Chapters 7 and 8

Chapter 7 is all about cooperative learning, a topic about which I've learned quite a bit over my years as an education major at Bethel. Cooperative learning is becoming more and more key in today's world, mainly because today's world is becoming more and more global. It's easy (and traditional) to base groups off of ability, but that really isn't so good, and I agree. Students need to be in mixed ability groups to push some students to learn, and to push some students to teach. I believe learning is enhanced in both ways. The book also says that a variety of criteria should be used to group students; groups should be informal, formal, and "base groups"; groups should be of a managable size; and cooperative learning should be combined with other class structures. Multi-media and web resources are great ways for students to learn cooperatively, as are WebQuests. They give students the chance to either be together or apart when working as a group, and it's a great way to use technology in the classroom. After creating a WebQuest for a class assignment, I can positively say I will use that in the classroom someday. Shared calendars and shared bookmarks are other ways for students to learn together. Also, I will be doing much work with websites in my classroom. They are easy, simple ways to use technology.























Chapter 8 is titled Reinforcing Effort. This is talking about enhancing students understanding of relationship between effort and achievement by addressing their attitudes and beliefs about learning. Basically, it's the philosophy behind learning. I agree wholeheartedly and believe that students need intrinsic motivation and personal drive to really achieve significant learning. Effort Rubrics are great ways for students to track their own effort, and I like the idea enough that I'd like to incorporate it into my classroom in some way. Showing students data is also shown to convince students that effort is truly tied to achievement, though I wonder how successful this really can be in getting students to make an effort? Surveys on a site like Survey Monkey could be used to gague students effort.