Letter from the Co-president

March 2006

Dear Colleagues:

IASCE is pleased to bring you the first Newsletter for 2006. 

As I read the articles and abstracts for this issue, I found myself genuinely touched by Philip Flaming’s college graduation speech, in the article “Friendship and Learning.” It seems that when Philip was a new college student, he, like many students, did not envision a strong link between school learning and social learning. Unfortunately, that probably says a great deal about Philip’s previous educational experiences. Fortunately for Philip, his college experience was different and, fortunately for us, this issue of the Newsletter brings together a wealth of new resources and research about the value and use of cooperation in higher education. For instance, Clements and Johnson share their work in faculty development. For those who have concerns about how cooperation and individual responsibility and achievement “fit together,” Jensen, Johnson and Johnson (see the section From the Journals) remind us that positive interdependence—developed through carefully structured peer interaction—has positive effects on individual achievement. Multiple abstracts in the From the Journals section describe work that examines the cooperative possibilities and intricacies of on-line learning; they investigate factors that influence the choices students make in, and the outcomes achieved through, on-line engagements.

It is exciting to read this new work and to reflect on previous work about cooperative learning in higher education. In 1993, IASCE published an entire themed issue of the magazine Cooperative Learning (which was the predecessor of the current IASCE newsletter) about applications of cooperative learning in higher education. During the 1990’s, Jim Cooper, Karl Smith, Philip Cottell, Barbara Millis, and many others wrote extensively about cooperative learning and higher education. Richard Light disseminated early work from Harvard University that examined the efficacy of using cooperative goal structures and strategies in a wide variety of undergraduate teaching situations. His 2001 book, Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds is an invaluable follow up to Alexander Astin’s provocative work (cited in the Friendship and Learning article).

The body of work that examines the use of cooperation in higher education is so rich. It reminds us that the use of cooperation for learning has a proud, strong, and long history. Yael Sharan’s reflection on the Forum series of articles in past issues of this Newsletter reinforces and expands this view. For the past four years, Yael has collaborated with educators on several continents to bring us reports about the contexts for, and implementation of, cooperative learning. Teachers, staff developers, and administrators at all levels of education, in all corners of the world, have large and strong shoulders on which to stand as they continue to develop, adopt, adapt, implement, and disseminate the use of cooperation for learning.

The IASCE is proud to be part of the history and strength of cooperative learning and we thank you for your continued support and contributions. Please share your newsletters with colleagues. Perhaps you could utilize them to stimulate conversations about teaching and learning in your own professional learning community. Remember that the IASCE website contains past newsletters (just in case you missed an installment from the Forum series) and is updated regularly with information about conferences and with links to resources and contacts around the world. Please contact George Jacobs about abstracts and possible articles for the Newsletter, and Lynda Baloche with conference announcements and additional links for the website.

Cooperatively yours,

Lynda

Lynda Baloche
Co-president IASCE