Reflection 5

Before starting this reflection, I had never heard of Cooperative or collaborative learning. I was interested to see what they could be. As I began to read about this topic, I began to realize that this subject was familiar. Collaborative learning is when the students are working together for a common goal. The students are learning by helping each other out. A good example of this would be when students are helping each other during homework. If one student knows what to do, they pass on the knowledge to a fellow student. Not only are they learning the work skills they need but they are also learning social skills. Collaborative learning helps students learn how to work together. It teaches students that in order to succeed you need to work hard but also to be a team player. This helps the students feel successful and ready for anything. It helps the students feel positive and confident when they are around their peers. Since the discovery of the great results this learning gives students, the use of cooperative learning has increased in classrooms. Not only does it help them in the classroom but it helps them later in life. They can use the skills they acquire to better themselves in the future. As a teacher, you have to know what will help your students and what will hold them back. Some research has been done that sometimes gifted students are held back because they worked with weaker students. Also, the more members you have the group the less successful it can turn out. Smaller pairings like 2 or 3 are the most successful. Technology has also made cooperative learning so much more accessible to students and teachers. Students can now email, web chat, and video chat in order to get their assignments completed. Web pages are created just for this use. More and more students are enrolling in online classes that involve high amounts of cooperative learning. I found this reading very interesting. I never knew that grouping students in order to complete assignment was so helpful. I find it cool that it not only helps them in the classroom but it helps them in future. When I was going to school, my teachers used a lot of this technique. I loved working with my classmates. It made us come together as friends. I was able to learn a lot of things from some of the gifted kids in my class. I hope that when I become a teacher, I will use this style of learning effectively for my students.