1. Cooperative Learning Strategies in the Classroom
Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
Classroom Instruction That Works!
By: Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering & Jane E. Pollock
Introduction and Ice-Breaker activity

5. Skills that all students need to compete in a highly technical society

7. Cooperative learning is more than just placing students in a group and having them work together, it is the process of building learning communities.

8. Students are responsible not only for their learning, but for the learning of others. Throughout the process of cooperative learning, students work in small groups to achieve a common goal.

9. The Color Trader Objective
This activity was designed for the purpose of creating an atmosphere where students are required to think about the ethical ramifications of the decisions they make. During the implementation of this activity, students will need to be placed into teams of two or three and grouped around the parameter of a table

10. The Color Trader Scoring 4 White Chips: Each team loses $2,000.
4 White Chips:
Each team loses $2,000.
4 Green Chips:
Each team wins $1,000.
1 White Chip and 3 Green Chip’s:
White chip wins $3,000.
Green chips each lose $1,000.
1 Green Chip and 3 White Chips:
Green chip wins $4,000
White chips each lose $2,000.
2 White Chip’s and 2 Green Chip’s:
White chip’s each win $2,000.
Green Chip’s each lose $1,000.

11. The Color Trader Each team will start the activity with $2,000,
Procedure
Each team will start the activity with $2,000,
Each team should calculate their score at the completion of each round,
Conversation between teams is not allowed during rounds 1-5,
Conversation between teammates on one team is always allowed,
Conversation between teams is allowed in rounds 5-10,
You will have 2-3 minutes between rounds for planning you next move and the calculating your total score,
All teams must place their selected item on the table simultaneously,
Round six and ten are bonus rounds. At the completion of rounds six and ten, teams will total their scores and then double them (For example, if your total score at the end of round six is negative $4,000, you will double it to negative $8,000),
After completing round ten, teams should calculate their total scores and share that information with the remainder of the class.

12. The Color Trader Teacher Summary
At the conclusion of this activity, ask the teams to share their team scores. Typically, you will find that a number of the teams lost a significant amount of money. This loss is caused by a lack of cooperation among the teams. If all teams cooperated, each team would complete the activity with a total of $40,000. However, most of your teams will probably not complete the activity with this total. This lack of cooperation between teams is very common. You may wish to calculate the total amount of money that could have been earned by the class if all teams had cooperated. The lesson: Cooperation between competitors is not always a negative. Too often, we teach students that in order to win, they must defeat their competition—this is most often not true in the “real-world”.

13. Learning Goals can be structured 3 different ways:
Individualistically
Cooperatively
Competitively

14. 1. Individualistic Learning goals
Each person’s goals are unrelated to goals of others
No correlation among goal attainments
No Interdependence
“We are each in this alone.”
Evaluation is criterion referenced and may be limiting.
Rewarded for individual product.

15. 2. Competitive Learning Goals
One student obtains goal if and only if the others fail
Negative correlation among goal attainments
Negative Interdependence
“If I swim, you sink; If you swim I sink.”
Comparative (norm referenced) evaluation
Winners are rewarded

16. 3. Cooperative Learning (CL)
When one person achieves goal, ALL achieve goals
Positive correlation among goal attainments
Positive Interdependence
“We sink or swim together.”
Evaluation is criterion referenced.
Rewarded for group product.

17. CL Research Findings Increased achievement and retention
Improved critical thinking and higher-level reasoning
Changes views of others
Increases willingness to listen to opposing opinions
Increases positive views of classmates

18. Research Findings, cont.
Improves perception of the teacher
Improves expectations toward future interactions
Increases interest in subject areas
Increases social skills
Improves self-esteem

19. 4 Key Elements of Effective Cooperative Learning
PIGS
Positive Interdependence
Individual Accountability
Group Processing (Face-to-Face Interaction)
Social Skills Development

20. Individual Accountability During Cooperative Learning: How Teacher Monitors
1. All must do their share of the work.
All must master the material being learned.
All will be held accountable for completing all work and mastering the learning.
How: Using signatures, different colored pencils, spot checking, random questioning

21. Face-To-Face Interaction: How Teacher Assures
Send the message that students:
have a group,
need to work with their group,
need to stay with their group,
work synchronously
How: Sit at round tables, space between groups

22. Monitoring & Processing CL
Monitor student/team behavior
Intervene to teach collaborative skills
Ask probing questions
Provide closure to lesson
Evaluate quality and quantity of team product
Assess group function

23. Instructions: Move a marble across given course without touching the marble or the floor. Each team member will receive a differing length of track. The team must develop a system for transferring the marble from one team member to another to move the marble across a given race track seamlessly. As the teacher, you can add obstacles between the start and end points to make the activity more challenging. Break the group into teams, let them come up with a plan, then measure the amount of time it takes for the marbles to traverse the course. The team that keeps the marble going for the longest time wins.
Limitations: Team members cannot move their feet while the marble is in their individual piece of track. If the marble drops to the floor, or a team member touches it, the team must start over.

24. The Spy Game For your eyes only…
In real life, team members don’t always work toward the same goals. In fact, some people try to achieve personal rather than team goals and some people let others do all of the heavy lifting. There may be such a person on your team today. We’ll call that person a SPY. Your team may have one or more than one spy.
If you are a spy, you should do everything you can to hinder your team’s efforts to solve the problem shown at the bottom of this page. Just be sure not to let anyone know you’re a spy.
If you think another member of the team is a spy, then you should accuse that person of spying. Your team members will vote, and if one-half of those agree, the accused person is excluded from any further team deliberations.
If you are voted out of the group and accused of being a spy, you should never reveal whether or not you “really” are a spy until we get back together as a large group.

25. The Spy Game
The Problem: A man went into a store to buy a twelve-dollar shirt. After selecting a shirt, he handed the clerk a twenty-dollar bill. It was early in the day and the clerk didn’t have any change. So the clerk took the twenty-dollar bill to the restaurant next door, where he exchanged it for twenty one-dollar bills. He then gave the customer the correct change. Later that same morning the restaurant owner came to the clerk and said, “This is a counterfeit twenty dollar bill.” The clerk apologized profusely, took back the phony bill, and gave the restaurant owner two good ten-dollar bills. Not counting the cost of the shirt, how much money did the store lose?