Cooperative Learning:Leveraging Cognitive and Social

Developmental Stagesin the Middle School Environmentto Improve Academic Achievement

Kevin Staller

Tim Gallagher

Jenne Cary

Norah Alghamdi

Cooperative LearningCooperative learning exists when students work together to accomplish shared learning goals (Johnson & Johnson, 1999)

Cooperative Learning Example

Cooperative learning provides an outlet for students to engage with one another in an enjoyable manner.

Their teamwork fosters multiple skills such as:• communication• brain storming • comprehension

Cooperative Learning in Middle Schools

• An instructional approach that is congruent with the developmental needs of adolescents (Slavin, 1996)

• Means of harnessing the peer-oriented energies of adolescents for pro-social rather than antisocial activities (Slavin, 1996)

Cooperative Learning :A Brain Turn-On

• Brain scans show facilitated passage of information from the intake areas into the memory storage regions of the brain (Willis, 2007)

• Fulfillment of adolescents’ need of inclusion and the sense of belonging to a group promotes resiliency (Willis, 2007)

Interrelationship of Relationships and Achievement

• Transition to the middle school learning climate is easier when one is relating successfully to other people (Hartup & Stevens, 1997)

• Peer relationships account for 33 to 40% of the variance in achievement of middle school students (Johnson, Johnson, & Roseth, 2010)

Middle School Learners in Multicultural, Multilingual Classrooms

• By 2020 almost half of the U.S. school population will be non Caucasian (Allison & Rehm, 2007)• Promote inter-ethnic friendships• Develop cross cultural

understandings

Generation Z:Meet Cooperative Learning

• Born between the 1990s and early 2000s• more self directed • more able to quickly process information

• Notoriously social but prefer texting to talking (Igel & Urquhart, 2012)

Academic Social Networking

• Transform learning from passive to active participation (Taranto, Dalbon, & Gaetano, 2011)

• Communication and connection to digital resources allows students to make personal connections to text and prompt debatable issues(Taranto et al., 2011)

ReferencesAllison, B. N., Rehm, M. L. (2007). Effective teaching strategies for middle school learners in multicultural, multilingual

classrooms. Middle School Journal, 39(2), 12-18.

Hartup, W., & Stevens, N. (1997). Friendships and adaptation in the life course. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 355-370.

Igel, C., & Urquhart, V. (2012). Generation Z, meet cooperative learning. Middle School Journal, 43(4), 16-21.

Johnson , D. W. & Johnson, R. T. (1999). Making cooperative learning work, Theory Into Practice, 38(2), 67-73.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Roseth, C. (2010). Cooperative learning in middle schools: Interrelationship of relationships and achievement. Middle Grades Research Journal, 5(1), 1-18.

Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College. (2012, August 21). Cooperative learning techniques. Retrieved from http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative/techniques.html

Slavin, R. E. (1996). Cooperative learning in middle and secondary schools. Clearing House, 69(4), 200-204.

Taranto, G., Dalbon, M., & Gaetano, J. (2011). Academic social networking brings Web 2.0 technologies to the middle grades. Middle School Journal, 42(5), 12-19.

TeacherTube Middle School (Producer). (2007, January 5). This is a video of my eighth grade English class using a Kagan structure to review for an exam. Cooperative Learning. Podcast retrieved from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ69iyj-AZE

Willis, J. J. (2007). Cooperative learning is a brain turn-on. Middle School Journal, 38(4), 4-13.