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COMPLEX INSTRUCTION Elizabeth G. Cohen Keynote Speech for Cooperation and Diversity: Cooperative Learning in Intercultural Education Conference in Sodertalje, Sweden, August, 1997 Organized by the International Association for Intercultural Education Co-sponsored by IASCE As a sociologist and as someone who puts a great value on social justice, I view the classroom with cultural diversity quite differently from other educators who focus on this topic. Where others see cultural differences, I see a social hierarchy. School populations come from a larger system of stratification. Immigrants are often near the bottom of system of social classes. They are joined by native- born minorities such as African-Americans in U.S., and Romanis in Europe. With few economic or political resources, members of these groups often experience discrimination and exploitation by dominant groups. The classroom is by no means immune to this external social hierarchy. One can see its effects on differences in achievement. Children from parents with little education come to school with a different repertoire from that of more middle class students. These differences in repertoire rapidly translate into differences in academic achievement. Children of parents with little education often take up lower positions on the social rank order called academic status. They are not expected to do well on a wide range of school-related tasks by their classmates. Newcomers are very often social isolates. They occupy a lower position on the social rank order of peer status or popularity. The two rank orders of academic and peer status are the most powerful social distinctions in the classroom. You can see the effects of this social hierarchy even within small cooperative groups working on enlightened intercultural materials. Those students who have higher status talk more, are more influential, and learn more as a result of their interaction within the small groups. Those students who have lower status talk less, are less influential, and learn less. As a sociologist, I find that having a classroom where different cultures and languages are represented presents an overwhelming technical problem for teachers. These cultural and linguistic differences are often translated into differences in basic academic skills in the early years of schooling. Thus, culturally diverse classrooms are often classrooms with a wide academic range. The teacher is faced with a dilemma of simplifying the curriculum in order to reach students who do not have basic academic skills. Or she or he can teach at a high level and cause the failure of cultural and linguistic minorities. If she/he makes the curriculum too elementary, the parents of middle class majority children will be very angry. If she/he fails large numbers of students, his or her own values of social justices and desire to be successful with all students are violated. Creation of Equitable Classrooms As persons whose prime concern is social justice within the classroom, my colleague Rachel Lotan and I have worked for many years to create equitable classrooms, where populations are culturally, linguistically, and academically diverse. What is an equitable classroom? How would one know an equitable classroom upon careful study and observation? In equitable classrooms, teachers and students view each student as capable of learning both basic skills and substantive concepts. All students have access to challenging learning materials. Teachers do not deprive some students of access to materials demanding higher-order thinking and problem-solving on the grounds that they are not ready for abstract thinking. Teachers do not emphasize only basic skills for children who are not working at grade level and creative problem-solving and intellectual autonomy for others who are reading above grade level. In an equitable classroom students use each other as resources in small groups. However, within those small groups, classmates do not block access to interaction or materials. Interaction within small groups is "equal-status", so that there is no relationship between one's social status and participation and influence. Children of lower social status are just as likely to be active within the groups and to have their ideas accepted as children of higher social status. Finally, in an equitable classroom, achievement of students does not vary widely between academically stronger and weaker students because the weakest students are more closely grouped around the average. There is no long tail on the distribution on the side of weak achievement The equitable classroom represents a goal while actual classrooms represent a continuum along these dimensions. In our work in creating equitable classrooms that are not marked by social hierarchies, we have found it necessary to make a number of major changes in the conventional way classrooms operate. We have had to work with curriculum, with the teacher's instruction, and most directly, with the creation of equity within small groups in a cooperative learning situation. Complex Instruction and the Equitable Classroom Since 1979, Lotan and I have been working with graduate students at Stanford, with teachers and principals and with educators and social scientists elsewhere in the U.S., Western Europe and Israel on an approach called complex instruction (CI). CI is designed to create an equitable classrooms. CI changes the nature of instruction and the teacher's role. This approach also changes the nature of curriculum. In addition there is a direct attempt to equalize the participation within small groups. Nature of instruction and teacher role Teachers learn how to work with small heterogeneous groups where students use each other as resources. Teachers learn how to foster interaction among the students who learn by talking and working together, not only by listening to the teacher. Students decide for themselves how they will proceed on their group tasks. Nature of curriculum CI uses a multiple ability curriculum made up of carefully engineered group tasks. Each small group has a different task, and groups of students rotate so that students have experience with different tasks. Tasks require multiple intellectual abilities. They are open-ended and uncertain. Each task provides a different way for students to grasp central ideas underlying the multiple ability curriculum unit. Equal-Status Interaction CI teachers make direct attempts to create equity within the small groups using status characteristic theory. Teachers learn about this theory and how to use interventions based on it. For example, teachers convince students that many different abilities will be necessary for success on the task, that no one will be good at all these abilities and that everyone will be good at some. In addition, teachers observe low status students at work and publicly evaluate their competence when they make an intellectual contribution to the group. Sociological Theory and Practice Using these strategies enables the teacher to teach at a demanding level intellectually to a class with a wide academic range. Since 1979, program staff have carried out continuous research and development. Throughout this lengthy program of research, we have used sociological theories and research tools to back up advice we give to others. (See Cohen & Lotan, Eds.) We have also used sociological tools to develop and evaluate the best way to help teachers make fundamental changes. For example, we have found in our research that teachers cannot make these kinds of changes without extensive follow-up in their classrooms. Thus we do not recommend attempting complex instruction without the resources for classroom follow-up. We have done research on how to provide support for the teachers from the principal and from fellow teachers. As sociologists, we realize that producing equitable classrooms requires changes in the way the school is organized to support classroom instruction. Therefore we try to work with schools where there will be the requisite support from and working relationship with the principal. A Perilous Journey I hope that many of you are making your own journeys toward the goal of an equitable classroom. It is a perilous journey and I want to warn you of some special dangers. Beware of people who claim that they have a simple solution that will achieve this goal without extensive staff development, change in curriculum, and change in the school. There is no shortcut in achieving this goal. It requires undoing and redoing many features of the way classrooms and schools work. Especially beware of people who make claims without backing them up with reasoning and evidence. We have many such people in the educational field. In contrast, in CI we have always backed up knowledge claims with reasoning and with systematic evidence--we have been very concerned with the warrant for any claim we make. In addition to extensive studies of achievement among students who have experienced CI, we have carried out detailed studies of classrooms where CI is in operation. We have pursued the question: What in CI classrooms leads to the learning outcomes? This is how we learned that the process of talking and working together among students is critical to learning gains. We have studied the effectiveness of teacher's interventions to create equal status participation. It is not enough to claim that one knows how to create equal-status interaction in groups--there must be some hard evidence to back it up. If a program is to be effective, one has to understand how it works inside actual schools and how staff development can prepare teachers for successful implementation. We have carried out studies of organizational support of CI teachers. And lastly we have studied critical features of teacher education that lead to successful implementation of instructional strategies. This conference is a wonderful advance on the road to equitable classrooms. It addresses the practical problems teachers face in instructing culturally diverse classrooms and offers an understanding of the challenge of the use of cooperative learning. Although cooperative learning is a key to success, based on my years of experience, I want to recommend other steps that will be necessary to reach this goal. In the first place, you cannot introduce these techniques all by yourself. You will need a group of experienced educators, colleagues with a research background in social science or psychology, and teachers who will be the pioneers in the classroom. Just as we have found that the children must talk and work together in order to learn, so must the adults on your team. To help you remember this, I want to share with you one of our favorite mottoes: No one of us is a smart as all of us. Secondly, back up your ideas with reasoning and systematic collection of evidence. Don't stop with evidence of achievement and learning. It is necessary to go into classrooms and see how it is working. What are the teachers having difficulty with? Are the key features of your approach in place? Can you see them? Which of the key features of the cooperative learning are connected to learning outcomes? What kind of professional development will be necessary for a high quality of implementation? Finally, you will need to do more for teachers than provide initial training in a workshop. You will need to follow up in their classrooms. Teachers will need a team of teachers to provide collegial support. You will need to work with administrators and with the school system to provide support for the fundamental changes you have made in creating an equitable classroom. I hope this conference will be an important stopping place on the journey of you and your new-found colleagues toward the equitable classroom. For some, it may be the beginning of the journey. For others, it will be a stopping place where you decide to embark on a new collective venture, a necessary next step on your journey. I know that many of you share this vision of the equitable classroom, but beyond visions, the greatest challenge lies in all the steps that must be taken to attain such a goal. Cohen, E., & Lotan R. (1997).Working for Equity in Heterogeneous Classrooms: Sociological Theory in Practice. NY: Teachers College Press.