Posts Tagged ‘cooperative learning’

“Cooperative and Active Learning.” – Rob Plevin

 HARMIN, Merrill (1995), Inspiring Active Learning 
Image from: Amazon.com
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Today I am full of  gratitude for the high impact that cooperative and active learning have for students. I am also grateful for my cyber colleague, Rob Plevin, and my dear friend Merrill Harmin, who encourage all students to be more active in their own learning processes and in overcoming their own learning difficulties.  – Doc Meek, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA, Fri, Aug 16, 2013 

P.S. Nice to get your great newsletter below, Rob!

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Dear Doc,

Our summer sale bonanza is coming to an end very soon.

We only have one more product to run at discount plus another ‘secret’ product which I may announce very soon (you don’t want to miss that one if we do decide to run it).

For now, the product we have at HALF OFF is…

Cooperative and Active Learning in Lessons

…and it’s on sale for just THREE MORE DAYS – until Monday 19th August.

This is actually one of my favourite resources – I loved putting this together because it contains a lot of the activities that my students enjoyed when I used to teach. In fact, the activities are so good, I now use them in our live courses and workshops.

The activities are suitable for practically any age group and any subject – with minimal adaptation – and you’ll find them PERFECT if you’re looking for ways to…

  • Get students working together cooperatively (Hint: this is one of the EASIEST ways to reduce behaviour problems and improve participation – even bored, switched off students get a huge kick from working like this).
  • Put more ACTIVITY in your lessons – you’ve no-doubt heard that a large proportion of ‘troublesome’ students tend to be kinesthetic learners. If you try and teach these students using didactic, lecture-style methods they will HATE it! The way to make subjects accessible and appealing to these students is to include some activity in the learning tasks – get them on their feet and ‘doing’ stuff. These activities will enable you to make any subject more ‘hands-on’.
  • Make subject content STICK – It’s obvious, when students are truly engaged in the learning process there is much more chance that the information you give them will actually be remembered. The activities in this resource will give you countless ways to INVOLVE all your students in fun, interactive ways they will LOVE.

The pack includes:

  • Cooperative and active learning templates and activities
  • Fun grouping tips
  • Instructions for managing super-enjoyable and successful group work sessions
  • Active teaching strategies
  • Editable print-ready resource templates
  • Novel ideas for getting ALL your students involved
  • And much much more…

Click here to get your copy for HALF OFF (three more days only)

Best wishes,

Rob Plevin

PS remember, our sale is coming to an end very, very soon so this is your last chance to take advantage of the other products on sale here.
Behaviour Needs LTD

First Floor Offices
North Friarages, Frairgate
Penrith, Cumbria
CA11 7XR
Great Britain

Good news for teachers, parents and other leaders: “You don’t have to do it all alone . . . “

Parents and teachers often feel as if their parenting and teaching burdens are so heavy, they cannot carry them.

They are right!

There are many sources of help. The problem is that they are not always readily within reach logistically (not always easy to organize or coordinate) or financially (not always easy to afford or pay for).

One extremely valuable resource is immediately at hand, and affordable! The children and students themselves! Right there. Right in front of you, both literally and figuratively.

Using this immediately-at-hand resource may mean changing the way you have tried to carry your load in the past. You can’t do it all alone, so instead of trying to do that impossible task alone, you change your orientation to that of sharing the burden with the very people who are causing the burden in the first place.

This means a distinct change in the type of task upon which to focus.

Here is a ludicrously simple example. If the child/student cannot tie his/her shoelaces, you can continue to tie them “forever” or you can change your task from shoelace tying to that of teaching shoelace tying. Of course teaching the child/student how to tie his/her own shoe laces will take more time and energy than simply doing it yourself. Of course. Except that the teaching will usually result in there being an end to  your tying of shoelaces.

Parents and teachers may object that not all tasks are teachable to children/students. Some tasks are non-transferable. This is true.

The principle remains the same however, if you are to have help with your burdens of parenting and teaching.

Instead of expending all your energy doing all the tasks yourself, expend some energy thinking about which tasks are sharable and in what ways.

For example, even little children and those in grade one at school are capable of taking on more than we would ever think if we are aiming in that direction. And a child with a distinct stewardship in the home or classroom will not only remove some of the burden on the parent or teacher, s/he will take pride of ownership and develop self-responsibility more readily in the present and the future, thus gradually removing more and more of the burden of parenting and teaching as time goes on.

Try it. You might be surprised what children and students can do, given the opportunity to learn how.

I have seen examples of cooperative homes and cooperative classrooms in which older children (or even just same-age students) are able to take on sharing/teaching tasks, usually in groups of two or three. Larger groupings may not result in the same efficiencies.

Doc Meek, Wednesday,  June 2, 2010

At Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA; not at South Jordan, Utah, USA