"When students work in cooperative groups, they make sense of, or construct meaning for, new knowledge by interacting with others (Johnson, Johnson, & Stanne, 2000) When students participate in cooperative learning they are both the teacher and students. They would with a partner or a group to try to achieve a common goal. This could be through a simple discussion or over a month long project. Cooperative learning supports the Social Learning Approach in many ways. In my understanding they are almost one in the same. Both concepts focus on learning with and from other and the environment around you.
Whenever I am teaching I try to remind myself of what is most important and that is for my students to be able to apply what they are learning in the real world When children learn to work with each other in order to be successful they are learning one of the most important life skills that there is. In everyday life outside of school we interact with people everywhere. Even more importantly the job force almost demands the ability to work with others and people who cannot, loose out on job prospects. If my students can learn to apply what they are learning while gaining teamwork and social skills, then I feel that I have done my job.
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Katey,
ReplyDeleteYour statement is very profound. I agree that teaching students how to work with others is key to giving them the tools to succeed in the work force. I think working with others also naturally gives students the "real world" experience and relevance to learning the content that we as teachers sometimes over think to create. Thanks for making me realize how we give our students real life experiences everytime we encourage them to work together.
Charis Jones
I recently attended a conference and learned about the concept of teaching hard skills and soft skills in the classroom. Hard skills are those skills that we can teach our students, the ability to use technology. Soft skills are their personal characteristics like having a positive attitude and work ethic. It is said that they need hard skills to get a job but soft skills to keep a job. I think as teachers we need to do a better job of preparing our students with both hard and soft skills.
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