It's wonderful to have someone to bounce ideas off of and I suspect our students do get some of that in casual acquaintance. I have to say my own experiences collaborating in scholarly research have been wonderful and the most valuable experiences I have had. they are bored because their group's too slow). (I have also heard parents of elementary school children complain about cooperative learning and I have heard them say their children complain, i.e. Changing them isn't going to happen all at once. They have thoroughly internalized the individualist values our culture promotes. Unfortunately our students have had 12 years of individualized education by the time they reach us (though they are now starting to do cooperative learning in the schools, at least in my kids schools). I have seen these same frustrations when I have assigned collaborative projects (I usually have students work in pairs to cut down on the complaints that they can't find time to get together). Subject: cooperative learning David Code's posting about cooperative learning and assignments in the classroom raises an issue I would also liked to see discussed (and don't think I have seen in the last year).
Thanks for your help David Loberg Code School of Music Western Michigan University code = Second, they might be hesitant to voice their criticisms about the exam to me since I am their instructor.
First, students won't feel free to criticize their partner with that person in the room (there are 20 students in the class). How have others handled cooperative tests? How do I deal with the peoples frustrations now? I would like to discuss this in class, however I realize that it will be a delicate subject matter. MY REQUEST: I think overall it was a valuable learning experience and I want do to more cooperative learning in the future. These people feel like they wasted time debating (and didn't finish everything) or compromised on their answers (and hence one or both felt they wrote down the wrong answer). Some pairing were equal with two strong-willed individuals who didn't agree with one another. The 'hard workers' were either upset because their partner got a free ride OR upset because their partner didn't help and they got a poor grade. Some pairings were unequal, and one person ended up doing most of the work. THE PROBLEMS: I have, naturally, received complaints from some students about their partners. This was combined with their individual grade to make up the total exam grade. Each pair would turn in 1 answer sheet with both of their names, and the grade for that portion would be shared evenly. For the second part, students were randomly assigned a partner from within the class with whom they would work together in answering a second set of questions. The first part was done individually, and collected after the first hour. After some success with group homework assignments I decided to try integrating cooperative learning into a test situation. BACKGROUND: I have been incorporating cooperative learning strategies into my courses. If it is more appropriate for a different list, please tell me the list. Subject: cooperative learning This is a pedagogical question not specifically about a WmSt class. For additional WMST-L files now available on the Web, see the WMST-L File List. Cooperative Learning Cooperative Learning What follows is a discussion of cooperative learning issues and strategies that took place on WMST-L in Oct/Nov 1993.