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1. Slavin, R. E., & Madden, N. A. (2001). One million children: Success for all. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Those who are familiar with cooperative learning will also, no doubt, be familiar with the work of Robert Slavin, Nancy Madden, and their colleagues who have done a great deal of research and implementation work involving CL. The Success for All program, chronicled in this book, represents a current phase of their work. CL is just one component of this whole-school reform effort. From its beginnings in one Baltimore school in 1987, by 2000 Success for All was being used in about 1800 schools in six countries serving one million children (thus, the book’s title). Chapter 1 of the book provides a brief history of Success for All and a brief description of its components. These are detailed in subsequent chapters on: Ch. 2 – Reading, writing, and language arts programs Ch. 3 – Tutoring Ch. 4 – Pre-kindergarten and Kindergarten Programs Ch. 5 – Roots and Wings: Adding Social Studies, Science and Mathematics to Success for All Ch. 6 – Family and Student Support Ch. 7 – Facilitators and the Change Process Ch. 8 – Research on Success for All and Roots and Wings Ch. 9 – Success for All, Roots and Wings and School Reform For more information on Success for All, their URL is: http://successforall.com.
2. Jacobs, G. M. [gmjacobs@pacific.net.sg], Power, M. A. [Mike_Power@misd.wednet.edu], Loh, W. I. [wiloh@singnet.com.sg] (2002). The teacher's sourcebook for cooperative learning: Practical techniques, basic principles, and frequently asked questions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. This book attempts to serve as a fairly concise introduction to cooperative learning. The main part of the book consists of nine chapters. The first eight of these chapters each center around a particular CL principle. These eight principles are cooperation as a value, heterogeneous grouping, positive interdependence, individual accountability, simultaneous interaction, equal participation, collaborative skills, and group autonomy. A final, ninth, chapter discusses assessment in CL. The second, and smaller, part of The teacher’s sourcebook for cooperative learning deals with a wide variety of frequently asked questions about CL. These questions are organized into eight sections: preparing our classes for CL, managing CL classes, creating CL tasks, enhancing thinking when using CL, using CL in special situations, helping groups that aren’t functioning well, collaborating with other teachers, and working with administrators and parents. 3. Steineke, N. [nsteineke@hotmail.com] (2002). Reading and writing together: Collaborative literacy in action. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Below is information on this book abridged from the publisher’s website. Meaningful literacy experiences and exchanges in the classroom depend on a core set of values. That set of values depends on an environment of trust. Literature circles work only if students will talk. And students will talk only if they're willing to take a risk. Which brings us full circle: success in literacy takes participation born of trust, a positive group dynamic built on sharing tasks, maintaining good working relationships, and examining group functioning. Nancy Steineke has taught 9-12 English at Victor J. Andrew High School in Tinley Park, Illinois, since 1984. She believes that a truly collaborative environment is at the heart of all she accomplishes with literacy. Her book tells why and how. Nancy moves students through a series of lessons that refine their skills while deepening their interests in reading, writing, and listening to the opinions of others—essential academic skills at the core of any collaborative literacy task. She offers a multitude of practical strategies that include: · practices that encourage students to take responsibility for their work and behavior · teaching collaborative skills, then reinforcing their use · careful listening, questioning, and meaningful conversation about text · Literature Circle management and troubleshooting · timesaving and effective assessments for SSR, writing, Literature Circles, projects, and performances · high-interest writing projects and peer revision · developing portfolios that celebrate accomplishment. Table of Contents
1.
Magic Versus Methodology: Or,
Good Teachers Are Made, Not Born! A reviewer on amazon.com (Jeffrey A See) wrote: I stumbled across Nancy's book very close to the beginning of the new school year and boy has it caused me nothing but sleepless nights! Sleepless because I have spent late nights creating new handouts, student guides, and materials. In addition, student work of high quality takes much longer to score. To read Chapter 8 of the book, which discusses Literature Circles, please go to this address: http://heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/E00443/chapter8.pdf Learning opportunity Nancy Steineke will be a featured speaker at the Walloon Institute July 13-17, 2003 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, USA. Among the other speakers are Nancie Atwell and Harvey Daniels. For more information, please see http://www.walloon.com. 4. Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J. & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. This book explains and describes instructional strategies that, based on a review of the research, the authors believe to be effective. This research enables teachers to better serve their students. The authors take an optimistic view of what schools and individual teachers can do to help their students. Below is the book’s Table of Contents. Please note the chapter on CL. Indeed, on p. 91, the authors state, "Of all classroom grouping strategies, cooperative learning may be the most flexible and powerful.” They also state that although CL is one of the most popular and effective classroom strategies, it is not always used effectively and that, while CL should be used frequently, perhaps it can be used too much. Chapter 1. Applying the Research on Instruction: An Idea Whose Time Has Come Chapter 2. Identifying Similarities and Differences Chapter 3. Summarizing and Note Taking Chapter 4. Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition Chapter 5. Homework and Practice Chapter 6. Nonlinguistic Representations Chapter 7. Cooperative Learning Chapter 8. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback Chapter 9. Generating and Testing Hypotheses Chapter 10. Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers Chapter 11. Teaching Specific Types of Knowledge Chapter 12. Using the Nine Categories in Instructional Planning Chapter 13. Afterword There is also a companion book that has a chapter on the instructional use of groups: Marzano, R. J., Norford, J. S., Paynter, D. E., Pickering, D. J., & Gaddy, B. B. (2001). A handbook for classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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