Cooperative Learning Groups

This past year I had a group of students that were not the most cooperative children in the world.  They had a lot of trouble getting along with each other so I decided to spend a great deal of time teaching them how to work in groups together.  

At first, I conducted a lot of research on how to build group dynamics and through the use of Morning Meetings (that will be another post) I discovered that my students were very dependent on an adult to solve their problems.  They hadn't  really developed social problem solving skills.  I realized I needed to take myself out of the group equation.

I was then awarded a grant from Crayola with a professional development about cooperative learning.  Learn more here. This inspired me and motivated me to continue working with my students on their group skills.  

In my class I assigned the following roles for our first Math cooperative learning experience and it worked rather well.

My students were assigned to one of 7 groups (4 students in each group).  The team captain was assigned but they had to decide amongst themselves who would do the other tasks.  The tasks were as follows:

Captain: Final decision maker when the group can not decide together (this kept them from running to me to solve disputes).

Recorder: This person wrote the answers that the group members decided on together.

Materials Manager: The only student in the group that was allowed to get out of their seat to retrieve materials.

Fact Checker: make sure the team is turning in quality work.  Double-check to make sure the recorder is recording the right information in the right place.  

I was amazed at how well the experience went! There was no arguing because their roles within the group were clearly defined.  We repeated cooperative learning groups many times throughout the year with the same results. When students were allowed to choose their roles within the group they seemed to have a sense of ownership with the assignment and the results.