COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Cooperative learning has proven and shown great success in higher-level thinking and reasoning.  Studies have shown higher test scores then traditional classes.  Students tend to have a deeper understanding of the material.  Students are more active in the learning process and are more personally engaged in what they are learning.

Cooperative learning involves 5 key steps:

1.   Pre-Instructional Planning

·      Prior planning allows you to decide what cooperative technique should be used and to plan for effective group work.

2.   Introduce the Activity to Students

·      Students need to be given directions and the criteria expected in order them to be successful.  Time limits need to be setup and time allotted for questions.

3.   Monitor and Intervene

·      During this time you circulate the room and observe the students working together in groups.  Give immediate praise and feedback and offer help when needed.

4.   Assessment

·      Some assessment is done during the activity informally.  An additional assessment should be done when the activity is done by the instructor and the group.

5.   Process

·      This is where the groups rate their performance and how they can improve for the next time.

Monday Mosaics

On Monday we had our first fieldwork session.  Our task was to introduce our topics for teaching and to pretest the group of students in order to gage what they already knew.  Together all three groups devised a pretest consisting of five questions from each group on the topics we are going to teach.  After the pretest we did a Kahoot activity on Ancient China. Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome.  The students loved the game and were really competitive during it.  It showed us how many students were really interested in using technology for a learning tool.  This gave Kristine and I a lot of insight as to what we could use during our lesson plans.  After the kahoot game we went into our individual introductions into our lesson topics.  China went first and gave a brief description into Ancient China.  They they did an activity having the students create their own lanterns.  Monday was the start of the Chinese new year so creating their own lanterns was a great way to honor that tradition.  Then Greece took their turn and decided to do an activity based on Myth of Medusa.  They had the students create their own versions of a medusa with construction paper, paper plates, crayons and markers.  Then it was Kristine and my turn to introduce Ancient Rome.  We discussed the importance of culture and showed some examples of Mosaics to the students.  I was surprised to hear that many of the students had previously seen mosaics.  We explained to the students that mosaics were restored from millions of years ago and on display in museums across the world.  We then had students create their own mosaics with cut up colored construction paper.  Students were either given a sheet with a gladiator, a coliseum, or a cupid.

  

Fieldwork Fun

On Sunday I went to Kristine’s house to prepare for our first fieldwork session that would begin on February 8^th.  Our topic to introduce to the students is the civilization of Ancient Rome.  We were very excited and nervous at the same time.  We had no idea how many students we were about to have and what ages we would be prepping for.  We spent a large amount of time devising our pretest questions to gage what the students already knew and gain an idea of their interests in Ancient Rome.  There were so many amazing topics to introduce to them that we had no idea where to begin.  Culture is such a huge part of Ancient Rome so we decided to come up with an activity to teach the students about it. 

A great way to display culture was through Mosaics.  Ancient Rome was very famous for its beautiful Mosaics.  We decided to have the students recreate their own mosaics during our first fieldwork session with them.  We printed blank sheets of a gladiator, the Roman Coliseum, and Cupid.  We first chose a gladiator because they were a very popular part of Roman culture.  Gladiators were highly admired and watched by all.  Gladiator fights and chariot races took place within the walls of the Coliseum.  We chose Cupid the God of love for the third sheet since we were so close to Valentine’s Day.  We cut up a bunch of colored construction paper into different sized pieces and planned on having the students create their own mosaics.