Cooperative Learning in Context: An Educational Innovation in Everyday Classrooms

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SUNY Press, Jul 1, 1999 - Education - 233 pages
Cooperative Learning in Context examines the real-world implications of cooperative learning techniques used in a culturally diverse, suburban elementary school fourth grade mathematics class and sixth grade social studies class. Evelyn Jacob takes an anthropologist s eye to document not just the successes, but also the failures and missed opportunities exhibited by the participating teachers and students. Six interwoven contextual aspects that affect teaching and learning are explored: task structure, psychological and technical tools, interpersonal interactions and social relationships, individual and social meanings, local cultures and institutions, and larger cultures and institutions. In exploring the implications of the study, Jacob discusses how an understanding of contextual features can enable educators to improve the processes and outcomes of cooperative learning and other powerful educational innovations.
 

Contents

Cooperative Learning
13
The Larger Setting
23
TeamsGamesTournaments in Fourth Grade Mathematics
29
Learning Together in Sixth Grade Social Studies
65
Acquiring English in Content Classes
107
Context and Cooperative Learning
125
Practicing Cooperative Learning in Context
147
Toward ContextuallySensitive Approaches
165
Methods and Context of this Study
177
Notes
199
Index
227
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About the author (1999)

Evelyn Jacob is Professor of Education at George Mason University. She is coeditor with Cathie Jordan of Minority Education: Anthropological Perspectives.

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