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Title: April | cooperative vs. cooperative learning Post by: mediarevolutionary on March 18, 2007, 12:46:40 PM Dr. Ted Panitz, who has written extensively (http://home.capecod.net/~tpanitz/) on cooperative and collaborative education, summarized the differences between the two in his article, "Collaborative vs. cooperative learning (http://home.capecod.net/~tpanitz/tedsarticles/coopdefinition.htm)." His definitions (emphasis my own):
Quote In the cooperative model the teacher maintains complete control of the class, even though the students work in groups to accomplish a goal of a course. The cooperative teacher asks a specific question such as, “What were the five causes of the start of World War II?” The teacher provides additional articles for the students to read and analyze, beyond the text, and then asks the students to work in groups to answer the question. The groups then present their results to the whole class and discuss their reasoning. A follow up question may then be posed to the groups to analyze the United Nations to determine if this has been an effective organization to prevent world wars and to make recommendations on possible changes needed to make the UN more effective. The teacher might use specific structures, such as a Jig Saw model, to help facilitate the group interactions. He/she might require a specific product such as a term paper or report, class presentations, and an exam at the end of the topic. The students do the work necessary to consider the material being covered but the teacher maintains control of the process at each stage. In the collaborative model groups would assume almost total responsibility for answering the question. The students determine if they had enough information to answer the question. If not they identify other sources, such as journals, books, videos, the internet, to name a few. The work of obtaining the extra source material would be distributed among the group members by the group members. The group would decide how many reasons they could identify. The collaborative teacher would not specify a number, but would assess the progress of each group and provide suggestions about each group’s approach and the data generated. It might also occur to the students to list the reasons in order of priority. The teacher would be available for consultations and would facilitate the process by asking for frequent progress reports from the groups, facilitate group discussions about group dynamics, help with conflict resolution, etc. The final product is determined by each group, after consultation with the teacher. The means of assessment of the group’s performance would also be negotiated by each group with the teacher. Some groups might decide to analyze the UN, as the cooperative group was directed to do, or they might try to come up with a completely new organization. They might go back through history to determine how other periods of peace were created. The process is very open ended while it maintains a focus on the overall goal. The students develop a very strong ownership for the process and respond very positively to the fact that they are given almost complete responsibility to deal with the problem posed to them and they have significant input into their assessment. Cooperate. Sounds like a good thing. And it is, but there is an evolution in education towards an organic collective. The traditional education system was a one-to-many dictation of a school teacher indoctrinating students with the one-truth of a conformed, authorized text. Authorized by who? Students are out-growing that box, looking for a more holistic education experience. Enter cooperation, an education structure where a group works together, under the leadership of an instructor who defines the goals and parameters of their exploration. Working together is an essential skill to navigating the information highway but falls short when students only know where they have been led. The collaboration model has the instructor step down from the pulpit and serve the students as a facilitator, allowing them free reign for their exploration. Instead of staying on a beaten path, knowledge explorers are encouraged to forge new paths, new methods, new directions seeking fresh perspectives and innovative solutions. A question predefines the answer. An instructor asks a class, "What color is the bird?" The focus is a short path to a simple destination. "Describe what this bird looks like," is a longer path but denies four senses. A collaborative project would have an instructor bring in a bird, have the class form into manageable groups and pose, "What is bird?" Students would come to the solution from diverse paths. "Birds fly." "Only some birds fly." "Some birds sing like..." "Their feathers help them fly." "An ostrich is a bird." "A duck is a bird and it has webbed feet for swimming." "A bird is not a cat." This dialog builds a platform for exploration from many points of view. One student offers that a bird is a dog. By deciphering that sentence, the students are closer to the solution by seeing the question upside down. This platform hears minority opinion and seeks truth through critical thinking and examination, not blind faith of another's dogma. A collaborative story project has no preconceptions. Students are encouraged to approach the story based on the suggestions of the previous authors, take the torch and walk anywhere the choose through the forest of possibilities. Students see where the path came from, but can use their own genius and creativity to build new pathways. The awareness is that children, closer to the source, have an innate understanding of this universe's magic and wonder, allowing them to stumble, run and jump over tradition's obstacles to discover the next steps in human evolution. This is paramount. Desensitizing them to their sixth sense and numbing their intuition to accept a series of conjured truths is no longer acceptable or necessary. Our task is to rise up to their level, show them ways to learn and then get out of the way.
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