Learning Together

Cooperative learning can be extremely useful in classroom instruction. It was interesting to be taking part in a cooperative group while also learning about the different pieces of it. It was easy to see how useful cooperative learning can be in a classroom after implementing it among ourselves. Especially when it came to not only our presentations to each other, but our exit tickets. Personally, it gave me a better sense of what I covered well in my presentation and what I could have worked on to clarify further. Additionally, with two of our exit tickets being done in the form of a Kahoot quiz, it made it fun to see how much of the material was mastered as well as have fun competing to see who would win each Kahoot. While presenting my slide show, I really understood the idea of positive interdependence when I realized that many of the terms I used on my slides were already explained in my other group members' presentations, which really showed how linked together the presentations and information were.

The video above, I thought, was a good representation of cooperative learning in the classroom. It explains how each student has an independent role, and how they all come together to help increase each other's understanding of whatever they happen to be working on. It was interesting to hear students saying they enjoyed disagreeing with each other, because as teachers, there are many class discussions where it is beneficial for students to have opposing viewpoints. The back and forth discussion of students is what helps them hear other people's thoughts, as well as learn to be able to explain their own reasoning and thinking.