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I n addition, assign the bored bright students to
take the role of checker to develop their mindset
of “teacher” through the process of making sure
slow students in the team understand the concept
and team’s conclusion. By doing so, the learning
experience can be transformed from a boring
task into an exciting challenge. At the start of a
course, allowing team members to pick their own
roles would be one way for students to become
more comfortable with teamwork. However, it
is better to rotate roles within the teams so that
students experience a variety of responsibilities,
and make sure everyone participate evenly to
reduce conformity in class. Remember to avoid
assigning the discussion leader to the dominant
one and create team roles that are simple, clear,
and important. Last but not least, to overcome
the free-rider problem, group-member rotation is
used as a means to solve this potential issue. In the
Tell me and I
forget,
teach me
and I may
remember,
involve me
and I learn. ”
A holistic, student-centered education cannot
be achieved in the classroom alone, it should
be conducted by teachers and society carefully.
Willingham(2007) believes that teaching critical
thinking skills is very tough, and only confuses
students and he is right in some ways. Although
cooperative learning strategies are an incredibly
efficient way to maximize learning and increase
critical thinking skills of students, things don’t
always go smoothly as the theory said; in fact,
there are potential pitfalls that will cause your
teaching a big failure. Cooperative learning
requires more than seating youngsters around a
table and telling them to share, work together,
and be nice to one another. To make the teaching
more effective, teachers need to monitor the
learning process carefully, set clear group goals
and ensure every group member has learned
something.
social science class, cooperative and traditional
strategies are both used to decide the final exam
scores. When group members are forced to rotate
in a term, it is less possible for them to rely on
the same person.
According to Webb’s research, it has consistently In addition, Jigsaw activities won’t work out
found that students who gain most from without the help of expert group consisting of
cooperative work are those who give and receive other students who have prepared a report on
elaborated explanations. In my future teaching, the same topic, so that they all have something
students were encouraged to discuss “why” they to say before presenting a report to their jigsaw
thought as they did regarding solutions to the groups. They were also instructed to listen
problems. As part of the instructions, I should carefully to comments of each member of the
always make sure that each student ends up with group and be willing to reconsider their own
an accurate report and have a built-in safety net judgments and opinions. Every theory has its
for students with poor study skills. Assessments own way to apply in each class and it is necessary
are a crucial means for both students and teachers for teachers to adjust the teaching based on
to evaluate their learning outcomes. As we all students’ learning needs, otherwise the learning
know, the advances in technology and changes in experience might backfire. I hope my class would
the organizational infrastructure put an increased include multicultural, multi-ethnic, and diverse
emphasis on teamwork within the workforce, communities, which will definitely prepare my
so it is crucial for students to be able to think students to enhance global awareness and see the
creatively, solve problems, and make decisions world through the different eyes.
as a team.
MARCH 2011 UNIVERSA
L M A LIN
G A 林佳璉
ZINE 43
JULIE