During the weekend I spent learning about the theories and structures of cooperative learning, I was captivated by five components of cooperative learning. I intend to use these five in my own classroom. They begin with the introduction games Pleased to Meet You and Knotting Acquaintance followed by the creation of base groups and finally STAD and TGT. These are five basic, yet exciting ways to use cooperative groups in the classroom.I will use the first two introduction games at the start of the school year, because students are nervous about the start of school and these games are great for breaking the ice. I would start with the pleased to meet you form. This gets students talking amongst one another and opens the door for the new students to see that they have things in common with their new peers. Once they have had ample time to complete the questionnaire I would have them take a seat and tell me about some of the common traits they shared. After we spent a few minutes talking about the importance of working as a team and learning to count or your partners we would work through the Knotting Acquaintance activity. This would show me who the leaders were, who the analyzers were and who was simply going to follow the others. This is another activity that will help the new students become a part of the group. By feeling comfortable in the classroom the new students will feel less shock about being in a new school and will assimilate to their new culture. By the third day of school I will have the students assigned to base groups. I like the base group because it gives the students a home. The base groups help open the door to getting the cooperative learning going. The length of time that the base groups will stay together depends on the climate in the classroom. If I have selected well and the groups have been successful I might be inclined to let them work together up to the midpoint of the school year. The base g...
