This Digest discusses approaches to group learning in the language classroom, presenting some principles that are common to any group learning approach, whether it be cooperative learning, student team learning, group investigation, or collaborative learning. The Digest also discusses the Collaborative Learning Model (Reid et al., 1989) which…

Many college faculty increasingly do much of their work, i.e., teaching, conducting research, and writing, in partnership with colleagues. This is due to such things as rapidly changing technologies and increasingly specialized knowledge. Faculty collaboration usually takes two principal forms, teaching and research, and are often distinctive…

This brief report summarizes a longer document with the same title. It reviews how college faculty are increasingly collaborating to do much of their work. It notes that the two principal forms of collaboration, teaching and research, are often distinctive arrangements depending on the field of study, institutional environment, and task…

In successfully establishing and having students complete group tasks within a cooperative learning framework, 14 essential elements must be present. The elements necessary for cooperative learning are: (1) a clear set of specific student learning outcome objectives; (2) all students in the group accept the targeted outcome; (3) clear and complete…

This brief report summarizes a longer document with the same title. It reviews literature on the importance of using active learning teaching techniques in the classroom, describes what active learning is, discusses how this technique can be incorporated into the classroom and identifies barriers to the use of this approach. Strategies that…

Designed to tap the rich collection of instructional techniques in the ERIC database, this compilation of lesson plans focuses on helping elementary-school students to work together as they learn to read, write, and communicate. The 48 lesson plans in the book cover writing to communicate, reading for information, responding to literature,…

This document explores teaching and learning of mathematics apart from what mathematics content is being taught. Cooperative learning and peer tutoring are seen as effective alternatives for providing mathematics instruction in secondary schools. The physical and intellectual environments of the classroom are discussed, with special attention paid…

This monograph explores the current use in higher education of cooperative learning, the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning. The opening section sets out to define cooperative learning, and to look at the history of the technique, its basic elements, types of cooperative…