FHS
6
Learning Co-operatively at Murrayburn
Our cluster primary, Murrayburn has very talented Co-operative Learning practitioners. Lauren Paterson was fortunate to have the opportunity to observe two teachers, P3 teacher Ms Colvin and P7 teacher Ms Bond in October 2012 and December 2012 respectively. Here are the findings...
Ms Colvin's Primary 3 Class
Academic Aim: To make a Halloween decoration for their party (either witches hats or pumpkins)
Social Aim: Staying with your group.
How the five basic elements are achieved:
Positive interdependence
Pupils had to work together to achieve their aim, which the use of roles really complimented. Also there were group rewards, such as stickers for the group with the best decoration and the group who were working best together.
Face-to-face interaction
Pupils knew straight away how to organise their classroom co-operatively. Pupils moved tables and seats to ensure they had face and shoulder partners.
Individual accountability
Pupils were asked for feedback randomly and individually after the group task finished.
Social skills
The social aim was to stay with your group during the lesson.
Group processing
Pupils were asked to do a fist of five for evaluating the social aim. Pupils were asked to think and give answers about how to improve this next time. Groups also were encouraged to give each other feedback on the decorations they had made, and share positive comments.
This was a fantastic cooperative learning lesson, where all pupils were engaged, enthusiastic and meeting both learning aims. I was impressed by how smoothly the pupils got into their co-operative learning groups and how they clearly liked this style of learning. It is clear that this class do it frequently, which is something we have to keep on working on at Forrester to really embed co-operative learning into day to day teaching and learning.
How this can be used or adapted in the secondary sector:
* The development of social skills information. It would be a good idea to make posters with information about each social skill, with what it looks like and sounds like.
* Using common approaches such as fist of five prompted Nicola and myself to think that we could find other commonalities and collate the information to strengthen transitions.
Ms Bond's Primary 7 Class
Academic Aim: To use ‘Wow’ Words
Social Aim: Agreement
How the five basic elements are achieved:
Positive interdependence
Groups were formed randomly and by common themes of words. When they got their voice of the table, they had to share a word they like to hear and share it with their group. These words formed a group name which really facilitated group bonding. They used the doodle boards to do this.
Each group had to work together to graffiti ‘wow’ words to replace ‘boring’ words in a carousel. Each group had their own colour of pens so groups could be assessed as a whole.
Groups also had to work together to work out the four most common words on the graffiti walls.
Face-to-face interaction
Pupils were sitting co-operatively; face to face and shoulder to shoulder. The classroom was organised into groups of four.
Individual accountability
Pupils were asked for feedback randomly and individually after the group task finished.
Social skills
All pupils had to discuss and use their doodle boards to list what agreement looked like and sounded like. Ms Bond asked for feedback and discussed their answers further.
Group processing
The class were asked to assess whether they had met the targets for their group. The groups used thumbs to feedback on the academic target. Each group had to say one thing they did well and one thing they would need to improve next time in terms of social skills. Ms Bond also had written down phrases of good practice for agreement which she shared with the class which really facilitated the evaluation process.
This was a brilliant lesson, which fully met the academic and social aims. Pupils were engaged, alert and really thriving in their learning in this lesson through doing all activities.
How this can be used or adapted in the secondary sector:
* There was also a classroom display with the roles for group work, and numbers which were easy to move about. It would be a great idea to introduce this to Forrester.
*The doodle mats really enhanced cooperative learning.