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Cooperative Pairs - How to Effectively Use Them in Your Classroom
The teacher no longer stands in the front of the classroom and preaches the gospel of the text with students sitting, listening and performing rout memorization exercises. Instead, today's classroom is full of actively engaged students who use technology and each other to learn. Due to video games, text messaging, etc., today's student is used to being involved in the goings on of their surroundings. They are not used to sitting and listening. As a result, effective use of cooperative pairs in the classroom is imperative to student success. I know you are probably thinking, I have tried cooperative pairs over and over and they never quite work the way I want them to. Well, they can work and I have effectively used them in my classroom for several years. Any teacher can experience success with cooperative pairs by enforcing the following simple rules: students may only talk to their one assigned partner; students must only talk about the subject at hand; both partners must do their own work; and every assignment must have a time limit. Why will these four simple rules make cooperative pairs work for you?
First, by only allowing students to talk to their assigned partner, it ensures both partners are actively engaged. If students are allowed to talk outside of their partnership, inevitably, several students will be left out. It is imperative that students not be left out! As educators, it is our responsibility to make sure EVERY child is actively engaged and EVERY child has the opportunity to succeed. This active engagement is crucial for the success of cooperative pairs. Also, a phrase that warrants a little more explanation is "assigned partner". Students should not be allowed to pick their own partner. As an educator, you know your students. If a student is struggling, place that student with a good teaching peer. Teaching peers are created by the teacher. They model the "how to's" used by teacher's. They ask questions just like a teacher would and the teacher gives the teaching peer positive feedback. Don't be surprised if the weaker of the two students starts helping the stronger student. This always seems to happen with this model.
Second, students must only talk about the subject at hand. In reality, this will never completely happen and you should not expect it to. Instead, your goal is to ensure students predominantly only talk about the subject at hand. When two people are sitting in close proximity working together, human nature dictates that conversations will move away from the topic at hand to a topic that is more social than intellectual. Since I am a math teacher, I want students to mostly talk about math. That is my goal.
Third, both partners must do their own work and each student must turn in their own paper. In the first week of teaching students the "how to's" of working as a member of a cooperative pair, at least one group will turn in one piece of paper as the work for their pair. As an educator, you absolutely cannot let this happen! As soon as we are ready to move to cooperative pairs, I remind students of the rules of working in cooperative pairs, which includes the rule that both partners must do their own work and each student must turn in a paper. We, then, move to our pairs and inevitably, at least three of the pairs will only end up with one paper to turn in. When I question these pairs, they say this is the way they turned partner work in at prior grade levels. This should never happen! Students should always do their own work. The entire purpose of the cooperative pair model is to have someone who can immediately give positive feedback or immediately answer any questions you have. The cooperative pair model allows students to have an instant sounding board on the how to's of solving a problem. If there is only one paper turned in for the partnership, this means that one partner did more work that the other and the thought processes that are necessary to learn information did not happen for at least fifty percent of the pair.
Finally, all assignments must have a time limit. With a time limit, students will work and work diligently. Without a time limit, students will often get off task or work slowly. When students know that they have just a few minutes to complete the assignment, they are more focused. How much time is enough time? Well, I always give a little less time than I believe my fastest student could finish the assignment in. Why? Well, you can always add a little more time and portray it as a reward for the students working really hard. If you give them too much time, students will recognize this and won't be as focused and will tend to goof off more.
Overall, by following these simple steps, any teacher can become a successful facilitator of the cooperative pair model. By utilizing this model in your classroom, all students can and will experience success.
April M. Daywalt is currently an Instructional Facilitator/Math teacher for Montgomery County Schools in North Carolina. April is currently enrolled in the Master of Entrepreneurship program at Western Carolina University. Webmasters and other article publishers are hereby granted article reproduction permission as long as this article is used in its entirety, author's information, and any links remain intact. Copyright 2010 by April M. Daywalt.
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