Adding Productive Group Work

By Author: Cherry
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Although Pearson and Gallagher developed this model to describe how teachers develop students' reading comprehension, the framework works well across content areas. We would add an additional phase to this model: productive group work. We know that adolescents learn when they spend time interacting with their peers (Palincsar & Herrenkohl, 2002; Wentzel & Watkins, 2002). At some point, our novice bike rider begins to hone her skills in the company of other riders. They try new techniques together, make mistakes together, and generally come up with all kinds of things you would never teach her to do. (How did you first learn to pop a wheelie? Chances are, the responsible adult who taught you to ride did not also instruct you on the fine art of riding on the back tire alone.) Putting the gradual release of Tag Heuer Replica Watches responsibility model into practice should include a collaborative learning phase that we call productive group work because it requires individual accountability based on the collaborative work of the group.

Students learn best when they are provided ...
... with a model of how a skill, concept, strategy, or process is used: the algebra teacher who thinks aloud about relevant versus irrelevant information in a problem, the English teacher who describes how she figures out an unfamiliar vocabulary word, or the biology teacher who constructs a graphic organizer on RNA and DNA while explaining differences and similarities set their students up for success.

With the model in their minds, students are guided in their learning as they begin to take on more of the cognitive load, with the teacher there to help with the tricky stuff. Therefore, a student explains her thinking as she solves an equation, while the teacher coaches and scaffolds ("Think about your next step. What is the problem asking you to solve for?"). In the next room over, a life sciences teacher listens as a student explains his proposed investigation of fertilizers and then the teacher asks, "Are there other variables you could control? How will you know for sure if it is the level of nitrogen affecting the growth rate?"

In addition, learners need time to work out the details with one another because this allows them to use academic and social language as they consolidate their understandings. For example, a chemistry teacher recently gave a brief lecture on acetylating, and her students followed her protocol to create acetylsalicylic acid in the science lab. But it wasn't until they began drawing diagrams during the small-group discussions that students made the connection that they had formed aspirin by using acetic anhydride as an acetylating agent for salicylic acid. Without prompting, several of the students picked up molecular models Tag Heuer Replica to show others in the group where the acetyl groups were located. Others spontaneously looked up aspirin in their textbooks to confirm their thoughts. Their joint problem solving allowed them to arrive at deeper understandings they might not have achieved alone.

Once they have received modeled, guided, and collaborative experiences, students are ready for independent learning. Some of these independent tasks are completed for homework, but most are done in class. The secret is that all activities need to be engaging and interesting.

A simple way to remember this instructional design is to think about where the cognitive load is situated:
1. Modeling: "I do it."
2. Guided instruction: "We do it."
3. Collaborative learning: "You do it together."
4. Independent learning: "You do it alone." (Fisher & Frey, 2008, p. 4)