"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" Gandhi
This Saturday I will organize a workshop on Cooperative Learning in the Educational Seminar for teachers of English Cultural Service, Embassy of Spain organized in Brussels.
AC My interest arose from the following conclusions that I reached over my years of working as a teacher :
- heterogeneity is not a learning problem but an asset when it is managed as motor and not brake.
- The differences are a mine, we offer an enormous range of possibilities.
- groups with "good chemistry" (in which students are encouraged, help, support ...) learn best;
- can create a positive climate in the group through to exercise social skills in class;
- Most teens do not know how to work in groups, so you have to teach;
- The teacher's task is to observe classroom interactions between students, see how they learn and how the different activities;
- A well designed task becomes invisible to the teacher: the students the teacher can do to leave the classroom without the students realize.
And some questions remaining unanswered:
+ What is it about good chemistry? Ie, what behaviors and attitudes students live among them groups that "feel good" in class? How can it happen? Can ELE classroom teaching?
+ What about the timid who are afraid to talk? And what about those who monopolize the word? And what about those who do not compromise ever?
+ Can you learn to listen?
+ How can we maximize the wealth class of the different ways of learning of each student?
+ How are we going to organize the interactions that have no other choice students to work together?
+ How can we promote individual responsibility of everyone in the team?
The first time I read something about the AC I knew that some of my questions were to find response. With the AC experience in class is really possible to live together, open to others without fear, without giving up what one is, but seeking and accepting the possibility that others offer.
Students build their knowledge actively seeking information, negotiating solutions, dividing the work, sharing ideas, meeting needs, creating a positive social climate that respects diversity, self-assess the objectives, monitoring their own dynamics group, etc.
Here you can see the materials I have prepared for the Day Pedagogical Brussels: Power Point (although all the slides are not good and there are things that have moved to implement the program Scribd) having cooperative learning as a complementary contribution to the task-based approach.
In the booklet "Dynamics for class co-operative" will find different activities that can inspire you for your kind of ELE. This is a work of gathering the fruit of my reading, research and surf the blogosphere.
For those interested in the issue of skills social, you can view the presentation I did during a day of training teachers in my Institute in Belgium. This is a description and classification of the different skills and some suggestions for classroom activities.
Cooperative Learning Class La Clase Cooperativa Def
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