development, and reflection.

Implement for inclusion

The content matter to be addressed by the different groupwork tasks can enable learners to constructively address their basic social / emotional needs. Learners’ are shown how to build their relationships based on trust, care, co-operation and respect. The content matter and the structure of the groupwork task work in concert to create a positive learning environment.

• Classbuilding and teambuilding activities develop learners’ will and skill to learn together co-operatively by providing opportunities for learners to participate and affirm each other. The tasks enable each learner to be seen, heard and valued. They also develop social skills so that learners know how to co-operate and learn together. The activities appeal to learners’ strengths using Multiple Intelligences to help them better remember prior learning and connect to the new information to be learned.
  
• Once learners are ready and able to learn, the teacher can provide new information. The Information Input can take a variety of forms from lecturing to discovery learning.
  
• The Main Co-operative Learning task follows information input. Pair work or small group tasks enable learners to work with the new information and achieve the desired learning outcomes. Here they grapple with the new concepts, gain deeper understanding, make connections with previous learnings, correct misunderstandings and build new academic knowledge. In addition, the task also enables practice so that learners can master skills and strategies to be learned. The Co-operative Learning principles ensure that everyone makes a meaningful contribution to the learning experience. Designing with Multiple Intelligences (hyperlink) enables learners to better process the new information and skills and store in permanent memory.
  
• The Reflective Task enables learners to develop their capacity to synthesize learning, reflect on and assess their thinking and learning processes, and ability to work together. In addition, the task encourages learners to acknowledge each other’s contributions.

This sequence is detailed in the visual planner for the MetaGroup’s Planner for the Co-operative Learning Lesson Sequence. (Click here to view Planner for CL lesson sequence)

CL People Organisers*

The Co-operative Learning literature provides educators and facilitators with ready-made groupwork tasks that are pre-designed with the 5 Co-operative Learning principles. Spencer Kagan and associates developed systematised easy-to-use ‘structures’ such as Think-Pair-Share, Four Heads Together, RoundRobin, Jigsaw, etc. MetaGroup calls these ‘structures’ People Organisers because they design or organize how people interact while doing a particular task so that everyone participates, is accountable, and develops social and leadership skills.

They can be used for all ages and all learning areas. In fact, they also can be used to facilitate meetings to solve problems and make decisions in the staff room, parent meetings or board rooms. The level of complexity of the People Organiser is determined by the content question and concepts to be understood and skills to be mastered and applied.

When using CL People Organizers in the classroom, the teacher decides on the learning area outcomes and selects the appropriate one(s) to apply to their lesson, depending on whether the task is for mastery learning or concept development.

The CL People Organizers ensure that learners will co-operate and improve in their learning ability while they are engaged with the content and achieving learning area outcomes.