Cooperative Learning Making Cooperative Learning Work: Response

Cooperative Learning Making Cooperative Learning Work: Response Journal: Do you agree or disagree with the common criticism that cooperative learning is unfair because it slows down the progress of the academically gifted? Every student in today's day and age, barring those from extremely conservative school system, or perhaps those who have been home schooled, have probably engaged in some form of cooperative learning.

Cooperative learning assignments, as discussed in the essay "Making cooperative learning work," from Kaleidoscope: Readings in Education, have many benefits to them that may seem to outweigh the potential pitfalls of the constructions of such learning environments. Ultimately, these assignments are thought to better prepare students to live and work in a real world and work environment where teamwork is valued, rather than pure individual achievement.

But perhaps the best argument for cooperative learning in the classroom is not only that it is commensurate with today's workforce, but that it is an emotional and intellectual benefit to all students, including the gifted, the supposedly average, and those who are academically deficient. It cannot be ignored numerous criticisms have been levied at cooperative learning by educators and students alike.

Although the nature of cooperative learning seems to be democratic at its very essence, encouraging students to broach their differences, both personal and educational, many parents and educators also bridle at the nature of cooperative learning as a way of stifling those who are academically gifted. Academically gifted students hold themselves back subconsciously, to keep pace with their peers, it is said, or teachers spend more time tailoring the assignments to the weakest members of a cooperative learning team rather than the strongest.

However, in an ideal cooperative learning environment, students are encouraged to learn from the gifts and mistakes of others. Having gifted students within the environment encourages students to spread their gifts and knowledge to their fellow scholars, rather than to simply line up a long list of grades or 'A' papers. Gifted students act as teachers within such an environment, perhaps as more effective teachers at times than the adult educators themselves at times, because they are perceived as peers.

If they are only allowed to shine in an individualistic environment, or even if they are isolated in a small group of fellow scholars in an enrichment class, this type of role remains unavailable to them -- a particular difficulty for students whom may already feel isolated from their peer group because of their intelligence. Key to the importance of this aspect 'student teaching' in a cooperative learning is environment where positive forms of modeling one's peers are encouraged.

One of the fears regarding cooperative environment is that gifted students will be encouraged to hold themselves back and to model themselves on their less gifted peers. But such modeling takes place on the playground as well as in the classroom. Better to channel it positively than ignore it altogether. Modeling need not be negative if all children's gifts are valued within the classroom, not simply the gifts of those who shine in traditional academic subjects, or those who are the most socially adept.

If all children are regarded as potentially gifted in some manner, and encouraged to show their artistic, kinesthetic, and musical gifts, they become valued participants in cooperative learning teams, rather than subservient to those whom are more confident in their academic skills. Students who feel 'special' in different ways are less likely to denigrate those whom are academically gifted.

Rather than modeling themselves on those who are 'acting out,' students who are gifted in traditional and non-traditional fashions should be encouraged to bring their varied gifts to the classroom, and to share their various strengths with one another. One way to encourage this is to give assignments that require students to perform different functions within the assignment. Again, another common criticism of cooperative learning as potentially dangerous to the academically gifted is that students who are gifted must pull more than their 'weight' in given assignments.

However, by assigning creative tasks that make use of students mathematical, linguistic, kinesthetic, musical, and spatial gifts, broaching all of the multiple intelligences that students may offer to one another, no student becomes singled out as 'more gifted' in general, nor will one student be forced to hem in his or her gifts to be more like his or her peer group, nor will any student feel potentially less able to make a contribution to the group.

All well and good a parent of a gifted child may say, but my child has been tested with a high IQ. Why should his or her abilities, measured intellectually and academically as gifted, be subservient to the abilities of those who may.