Co-operative Strategies - Better Learning?

School: Houghton Valley

Year Level: Y6

Teacher: Peter Holmstead

Focus area: Co-operative Strategies - Participating and Contributing



To investigate ways to improve student capability to participate and contribute including:
- Student inter and intrapersonal skills
- Student ability to work cooperatively in a group
- Student ability to act on the outcome of their learning

Research Questions:

Question 1. Implementation: Is implementing a wide range of co-operative strategies most effective or should students gain mastery of one or two?

Question 2. Engagement: In which co-operative strategies are the students most engaged?

Question 3. Knowledge: Which co-operative strategies significantly increase knowledge?

Success Criteria for Knowledge

Expert: Student can select, discuss, justify, create, predict and improve their knowledge of marine environments
Practitioner: Student can translate, classify, apply and explain knowledge gained when studying marine environments
Apprentice: Student can predict, compare or clarify information on marine environments
Novice: Student can recall, describe or list facts about the marine environment

Question 4. Competency: How able are students to select an appropriate co-operative strategy to apply to a task?

Success Criteria for Competency

Expert: can offer improvements on each co-operative strategy and justify their thinking
Practitioner: can choose which of the co-operative strategies to use depending on the task, and use it effectively
Apprentice: can describe how each of the co-operative strategies is organised and performed
Novice: can name, and participate in, the co-operative strategies/structures

Learning Story:

General Background
This action research project was chosen so we could develop and study students’ skills when participating and contributing. In 2008 Houghton Valley School undertook a year-long professional development based around the use of co-operative strategies. We decided as a school to learn about and develop a range of co-operative strategies and structures to assist students in developing thinking skills and group abilities.

Although there were dozens of strategies and structures at our disposal, we decided at a teacher-only day in February to focus on a ‘Top 8’ strategies and structures for 2009. These were chosen, through discussion, to be the most effective for a range of uses throughout the curriculum.

These would then be used regularly with students of all year levels, so that in future years they would become a normal part of everyday learning with the school day.
I am most interested in how well the students can master a range of strategies and then use them successfully by applying them to other learning areas. Can a student recognise when one strategy is a better choice than another? Can a student recognise when a strategy is not suitable for an activity? Which strategies best engage the students? Do any of our ‘Top 8’ need changing?

Project Implementation
It was decided to run this project over three terms, using three of the ‘Top 8’ strategies each term. In this way the students would use each strategy a number of times in close succession. I would be comparing the competencies of these students with those in other parts of the school who are using all the strategies spread across the whole year.

The initial part of this research was implemented within an Experiencing Marine Reserves (EMR) topic. EMR is a programme developed and funded by DOC to promote knowledge of the marine environment by getting students snorkeling within their local area and then comparing it to an established marine reserve, in our case Kapiti Marine Reserve. The Term Two topic will be another Science unit based around space exploration and technology, and the final Term Three topic will have a school production context of Social Science and Technology.




The three co-operative strategies chosen for Term One were:

• The Donut – two rings of face-to-face students share knowledge then rotate and repeat
  
• PMI (Plus/Minus/Interesting) – Groups analyse a subject into three categories
  
• Venn Diagram – Groups compare and contrast the similarities and differences between two subjects

To gauge the students’ competency with these three strategies, I gave them each a pretest and analysed their answers, placing them into a spreadsheet which I will add to over the next two terms. Each term’s three strategies will have an accompanying pretest. I will assess their competency shortly after the end of each unit.

The initial competency pretest results from the EMR topic are in the following chart. 23 of the students are at the novice stage. They have some experience of some of the strategies as they were used by staff during the professional development in 2008. At the time this blog was posted, the post test had not been administered.

Throughout the term I provided opportunities to use each of the three strategies. As well as within the EMR topic, I used them in other curriculum areas such as writing and reading groups, news sharing, analysing school events, maths and sport.

Already it is apparent that the students can organize themselves quickly into a donut to discuss a subject or to share news. The PMI has wide-ranging uses and most students find the discussions worthwhile and engaging. They have begun suggesting that we use them in a range of contexts. The Venn diagram has the most limited uses, but there are times when a Venn is the best choice. For example, we used them to compare skills and rules between two ball games and it was interesting for the students to see how similar many games are.

Results:

Outcome 1. Engagement:

SCALE: 1 = never, 2 = not very often, 3 = about half the time, 4 = often, 5 = always

Mean level of engagement of students ...

Offered ideas - 3.1
Asked questions - 2.9
Listened to and thought about other's ideas and responded respectfully - 3.5
Used positive body language related to task - 3.5
Persevered in order to enact related task - 3.4
Showed evidence of being active learners outside school time - 2.9
Showed interest in directing their own learning - 3.2
Had behavioural issues that impacted on their learning - 1.8
Showed evidence of using what they have learnt - 3.5

Overall mean level of engagement of students = 3.1

Outcome 2. Knowledge (EMR context):

Number of students who were ...

8. Proficient experts - at start 0; at end [#]
7. Beginning experts - at start 0; at end [#]
6. Proficient practitioners - at start 0; at end [2]
5. Beginning practitioners - at start 1; at end [6]
4. Proficient apprentices - at start 3; at end [12]
3. Beginning apprentices - at start 4; at end [7]
2. Proficient novices - at start 13; at end [2]
1. Beginning novices - at start 10; at end [2]

Knowledge effect size = 0.82
Standard error = 0.06

Outcome 3. Competency:

Number of students who were ...

8. Proficient experts - at start 0; at end [#]
7. Beginning experts - at start 0; at end [1]
6. Proficient practitioners - at start 0; at end [0]
5. Beginning practitioners - at start 0; at end [7]
4. Proficient apprentices - at start 3; at end [14]
3. Beginning apprentices - at start 5; at end [6]
2. Proficient novices - at start 13; at end [1]
1. Beginning novices - at start 10; at end [1]

Competency effect size = 0.95
Standard error = 0.08

Conclusions:

This blog has been updated on May 17 with the above end data. It is clear that both the knowledge and competency of the students has increased considerably, going by the effect sizes of 0.86 and 0.95. The Term 2 competency pretest has been administered and shows that the students start with a greater understanding of the term's co-operative strategies than those of Term 1. I therefore expect the effect sizes to be smaller for Term 2. Once the knowledge pretest on Space has been administered, I will update this blog with the competency and knowledge data. Stay tuned!