cooperative learning in middle and secondary schools.docVIP

Cooperative learning in middle and secondary schools Slavin, Robert E. The Clearing House Washington Mar/Apr 1996 Vol. 69, Iss. 4, p.200 Abstract (Document Summary) Adolescence is a time when teenagers are particularly susceptible to peer norms, norms that favor sports and social success over academic achievement. Cooperative learning and the research supporting its positive effects on academic achievement and intergroup relationships are discussed. Full Text?(3448 ? words) Copyright Heldref Publications Mar/Apr 1996 Adolescence is a time of great potential and great danger in human development. Characteristics of this developmental period have enormous importance for the design of instructional environments, especially those for at-risk learners. For example, adolescents are highly susceptible to peer norms. If those norms favor academic excellence, students will be motivated to achieve. However, it is far more common that adolescents peer norms denigrate academic excellence and favor sports and social success. More ominously, adolescents peer norms usually value independence from adult authority, which can lead adolescents into oppositional behavior-from skipping school to defying teachers to drug use or vandalism. The structure of the traditional classroom is highly inconsistent with adolescent development and peer norms. Traditional classrooms expect students to work independently and to compete for good grades, teachers approval, and recognition. Research has long shown that when socially interacting peers are placed in individual competition with each other, they discourage each other from working hard. In adult occupational settings, this is called a work restriction norm (Vroom 1964). In schools, students try to reduce each others academic efforts (to make success easier for themselves) by calling hard workers nerds, geeks, or teachers pets. This is much in contrast to the situation in sports, where excellence is strongly valued by peer norms (Coleman