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Exploring the use of cooperative learning strategies 

Maths and English team

The development of the below cooperative learning activities came about as a result of training that college staff participated in on the January 2018 Staff Learning and Development Day.

 

The event introduced the idea of Cooperative Learning Interaction Patterns (or CLIPs). These are a practical way that allow learners to interact with materials and each other to achieve your various objectives, giving full control of the learning process.

"Cooperative Learning naturally lessens disruptive behavior and social isolation. It integrates precise language needed to explain, ask for help, and respectfully preserve personal boundaries. These are crucial transferable skills, needed for life in a multicultural, democratic Britain and in the 21st century workplace."

Jakob Werdelin, Cooperative Learning session facilitator

The below PDF document was used during the January Cooperative Learning session and features some more information about the approach and how to run activities using these strategies.

Feedback on the approach

Tutor 1 - Doug Trengove

Following the training session, Doug shared some maths resources with the team as part of the project. He also has around 5 more in various stages of completion.


Doug said he quite liked the idea when we took part but it was Jacob’s honesty when answering questions that inspired him to try it. Jacob did not try and ‘oversell’ it to him and recognised it was just another tool, but a very useful one to supplement the teaching. He particularly liked the way CLIP evolves from very secure practice to less structured practice on to production of resources.
 

First round: The safety net of having the answer on the back of the card.
Second round: Encouraging collaboration between students if one is unsure of the answer.
Third round: Creating their own questions.

 

The rounds have to be carefully managed, making sure students don’t keep reverting to their friends, how many questions they have to answer, and supporting the less creative students when they produce their own questions.


One of the big benefits is that students have interaction with others in the class that they would never normally gravitate to. Over time this helps change the class dynamic of inclusivity.
 

In the future Doug will increase the variety of questions and help create a pool of resources
ready to use.

Tutor 2 - Elaine Seymour

Following the training session, Elaine created and shared a set of English CLIP resources. She adapted these from snowballing activities she had used previously. 

Elaine found that the CLIP approaches weren't that effective with her students, who found it difficult to create questions of any merit. Despite this, she would try CLIP approaches again when working with other students in the future. 

The links below will take you to the resources that Doug and Elaine created and trialled with their students.

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