Cooperative Learning Structures in Physical Education

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Cooperative Learning Structures in Physical
Education

• Ben Dyson
• The University Memphis

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• Cmon Jen, youre cool youre doing great.
• Jen hesitates, she has just scored her second
  goal in the mini-soccer game. This is the first
  time she has scored a goal in physical education
  class and she is surprised that it was that
  easy.
• Jen is in a group of 4 students in a cooperative
  team playing another team. She has been
  practicing skills with her other team-mates and
  now they are really been challenged by playing
  another team. Its a bit daunting for this low
  skilled fourth grade girl. Or should I say
  previously low skilled student.

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• As physical educators search for ways to present
  meaningful experiences to their students, many
  turn to different instructional models. These
  activities provide a number of learning
  experiences valued by educators but not always
  readily available within busy scheduled PE
  schedule.
• Why?

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Domains of Learning

• Psychomotor
• Cognitive
• Affective

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National Standards

• Psychomotor
• Proficiency, competency, strategizing
• Cognitive
• Understanding, applying, creating..
• Affective
• Responsibility, interaction, challenge, fun

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Cooperative Learning Structures

• Cooperative Learning has hundreds of structures
  that emphasize different goals depending of the
  focus of the teacher. They can be more
  motor-skill oriented or more social-skill
  process oriented -- depending on the
  participants and the activity.

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Cooperative Learning Perspectives

• Active learners
• students are not passive recipients of knowledge
  but are involved in tasks that stimulate
  decision-making, critical thinking, and problem
  solving.
• Social learners
• students construct knowledge through social
  interaction with their peers, facilitated by
  their teachers.
• Creative learners
• students are guided to discover knowledge
  themselves and to create their own understanding
  of the subject matter. Individuals draw on prior
  knowledge and experiences to construct
  knowledge. Perkins (1999)

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Elements of Cooperative Learning

• Face to face interaction
• Positive interdependence
• Individual accountability
• Interpersonal skills
• Group processing

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What do CL structures mean in physical education?

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CL structures in physical education

• Think-Share-Perform
• Based on Think-Pair-Share (Kagan,1992). This is
  a strategy for encouraging participation through
  critical thinking, sharing, negotiating, and
  performing. It is particularly useful for
  creating games, dances, and obstacles courses, as
  well as practicing game and sport strategies
  through problem solving.

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CL structures in physical education

• 2. Pairs-Check-Perform
• Based on Kagans (1992) structure Pairs Check.
  This structure requires individuals to stay
  on-task and help others learn, and is useful when
  learning locomotor, manipulative, sport,
  gymnastic or aquatic skills. This is similar to
  Mosston (1981) reciprocal style of teaching.
  Students work in pairs. Once they have agreed
  that they have completed the task they work with
  another pair to check their task/performance.

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CL structures in physical education

• 3. Jigsaw Perform
• Based on Jigsaw as originally developed by
  Aronson (1978). In this division of work and
  sharing structure, each student is responsible
  for learning and performing a portion of the
  content, and then teaching his or her portion to
  other group members. During Jigsaw Perform there
  is strong positive interdependence as each
  student is dependent upon others for information.
  This structure can be used in physical education
  for developing routines, creating stations,
  teaching dance, and teaching and reviewing motor
  skills and tactics.

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CL structures in physical education

• 4. Co-op Play
• Based on Learning Together (Orlick, 1978, 1982
  Johnson et. al., 1984). Co-op Play stresses
  working together to achieve challenging group
  goals through inclusive activities in which all
  students are involved and their efforts accepted.
  Co-op Play is an appropriate structure for
  practicing skills, modifying or creating games,
  dances, and obstacle courses.

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CL structures in physical education

• 5. Learning Teams
• Based on Student Teams-Achievement Divisions
  (Slavin, 1980) and Learning Together (Johnson et.
  al., 1984). Learning Teams provide students with
  the opportunity to share leadership and
  responsibility roles and use collaborative skills
  to achieve group goals. Learning Teams are useful
  for teaching any physical education content,
  although sports skills and tactics can be readily
  applied. Student roles (such as recorder,
  encourager, coach, equipment manager) are used to
  facilitate group/team activity.

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Teaching CL structures

• Teachers role
• - facilitator
• Students role
• active contributor
• students are positively interdependent on each
  other
• We sink or swim together

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Reflection time

• How confident do you feel in
• your ability to design a sequence of lessons that
  would comprise a purposeful, meaningful, and
  exciting cooperative learning experience for
  students?
• your ability to find local expertise implementing
  a new instructional model like CL? What PD is
  available?
• your ability to convince fellow physical
  educators that the inclusion of cooperative
  learning within their physical education
  curriculum holds promise?
• your ability to convince a school administrator
  that funding your attendance at a cooperative
  learning training workshop would be a good
  investment for the school?