Research on Wondering (Internship Week 7)

My wondering is: How can I implement cooperative learning to improve my students' reading comprehension? This week, I researched this wondering and found one empirical article and one practitioner article. The empirical article, The Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning by Chin-Min Hsiung, explains an experiment that was conducted to compare the achievement levels of people working individually versus people working in cooperative groups (Chin-Min Hsiung, 2012). He concluded: “cooperative learning is more effective than individualistic learning” (Chin-Min Hsiung, 2012). This supported my wondering and reassured my thoughts about picking this topic.

The practitioner article, Cooperative Learning and Achievement: Theory and Research by Robert E. Slavin, highlighted that there are many questions about cooperative learning and there is a great amount of research still needed for this topic. Robert E. Slavin said, “There is a fair consensus among researchers about the positive effects of cooperative learning… but there remains a great deal of confusion…” (2013, p. 179). This article goes on to talk about how there are more outcomes with cooperative learning than just achievement; there is an increase in “higher-order thinking, metacognition, willingness to take on difficult tasks, long-term retention, time on task, self-esteem…” (Slavin, 2013, p. 193). Overall, this article also supports cooperative learning, but notices that there needs to be more research on how it is effective.

In both of these articles, I found a common theme that there is a fair consensus among researchers showing that cooperative learning is effective. It is reassuring to know that my research supports my inquiry, so now I will be working on researching specific strategies to implement to facilitate this cooperative learning. I am thrilled to read about evidence of this topic and I am looking forward to seeing the effectiveness for myself in my classroom when it relates specifically to reading comprehension.

Hsiung, C. (2012). The Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 101, 119-137.

Slavin, R. (2013). Cooperative Learning and Achievement: Theory and Research. Handbook of Psychology, 179-194.

#EDE4944 #FEAP5aPurposefulgoalsbasedonstudentneeds #FEAP5bExaminesandusesdatatoimprove #FEAP5cVarietyofdatawithcolleagues #FEAP5eEngagesintargetedprofessionalgrowth #FEAP5fImplementsknowledgelearnedinprofdev