The War Against Excellence : The Rising Tide of Mediocrity in America’s Middle Schools calls for a return to ability tracking and individual work. Advocates of cooperative learning — students work together on projects and share the grade — are firing back.
It’s hard to design effective group projects. It’s also difficult to get capable students to spend time helping slow students. Usually, the bright kids just do all the work. I know that was my daughter’s strategy.
SCSU Scholars has more on the question of fostering competitive individuals who can cooperate when necessary.
When I have assigned group projects it is usually because I am teaching so many students that I don’t have time to grade a bunch of individual projects. I hated working on group projects as a student and I hate assigning them but at times that is the best thing I can figure out to do.
It sounds like another tempest in a teapot. If the assertions of the researchers in the Welsh article are true, they’re advocating a mix of cooperative, competetive, and individualistic learning schemes. That’s not particularly radical.
I remember hating doing group projects, but I did eventually learn a few things from the experience. The most important was that there are only two ways to be successful: one, carry the group on your shoulders and do all the work, or two, become part of a group where a majority are roughly as smart and committed as you are. Method two only happened by pure dumb luck or when the teacher followed the “elitist” scheme of grouping people by ability and having them work on ability-appropriate projects.
Da*m, I’m getting sick of these false dichotomies…
(1)Cooperative learning vs. competitive/individual
(2)Whole word reading vs. Phonics
(3)Testing every second vs. Absolutely no testing
(4)Rigorous standards vs. self-esteem
(5)Diversity in the curriculum vs. The classics
and I could go on and on…
Cooperative learning should be part of the curriculum, not the the whole curriculum, but a part of it… and it must be designed well…
if it isn’t, then its a useless waste of everyone’s time…
You can have reading programs with a rigorous foundation of phonics AND then whole-word learning on top of that once the phonics is mastered…
You can teach “The Classics” AND have a multicultural curriculum…
As was discussed in the previous thread, you can have testing that is highly effective at improving classroom performance…
It really is not so hard, people…
Your point is right on, Jab, but don’t expect the chicken littles to hear it. There are far too many folks posting on this site who are more interested in spewing vitriole at the schools - and at teachers - than there are those interested in listening.
Cooperative learning works when each student’s role is clearly defined.It works if those roles are modeled and if expectations are clear. I also assign daily goals for group projects, and I refuse to give group grades. Each student is graded on his/her portion of the project only. Some people say this defeats the process of cooperative learning, but my experience is that too many kids - the ones who care- are heaped with finishing the project. Assigning individual grades for group projects gives the hard-working kids a deserved break.
And cooperative learning, just like any other method, should never be lauded as education’s deus ex machina.
SuzieQ writes: There are far too many folks posting on this site who are more interested in spewing vitriole at the schools - and at teachers - than there are those interested in listening.
When it comes to vitriole about group projects, I spew it with the best of them!
You do sound like you do it right, and I wish that my group projects were assigned by people who think as you do.
Perhaps I was unlucky, but I can only remember one group project that was effective during all my time spent in the bowels of academia (I worked with two other people to develop a fancy PROLOG scheduling program).
Of course, it’s also possible that I’m just a bad influence.
Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier
LOL. Of course you have to keep running from one extreme to the other. Otherwise, you couldn’t make political hay from keeping the schools in some sort of perpetual crisis.
Schools have plenty of issues that need to be solved, but we never ask the right questions.
Well, having done a group assignment for a technical writing class last year, I find that usually it works out like this.
A group of 4 (lets say) gets an assignment to evaluate and report on ways to improve a given web site. I estimate on this assignment, I did about 65% of the work, another person did about 20%, the third person 10%, and the last person did no work at all. The group received an “A”
for this “assignment”, but I generally detest assignments of this nature, as more often than not, one person winds up doing the bulk of the work (in my opinion).
My experience (and my kids’ experiences) in high school and elementary school with group projects was usually what Bill describes. Funny thing is, though, that my most satisfying work experiences have been with small groups on projects. In those projects, everyone was motivated and everyone was good at something that the others weren’t. When you finish a project like this, you look back at what you’ve done and everyone thinks, wow, this is great–I never could have done this myself!
Too often, those in charge of public school curricula and of training teachers are not *listening* to the right questions, even when those questions are asked quite insistently by scholara outside the public school establishment. You just need
Too often, those in charge of public school curricula and of training teachers are not *listening* to the right questions, even when those questions are asked quite insistently by scholars outside the public school establishment. You just need to scroll down one post to “Old Math” to hear a lone voice crying in the wilderness about the disasters that have ben inflicted on math education, over the protests of many mathematicians and scientists.
Bill wrote: “A group of 4 (lets say) gets an assignment to evaluate and report on ways to improve a given web site. I estimate on this assignment, I did about 65% of the work, another person did about 20%, the third person 10%, and the last person did no work at all.”
Obviously the purpose of the exercise was to determine which members of the group were management or administrator material. Only one passed.
I don’t understand this idea of getting capable students to tutor slow students. How is it that the NEA would even permit such a thing? Is this forced labor method more productive than hiring a paid assistant?
I have no problem with occasional group projects, but if this is the primary teaching method used in some sort of egalitarian handicapping scheme, then spew away.
> I don’t understand this idea of getting
> capable students to tutor slow students.
I would guess most of the benefit is received by the capable students in these cases.
In theory, good students help slow students. In practice, good students work around slow students. It’s easier for everyone.
Kirk, that’s a commonly held fallacy, but you would guess wrong. BOTH the capable and slow students lose- the former because their progress is being held back, the latter because for the duration of the group assignment they are deprived of instruction by a professional teacher and placed in the hands of amateurs who are likely to be frustrated by the relationship rather than eager to help. The whole business is yet another instance of the road that’s paved with good intentions. I know this from my experience as a student; as a college instructor; and as a parent. (Joanne, of course, just put the whole matter in a nutshell.)
“Da*m”?
Do I have to learn another swear word?
I have been wanting desperately to comment about the posts that you put out there, Joanne, but I have become much too comfy in my straight jacket and padded room. I was running myself clear to insanity trying to figure out how to homeschool 4 bright boys until Dave took pity on me and put me in here. I broke out long enough to read the latest posts on your site and type out a few meager words. Actually, in lieu of words, I will simply post this letter that was in the local fishwrap. One hopes they are not children of math teachers.
Behold:
A Dec. 10 letter to the editor said that teachers should not get bonuses. The reason, the letter writer said, is that teachers should “reach those goal levels that get them bonuses” without a bonus given.
One word: incentive. If there are basic endpoints that need to be met, and are met, the teachers should be paid a base salary. If there are goals above and beyond, then by all means reward them.
The letter also acknowledged that teachers are underpaid. That is an understatement. The after-hours grading and project preparation and personal funds spent for supplies are just two examples that underscore the fact. We won’t even bring up other, more volatile issues.
XXXXX XXXXX and XXX XXXXXX
CHILDREN OF TEACHERS, Winston-Salem
“Whole word reading vs. Phonics” How is this a false dichotomy?
I wonder about the implication that a kid needs to be instructed all day long. Kids need time to just figure things out on their own sometimes. I’ve seen cooperative learning work, and I’ve seen it not work. It depends on the teacher, the classroom, and the project.
I don’t see anything wrong with students helping each other. My classes run close to 30 students each. I can only help a few at a time, at most. If one of my students chooses to help a student in the next seat while I’m busy with students on the other side of the room, I don’t see how that’s a problem. In the Real World, if a co-worker doesn’t know how to do something, somebody has to show him — and usually not the boss.
I can’t speak to math instruction since most of that thread makes no sense to me. It’s been at least 15 years since I took calculus in college, and I’ve lost all of it. Jablow gave a very nice example of how to test to test/improve instruction, though. I use questions like that (but English stuff) all the time.
All but a few kids can’t “just figure out” math on their own, Rita. It’s where definable, cumulative skills are involved, as in math, that the cooperative model works the worst.
Two things:
We had a math teacher at my school who INSISTED “new” math was necessary and the ONLY way to teach kids. He had just come back to the classroom after being a “curriculum specialist” for our district. He refused to mix his methods and ultimately came into conflict w/our other math teachers, especially since our state (Delaware) had just started an ambitious new state testing program. He quit halfway through the year and his students all suffered on the state test — even on the material he himself had “taught.” This teacher is at another school in the state now, still insisting on HIS way, and denigrating any math teacher who teaches differently.
Secondly, regarding cooperative learning, I use it on occassion, and I do my utmost to assign a “job” to each member of a group. Thus, there’s an indivdual score AND a group score which are then totalled together. The individual score is weighted more for greater personal accountability. It’s usually pretty successful.
Most teachers are not horribly underpaid. If you look at the salary they make on a 9 month (usually closer to 10) contract and factor in the holidays and other perks such as job security teaching is not a bad job from the financial side of it. Where being a teacher is less than ideal is when you are stuck in a school with horrible administration.
I suspect the reason so many people want to say low salaries are at the root of the problem in education is because it is a relatively easy problem to address. The read issues, such as the lack of respect given to teachers, are harder to address and less quantifiable so we just all talk about salaries instead.
Obviously the above is strictly my opinion.
Merry Christmas,
Rita,
I think we ask the right questions constantly. Questions like:
* What constitutes a complete education?
* What makes an educated individual?
* What qualities does a good school/teacher/student/lesson have?
* What is the purpose of an education?
* How should learning be measured?
- haven’t disappeared in my 10+ years of teaching at all. It’s the *answers* that veer us from fad to fad, contingent upon someone’s re-election, resume, or reform initiative.
This process of destroying/relearning curriculum (that often works!) every five or so years thus begins to feel like a construction worker who must rebuild his home every five years: frustrating, unnecessary, and bewilderingly punitive.
Right on the money, Ross. Salary isn’t the problem. It’s the lack of respect and historically low status of teachers that creates the most frustration. I can’t tell you how many teacher colleagues of mine advise their own kids not to go into teaching.
If teachers want to be respected, they need to act in such a manner that engenders respect. Cetrtainly my grade-school teachers were respected, by the entire community.l But the lack-luster performance and manners of the teachers I see daily don’t inspire me to do much more than tolerate them.
Rita–kids lose when they have to take their own time to help some other kid that you’ve not gotten around to noticing. It’s not their job to bring their classmates up to speed. In the real world, co-workers who rely on their fellows to help them out usually don’t get promoted.
Rachel: Can you be more specific? What “way” do teachers have to act to get respect? What did your grade school teachers do that made them respected?
I just had a parent/student/teacher meeting the last period yesterday before winter break (ARGH!) and the mom (who is a non-teacher employee AT my school) was taking the all-too-typical-nowadays attitude that “I was ‘picking’ on her daughter” and that her daughter “doesn’t have this problem w/her other teachers.” (The daughter is quite chatty and often disrespectful, not to mention frequently late to class.) Mom also said, “Well, she says this, and then you say that…I don’t know what to think.” That is so AGGRAVATING!! A 39 yr. old’s word vs. a 13 yr. old’s? THIS is the “respect” (or lack thereof) to which I believe Suzie was referring. The daughter completely and snidely refused to acknowledge reality — would not accept one iota of responsibility for her actions even after I (reluctantly) acknowledged that “perhaps I had snapped too quickly at one time or another” and that the daughter should “meet me half way.” I told mom “I don’t know what else to say — either I’m lying or your daughter is.”
But, I also couldn’t resist: In response to the “She doesn’t have this problem w/her other teachers” (repeated) complaint, I retorted, “Well, if you want to discuss ratios, I have 165 total students (yes, true!) this semester and unfortunately your daughter is one of only FIVE that I constantly have trouble with!”
Responses to various posts:
Whole language v. phonics is a false dichotomy. Phonics gives you the basics to start learning to read, but it will not teach you through/though/thought. People actually learn by both methods.
Math is something people have to gut out on their own, either by doing homework or classwork. You can have the best teacher and the best textbook in the world, and pay attention in class, but until you sit down with a problem and wrestle it to the ground, you don’t have it. Group work may or may not work here; if all the kids are at about the same level it might, but if one does the work and the others copy it, it’s a waste of time.
Suzie’s questions are good ones, and they actually are questions that parents and older students should ask themselves. When my kid was entering elementary school, I asked myself what my goals were for her education at that level. I decided that I wanted her to have a broad enough knowledge base that she could go in any direction she wanted without remedial work later, and that she could make an informed choice as to which direction she wanted to go and what she was suited to; and to have learned some time management and self-discipline. And not have the joy of learning crushed out of her in the process.
As for teachers gaining respect, this largely seems to be on the parents of the children. My parents always taught me to give the utmost respect my teachers, which might have to do with the whole Asian deal. Still, it might help if some teachers weren’t out with their students protesting the war in Iraq and telling them that one meaningless protest is worth more than the day of education that they missed.
I don’t know of too many cases where teachers protest with their students - at least not enough to warrant disrespect of the entire profession.
Perhaps Rachel is also LDRC. I didn’t say it was a kid I “hadn’t gotten around to noticing.” In fact, it would probably be a student I HAD noticed, but hadn’t had a a chance to get to, yet. Believe it or not, a ratio of 30:1 in the classroom means some kids have to wait. If a neighbor CHOOSES (note that I said CHOOSES) to help out, then I can move on more quickly to something new. In any case, I hardly see why I have to defend my classroom practices to you. I think I’ll take this opportunity to demand some respect from you. You’ll simply have to treat me as a professional and not think you know better than I do how to run my own classroom. I don’t tell you how to do your job; you don’t tell me how to do mine.
SuzieQ: those are the questions we’ve been asking forever, and those are the ones that are having us chase our tails. For example, what is the purpose of education? Chances are high we disagree on the answer to that (I’m more of an essentialist on that score). That doesn’t mean either of us are ineffective teachers. Since that question doesn’t lead to anything useful, I think it is an ineffective question. I don’t know what a better question might be in regards to curriculum, but I’d be very interested to see what happened if we matched learning styles to teaching styles more closely when assigning students to classes.
As a new engineering manager, I was annoyed at some of my former peers who were incapable of working outside of groups. The worst among them would corral workers off of the line to form “teams” that did all his typing and thinking for him.
If you want an interesting challenge, when interviewing people for jobs, ask them how much of their engineering studies involved doing work as an individual and how much was done in groups. Some of those I’ve interviewed recently have never done any individual studies at all, no homework, even tests are a group effort. You’d be amazed at how many people slide through their entire education, and later their careers, without having to do anything except sponge off of their smarter peers. Very scary.
Interesting comments, Mike. I’ve noticed in the classroom the last few years a definite increase in the # of kids who just expect “everything done for them.” They’ll just “veg” in class, write notes or what have you, and then when assignments, tests or quizzes roll around it’s “Can we work together?” Or, “Can we use our notes for this?” I just gave a quiz on -AR verbs (I teach Spanish) and several students came into class asking “We can use our notes, right?” I was like, “Where did you get that idea?” Responses like “That’s not fair!” followed. But even my supplying a “verb bank” for the quiz didn’t suffice — students were unhappy that the English translations weren’t provided for them, too!! I just had to LOL!!
Many intelligent posts here. My thanks to all who have contributed.
Though I’ve taught for 30 years, I can’t jump in here and tell you the truth about ability grouping and cooperative learning.
As opinionated as I like to be, I’m at a loss here.
Ability grouping appears to have both pros and cons which cancel out my ability to form an opinion one way or the other.
Cooperative learning can be educational if done right but I think it is frequently done for the simple convenience of the teacher.
Cooperative learning does teach cooperation, but often little else…
This reminds me of the question I asked my veteran collegue. How are you able to manage teaching all day with only one bathroom break?
“Depends.”
> Da*m, I’m getting sick of these false dichotomies…
> (1)Cooperative learning vs. competitive/individual
> (2)Whole word reading vs. Phonics
> (3)Testing every second vs. Absolutely no testing
> (4)Rigorous standards vs. self-esteem
> (5)Diversity in the curriculum vs. The classics
and I could go on and on…
Interestingly enough, the above list is inconsistent on its own terms. Some of the pairs are clearly compatible, while at least one is a “you can’t have both”.
However, the intent of the list misses the point of the complaints.
In at least one of the cases, if we have to make a choice, one of them is clearly superior to the other, and if you think otherwise, you’re part of the problem.
In others, the move towards “balance” has basically resulted in kids that don’t learn anything. It doesn’t matter how good things would be if the plan worked or how pure your heart is - it only matters how well things actually work out.
…Group work may or may not work here; if all the kids are at about the same level it might…
This makes sense. Students at the same level, functioning as peers, might all have a chance to contribute.
Expecting one child to continually tutor the rest– without being at least a year or two older than the non-peers– seems wrong for a number of reasons.
Phrasing this as a question of cooperation versus competition also seems wrong. What are they competing for? Is there a limited pool of knowledge that the students need to fight over?
“You’d be amazed at how many people slide through their entire education, and later their careers, without having to do anything except sponge off of their smarter peers. Very scary.”
I’d substitute “hard working” for “smart”. The trouble I usually found with group projects wasn’t that the “dumb” kids wanted me to teach them the subject, but that the lazy kids wanted me to do their work, and definitely didn’t want to learn anything at all. I remember just two group projects that worked out - one in high school where I got to pick my partners, and an electronic design project in college, about junior year, where all four partners were workaholics because you have to be to survive the first two years of an engineering major…