Cooperative Learning

Three key learning processes

* Three processes are central to learning in English. They are: reflection, negotiation and collaboration. When students are able to use the three processes, they not only learn much more effectively, but they also gain valuable thinking and communication skills that will stand them in good stead in their lives outside school.

* The processes work well together. When students negotiate, they reflect on their learning: when they collaborate, they negotiate with other students. A learning program that gets students actively using all three processes is likely to work best.

* Teachers who have focused on the three learning processes with their students say that teaching the necessary skills takes time, deliberate planning and possibly some rethinking of their own roles. They also say that once the processes become part of classroom life, the pay-offs in terms of students' engagement and the quality of their learning are dramatic.

What is reflection? Reflection is thinking about and making sense of experience and possibilities. It incorporates self-assessment, goal-setting, and planning. Reflective learners are mindful and purposeful learners. Teaching students to reflect ensures that they are learning from their experience, and making connections between their new understandings and their existing knowledge.

Why is it important? It is really only reflection that enables us to benefit from our learning. When you think about it, it is hard to be sure there is any worthwhile learning without reflection. No matter how exciting and inspirational a learning program is, without some opportunities to reflect, a lot of its potential for learning can be missed. For teachers with a constructivist view of learning, reflection is vital because it helps students to build on and develop their existing understandings.

Reflection enables students to make explicit all learning outcomes, intended and unintended. In a rich English program, students have opportunities for learning that is beyond the scope of the current focus outcomes. Teachers recognize this when they pick up on incidental teaching opportunities and notice students' additional achievements. Sometimes this incidental learning is critically important to students and reflection helps them to make the most of it.

The place of reflection in the learning program

Reflection influences and becomes part of the classroom climate. By teaching students to reflect and organizing time and processes to facilitate reflection, teachers help students to develop commitment to their learning. When there is a culture of reflection established in the classroom, students know that their thoughts and ideas are valued. As teachers model reflection for students, they show that learners play a key role in monitoring their own progress and setting new goals. They can also demonstrate that actions planned as a result of reflection are more focused and effective, relating directly to learners' goals.

Reflection leads to action and understanding. Sometimes students get impatient with reflection because they don't see the connection between reflection and purposeful action or better understanding. When teachers work with students to reflect, they can draw students' attention to the important difference that reflection has made.

Reflection is a habit of mind. It can come before, during and after learning experiences for students.

Reflection before learning activities helps students to tune into their existing knowledge and understanding, to plan and to set goals. By thinking about past experiences and successes, students can gain confidence in tackling new tasks. By remembering past obstacles, students can make sure their planning is realistic.

Classroom example:

Early in the year with her grade 8 class, Jane asks her students to draw a map showing where they have come from as readers. She demonstrates on the board with a map of her own journey from sharing books with parents to independently reading, discovering favorite authors, sharing books with friends and starting to read non-fiction. She includes the new kinds of reading she has been doing lately, and shows non-fiction as well as fiction, cookery books as well as novels. Using her map, she discusses her broad aims for the wide reading program - that students read regularly for enjoyment, read an increasing range of material and tackle some more challenging material to extend their comfort zones. She sets her first personal goal for reading: to read a new science fiction book, a genre she does not usually consider. The students then complete and share their own maps and set realistic goals in negotiation with Jane.

Reflection during activities helps students to monitor their progress. Sometimes a detailed reflection is useful; sometimes a brief and simple strategy works well.

Classroom examples:

Heather's grade 3 students are working on a sequencing activity in cooperative groups. She reminds them to reflect on the social goal for the activity: "Let's check how you are going with your goal of making sure everyone contributes to the discussion. Give me a thumbs up if it's going OK, thumbs down if it's not going so well at the moment."

Ross's grade 9 students are part-way through a negotiated unit on television current affairs. He asks each student to do a force-field analysis. They draw a vertical line on a page. On one side they list the factors that are helping them with their work; on the other they list the factors that are making it difficult. Then in their groups they share their results and list ways of boosting the positive factors and overcoming the negatives.

Reflection after activities helps students to process what they have learned and set new goals. Sometimes individual reflection is most useful, but small group and whole class reflection have a place too.

Classroom examples:

Karen's grade 5/6 students have just completed a unit of work on television advertising. Much of the work was completed in small groups. She asks the groups to work together to produce a mind-map showing what they have learned.

Tony's grade 12 students have just completed some work on analyzing a set text using a negotiated inquiry question. After working in pairs to negotiate and investigate a question, they planned, drafted and revised essays that explored the topic. The completed essays were compiled into a class booklet which was distributed to all students. After the students have had the opportunity to read the essay collection, Tony asks them to complete a journal