Cooperative+Learning+and+Professional+Development

This week I find myself coming back to two of the important topics for the week. These topics are cooperative learning and professional development.

Cooperative learning, which has been around for many years takes on a whole new look when it is done with technology. Suddenly you can have students who are collaboratively working with not only their classmates, but potentially with students across town, across state, or even across the world. Pitler, in __Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works__, states, //"Technology can play a unique role in cooperative learning by facilitating group collaboration, providing structure for group tasks, and allowing members of groups to communicate even if they are not working face to face"//. Furthermore, students are getting together online anyway; you might as well give them a purpose while they are doing it.

I am reminded of an incident that happened recently in my own classroom. Students were playing online games to practice multiplication. They were competing against each other and students playing across the United States. They were doing something they hate doing with paper and pencil, but they were excitedly going back for more in order to get the high score and beat the person from another state that had just knocked them off the leader board. I watched as in the midst of this a girl came to the computer. She did not know how to play the game, and I did not either so I could not help her. A boy sitting nearby helped her as she learned the shortcuts and helped her find her way. A fifth grade boy and a shy fifth grade girl, not your usual choice for collaboration, but it worked.

With the help of Wikis, blogs, and podcasts, students can collaborate and produce projects. Students love to see their work on the bulletin board and isn't the WWW just a very large bulletin board?

Another topic that really jumped out at me this week was that of professional development. I think that professional development for teachers in the use of technology has got to become a much more important piece of school technology funding. Teachers go to a technology in-service where they see great technology and the uses in the classroom, but they are not given the practical hands on practice they need, nor is there any on-going training. One aspect of the McRel Technology Initiative is this: //Teacher-created technology-infused units are a key requirement of the intervention. These projects create opportunities for teachers to translate the general technology knowledge they gain from training sessions...into standards-based learning activities.// This in turn motivates teachers to keep learning and to create more lessons with technology integration.

I have seen the truth of this in my own life as I have learned more about Web 2.0 tools, I have eagerly tried them out and worked to incorporate them into my classroom. Give teachers the skills and the tools to create and they will do so. Most teachers want to improve themselves and their teaching.

Technology training must be on-going teachers cannot learn what they need in one session, or even a whole day to go back and fully integrate what they have learned. By having on-going training with a mentor teachers can infuse the curriculum with technology enhanced enthusiasm.