Co-operative learning sounds great, but can it be applied in an Irish classroom? Yes, says Dr Treasa Kirk, deputy principal of Mercy Primary School (Scoil an Linbhiosa), Galway. "At first level, co-operative learning can be applied to any subject," she says. "It's an excellent process and you could start using it in just one subject area - maths, for example."
Long before students are divided into groups, they go through teambuilding exercises. "They can't operate successfully without working on team-building and self-esteem," she says.
"They need to be able to recognise their abilities and intelligences. Once that's in place, I organise informal co-operative groups of three and reiterate what I've been saying. Then I set up formal groups for a period of eight weeks, after which it's time to change groups."
The groups are mixed ability, gender, background, culture and religion. "Students learn to respect differences," says Kirk.
Students have to be taught how to explain what they are learning to each other. Within the group they are assigned specific roles - the explainer, the recorder and the checker. Students are taught the skills of each role.
Kirk has written a two-volume thesis on co-operative learning. She has made some interesting discoveries.
She compared a group of students who were learning co-operatively with a control group. "Academically," she says, "students learning co-operatively gained considerably compared with the control group. Their self-esteem and academic self-images showed significant gain - 99 per cent of the children involved said they preferred the co-operative learning method and that they enjoyed it.
"From my own observations and those of colleagues, students' attitudes improved considerably. They accepted each other's differences and behaviour improved both in class and in the yard." Teachers commented that students were more positive about their peers and would praise each other more easily and more frequently."
Students who learn co-operatively have better understandings of their subjects and longer term retention of information, she says. Co-operative learning can be applied to any subject, Kirk believes, even at second level. "Science lends itself to co-operative learning group work and I can't imagine how you could teach maths without it."
Kirk admits that curriculum overload can make it difficult to implement co-operative learning. However, she believes that the process is so important and so beneficial that it would be better to have a less overloaded curriculum and greater emphasis on co-operative learning.
