Strategies
The School District of Philadelphia's Office of Curriculum and Instruction has developed a plan for improving the scholastic performance of each student in every high school within the district. The initiative involves the use of six teaching strategies that would address school-wide success. The first strategy involves the students previewing content specific vocabulary on a daily basis. In the second strategy, the students would preview, analyze, and connect material presented in their textbooks. Reciprocal teaching, summarizing material, the use of comprehension connectors, and note taking are the other teaching strategies that are expected to lead to school-wide success among our students.
Implementation of this plan relies heavily on the use of student centered, cooperative learning techniques, peer tutoring, and the ability to take notes. Cooperative learning has
been a viable pedagogical strategy for many years. The benefits of cooperative learning to the student include improvement in: scholastic achievement, social skills, and self-esteem. To maximize the benefits, to both the student and the teacher, deliberate care should be taken in establishing the learning groups. In order to create, manage and maintain a successful cooperative learning environment, one should consider the following six key factors: team organization, cooperative management, the will to cooperate, the skill to cooperate, basic practices, and structuring the cooperative lesson. In the next few paragraphs, a brief summary of each factor will be presented (25).
In the past, I have found that team organization should be based on academic heterogeneity rather than random selection or determined by the students. The former category, academic heterogeneity, allows for the establishment of groups with high, average, and below average achieving students. Academic heterogeneity within the class can be determined within the first week of school by administering an entrance test. Personally, groups consisting of four students have worked out extremely well for a number of reasons. Besides allowing for academic heterogeneity, it also takes into consideration student attendance rates. Individual groups can still function even if half of the students within any group are absent on any given day. In addition, it permits peer tutoring opportunities within each group. From a classroom management viewpoint, teacher determined learning groups tend to eliminate behavioral problems associated with
those groups which were determined by the students.
Classroom management is essential in order for a cooperative learning environment to be effective. This can be accomplished through: cooperative management, the will to cooperate, and the skill to cooperate. It is imperative that students understand the guidelines for acceptable classroom behavior. For example, teacher directed signals for addressing the noise level within the classroom must be established early and used consistently. The will to cooperate is developed over time and is based on positive social interactions and pride within the group. The skill to cooperate involves students being able to assume specific roles within the group, listen to, and work with each other.
The basic practices inherent to cooperative learning include: simultaneous interaction, positive interdependence, and individual accountability. Students, within the cooperative learning classroom, have the freedom to simultaneously interact with each other which is not afforded in the traditional classroom setting. Positive interdependence comes from the
achievement of individual students within a group and of the entire group as a whole. Individual accountability can include a variety of different assessments. Students can be given individual grades for a project, or they can be made aware of their part of a group grade.
Effective classroom management is due, in large part, to the structuring of the lesson. Structuring not only involves the arrangement of students within groups, but it also includes the manner in which individual lessons are designed and presented. These structures, designs, or activities are meant to improve such areas as team building, information sharing, thinking skills, communication skills, and content mastery. A brief list of classroom structures and lesson designs include: brainstorming, jigsaw, numbered heads together, rally table, round robin, roundtable, student teams achievement division (STAD), team projects and think pair share. A detailed review of each activity is given in Cooperative Learning (26).
By improving their note taking skills, students should be able to utilize, practice, and/or engage in summarizing, comprehension connectors, and structured note taking. Therefore, I intend to teach my students the highly successful method of note taking that was developed by Walter Pauk, an English professor at Cornell University, in the 1950's. The Cornell Method, as it is referred to, involves writing a key word, phrase, or concept on the left hand side of a sheet of paper. In a column, on the right hand side of the sheet of paper, relevant material about the concept is written in short sentences, or phrases. Finally, at the bottom of the page, the material listed is then summarized into a short paragraph. This widely used method enables students to improve their skills in summarizing material presented in both lecture and written form (27).
In order to address and improve reading comprehension, my students will participate in reciprocal teaching techniques. This is another cooperative learning activity which is designed to encompass four skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Each student within the group will be responsible for reading a specific section within their textbook or assigned reading material, summarizing that material, and reporting out to the rest of his or her group (28).
Students will also be able to utilize a variety of interactive tutorial software and online websites including, but not limited to, SciLinks, go.hrw.com. Holt Online Learning, and http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov. SciLinks is an online website developed by the National Science Teachers Association which contains links and activities related to concept specific topics. The Holt Publishing Company has developed several online resources such as: go.hrw.com for worksheets, activities, and projects directly related the textbook used by the students. The Holt Online Learning is an online website where students can access help in solving problems.
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