A Snapshot View Of Learning In The Modern Classroom Depicts

While working in groups, they excel as interpersonal learners. Study groups are very helpful for folks like me to learn new things. We also tend to incorporate working with a peer at a minimum.

In order to achieve this, students develop trust and communicative skills, creating a community that allows students to work as a team.

“When groups are planned so that each member's strengths have authentic importance to the ultimate success of the group's activity, this creates a situation where individual learning styles, skills, and talents are valued, and students shine in their fortes and learn from each other in the areas where they are not as expert.”(Willis)

In Cooperative Learning there are six major elements that take part. The six are intentional group formation, continuity of group interaction, interdependence among group members, explicit attention to the development of social skills, and instructor as facilitator. These six elements form under the model and gives cooperative

Collaboration is often first learn with friends (e.g. a sandbox), within the classroom (e.g. team projects). Emily Eldrige also goes on to share her life story, and her tendency not wanting to work in groups. Collaboration, by society standards, is seen as a natural skill, that everyone possess. When student prefer not to work in group, rather than promoting team effort, it is best to ask the students, why are groups not an interest or a likeness. Collaboration falls into three categories: life experiences, personality, and contextual knowledge. Personality is the predominant factor for most students. During this phase in a person's life, he/she is making numerous personal decisions that he/she will carry for the rest of his/her life. When

Interestingly, other studies support the perceived barrier of the lack of face-to-face interaction noted above in social theory of learning. Daniel, Schwier, and McCalla (2003), noted that the concept of community as a learning organism provides the framework for investigating learning concepts as it relates to individuals and groups and serves as the basis in analyzing and understanding learning as a social process (Masika, R. & Jones, J., 2015). Tinto (2003) goes on to support this by concluding that students learn better together and build support groups that go beyond the classroom when they

Group work and group projects help blossoming students develop key social skills that will help them later in life.

There are several reasons why cooperative learning works well. The idea that students learn more by doing something active than by simply watching and listening has long been known to both cognitive psychologists and effective teachers (Bransford, et. al., 2000) and cooperative learning is by its nature an active method. Beyond that, cooperation enhances learning in several ways. Weak students working individually are likely to give up when they get stuck; working cooperatively, they keep going. Strong students faced with the task of explaining and clarifying material to weaker students often find gaps in their own understanding and fill them in. Students working alone may tend to delay completing assignments or skip them altogether, but when they know that others are counting on them, they are motivated to do the work in a timely manner.

When working with others, I perform best when supporting the lead. The strengths I possess help more with maintaining the group cohesive while others guide the group towards a goal. I am collaborative when it comes to sharing resources, and expect for others to do the same for another. For me it is important for all members of a group to make both significant and meaningful contributions, so that each individual benefits from aiding the collective. When presented with a dilemma, ideas for possible solutions come in abundance, however, it requires an extended period of time for me to formulate these thoughts. At Barrio Logan College Institute (BLCI), I have built strong relationships with co-workers. This is largely due to the fact that we all value education, family, and equity.

Foote, C., & Vermette, P. (2001) Constructivist Philosophy and Cooperative Learning Practice: Toward Integration and Reconciliation in Secondary Classrooms. American Secondary Education, 30, 26-37

I have come to appreciate the dynamic of passionate students working together to accomplish common goals. Unfortunately, many modern students often come to loathe cooperative learning. Some students are apathetic about group projects altogether, and others are discouraged by their classmates’ lack of effort. As a SELF fellow, I will have the opportunity to collaborate and form valuable connections with like-minded and ambitious students.

We as societies are hindered in advancement by secluding ourselves alone. Learning in groups working together adds an element of scaffolding and accountability to learning. The shared construction of meaning is most visible and available for research at the small-group unit of analysis, where it appears as group cognition (Stahl et al., 2006). Social cohesion adds elements of accountability and a sense of enjoyment, camaraderie, and social acceptance of all cultures. Adding to the literature, Akyol & Garrison, 2014, Community of Inquiry argues “Social presence may well have more influence in informal learning environments, K-12 settings, or in online learning where students are new to this medium (Akyol, & Garrison, p.18, 2014). Positive reinforcement striving to acquire meaningful relationships build lifelong ethical citizens.

Working to ones’ strengths, however, is not always the most beneficial way to utilise group work in an educational setting. Putting members together that have different skills or traits can cause them to improve them individually, like putting an introvert and an extrovert together. An extrovert can bring an introverted person out of their shell, causing them to interact more with the rest of the group and offer more of their own opinions; while an introvert can make an extrovert learn to listen more and consider other students’ thoughts, perhaps teaching them to be less overbearing. To put together two conflicting traits can help to average out members’ work, also which can improve grades.

Collaborative learning stems from the theory of Vygotsky’s conception of Zone of proximal development. The thought is that children learn best with “help and guidance” (Ormrod, 2012). In transitioning this zone to a collaborative learning experience, children work with their peers in broadening their learning experience, allowing small groups of students to work together to share knowledge, exchange ideas, problem solve, and more. These classroom environments help to create durable abilities in students and aid in producing a “smoother integration into adult society when the activities resemble real-world tasks” (Ormrod, 2012). As students work with peers and adults, they adopt some of the learning strategies demonstrated and develop more skills in problem solving. This scaffolding creates a trickle-down effect of knowledge construction. In collaborative learning, students are afforded a myriad of enriching opportunities to explore perspectives that may differ from their own. These activities serve to create a self-awareness in the student of their responsibilities to a group, requiring them to self-monitor their activity (Lee, Tsai, Chai, & Koh, 2014).

Experiments have shown the way that it is beneficial to a person’s daily activities or student however; from experiences, there should be a means to demonstrate what is learned. Did learning take place, at least to meet defined objectives from a class or other learning environments? To me learning via collaborative, instructional, and with a team of mixed backgrounds can promote a higher degree (Jones 1995).