Teaching students in a classroom context is like
conducting an orchestra. Teacher plays the role as the conductor who manages
the class and the students play the role as the musicians who express their-selves to create a harmonious music composition. In a classroom context,
both teacher and students should engage in the classroom. Everyone should take
part. Teacher has the responsibility to provide joyful and safe learning
environment in which every student can explore him/herself in the learning
process. As an orchestra, students are supposed to study collaboratively. They
should consider that they are not learning alone. They have peers in their
class. Though individual work is absolutely counted, but how they collaborate
and socialize with the other students should be taken into account. In
addition, learning collaboratively enables students to be more encouraged to
learn and helps to develop their self-esteem since it creates comfortable and
secure atmosphere. Moreover, it can trigger classmates to support one another.
In a classroom context, one thing that I would
like to maximize the positive impact of peers is by implementing cooperative
learning structures. Cooperative Learning itself is described as a large group
of instructional strategies in which students collaborate in order to reach a
common goal. Kagan who is concerned with structures development in education
since 1968, creates Kagan Structures that most designed to increase learner
engagement and cooperation. Kagan and Kagan (2009) states that all of the Kagan
Structures are very carefully designed. They are carefully structured to
implement four basic principles of cooperative learning, PIES; P= Positive
Interdependence; I=Individual Accountability; E=Equal Participation;
S=Simultaneous Interaction. Kagan Cooperative Learning offers a chance to make
students active and minimize the free rider and help all students socialize
with the others. And not only that, it can be applied in all situation and all
subjects. According to
www.indiana.edu/~safeschl/cooperative_learning.pdf, the
Cooperative Learning method helps students to use their cooperation and
interdependence in completing their task so that they will reach the task,
goal, and reward structures. In short, they will learn to do their task
cooperatively in order to achieve their learning objectives.
There are many structures belong to Cooperative
Learning that can be implemented in a classroom setting. Taken from
www2.gsu.edu/~mstjrh/cooperative_learning_struct.htm they
are: Rally Robin, Jigsaw, Numbered Heads Together, Showdown, Really Coach, One
Stay Two Stray, Think Pair Share, Pairs Check, STAD (Student Teams-Achievement
Division), Three Step Interview, Constructive Controversy, Roundtable/Circle of
Knowledge, Talking Chips, Co-op Cards, Send a Problem, and etc. We can choose
one of the structures that best suited to the material of learning and the
interpersonal skill that we want to emphasize.
Doing Cooperative learning structure is not so
complicated. Nevertheless, it needs preparation. First thing that teacher
should take into account is the material and the suitable structures. The other
thing is, teacher should give clear questioning and instruction to the
students. Since in this structures students are supposed to work
collaboratively, it is better to give questions which can stimulate students’
critical thinking so that every students has the chance to share their own
ideas. Moreover, clear questioning and instruction is considered essential in
conducting Cooperative Learning Structure. It will help students to understand
clearly what to do and minimize group confusion.
I had experienced how clear questioning and
instruction are really matter in Cooperative Learning Structure. The first time
I tried to implement Numbered Heads Together Structure in my class, I did not
give sufficient information about the structure. I just told the students to
follow my instruction without giving brief explanation about what to do in
advance. Therefore, students got confused and the class began chaotic. It was
not effective. Learning from the first experience, I reflected on what had
happened and started to give clear questioning and instruction.
Sometime, Cooperative Learning Structure needs
students to move their seats to gather in groups. Therefore, teacher should
make sure that the class arrangement is possible for the students to move their
seat. It is better to give exact time for the students to move in order to
minimize chaos.
In grouping the students, teacher sensitivity and
comprehension of the class play important roles. The effective group
composition consists balance and diverse from high, middle and low achieved or
motivated students. This sort of grouping will enable to maximize the positive
impacts of peers. High achieved students will help the middle and low achieved
students. And in the end, the success of the group is the success of the whole
members. And the success of the whole members is the success of the class. This
is worth celebrated.
Celebrating students achievement can be done in
various ways. In a classroom context, clapping hands can be the simplest way.
Hug and cheers at the and of the class hopefully will make the learning more
impressive even after the class ends up. At the end of my class, I always ask
the students to clap their hands to celebrate the success of the learning
process.
*This article was officially published to fulfill Peer Assessment Project of online course at
https://www.coursera.org/ Foundation of Teaching and Learning 3, on December 2013
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