Cooperative Learning - Danielle Pauley

I started a new unit on Newton's laws a couple weeks ago and during this unit, I implemented Marzano's cooperative learning strategy. There were a couple of labs that I chose for students to do during this unit. I allowed them to work in groups of three or four with these labs. As I was using this strategy, I applied Marazano's rules for the strategy. First, Marzano (2001) states "organizing groups based on ability should be done sparingly" (p. 87). I did not put students in groups based on ability because I believed it would be better for students to have diverse abilities in their groups while doing these labs. Some of the post-lab questions were challenging and if I had ability grouped, the low-ability group students probably would not have answered these questions. Second, Marzano (2001) states "cooperative groups should be kept rather small in size" (p. 88). As I said previously, I only allowed groups to have three or four members. This cut down on the chit-chat and allowed students to stay on task. Third, Marzano (2001) states "cooperative learning should be applied consistently and systematically, but not overused" (p. 88). During the unit, I incorporated other activities for the students to do independently. Therefore, I feel I did not overuse this strategy. Using this strategy in science is a great way for students to learn. While I mostly used it during labs, there could be several other ways it could have been used.