1. Schmuck, R. A. (2006). Practical Action Research for Change (2^nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

The author of the second edition of Practical Action Research has had an important role in the development of the field of cooperative learning. Richard Schmuck was the first president of the IASCE when it was founded in 1979 in Israel. His seminal work, with his wife, Patricia A. Schmuck, Group Processes in the Classroom, is now in its 8^th edition (2001) and has been translated into five languages. In Practical Action Research, Dick Schmuck brings together his experiences in teaching and supervising hundreds of doctoral dissertations in action research, group dynamics and organization development. This second edition is a useful book for classroom teachers and cooperative action research teams at all levels because it invites practitioners to conduct their own action research  in the classroom or with colleagues in a school. Through the detailed case studies integrated throughout the book, the reader meets teachers, many of whom are applying new learning about cooperative learning from their graduate coursework. They are experiencing a shift from believing their students to be passive subjects in a classroom to becoming collaborators with the teacher in achieving their learning. The teachers are learning how to get inside the students’ experience and recruit students to become partners in their own learning. 

Schmuck creates models, steps and exercises so that practitioners can fully integrate the processes of reflective practice in the service of continuous professional improvement. Schmuck recognizes the frustrations of getting started, and he focuses the first two chapters on the importance of practitioners getting in touch with the concerns, hopes and prior experiences which led to their desire to use new practices. Schmuck then builds on the three phases of action research (initiation, detection, judgment -- and the role of research during each phase) by drawing heavily on cases to point out the subtle difference between proactive action research and responsive action research. He also offers several fine examples of research done from the traditional research paradigm and research done from the action research paradigm. While both paradigms are valuable, “In action research, you study your own situation to improve the quality of processes and results within it. By using research methods with your students on your practices, you are doing what will improve your practice continuously (p. 19).” Again, “traditional research is often carried out by disinterested (objective) scientists...often without immediate payoffs for research subjects,” while “in action research, you remove the traditional gap between scientists and research subject because you are both a ‘scientist’ and a ‘subject’ of research (p. 21).” Schmuck has no intention of pitting the two traditions against one another. Instead, his goal is to assist educators at all levels to learn processes that will encourage them to become astute observers of their students and their organizations, and have the tools to make changes as needed and desired. This is the same goal that those who have trained others in the use of cooperative learning have emphasized: teachers need to be skilled in observing students, gathering information and assessment data on student performance to improve their teaching and ultimately, student learning. 

Schmuck devotes one chapter to “Group Dynamics of Cooperative Action Research,” againintegrating reflective practices such as critical friendship and probing conversations, and highlighting tips for successful group work. Chapter 8 describes the different types of cooperative action research in schools, districts, and communities. Such research offers the opportunity for colleagues to assume leadership on a larger scale. I appreciated Chapter 9 which discusses the democratic philosophy underlining educational action research. Schmuck selects 15 prominent authors in the history of action research and explains how the history of action research in education has developed into the teacher-research “movement” (p. xiv).

This book is particularly important to those who work with teachers to implement cooperative learning and believe that the best way to support long term change in schools is to empower teachers and administrators to research their own questions about teaching. Trainers in the field of cooperative learning know how important contextual knowledge is for teachers who want to implement this complex and often challenging pedagogy for students’ academic and social development. Action research is a process to empower teachers. Schmuck’s new edition combines methods that are consistent with cooperative learning, the study of cooperative learning, and the values and ends of democratic organizations. This is a resource that will invite reflection, inquiry and continuous improvement in classrooms and schools.

Schmuck, R. A., & Schmuck, P. A. (2001). Group Processes in the Classroom (8^th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.

2. Higher Education Faculty and Cooperative Learning: A Review of Books for College Faculty.

 Barkley, E. G., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. J. (1998). Collaborative Learning Techniques. A Handbook for College Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1998). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Millis, B. J., & Cottell, P. G., Jr. (1998). Cooperative Learning for Higher Education. Westport, CT: American Council on Education, Oryx Press.

 Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-Centered Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

 Recently I retired as the instructional dean of a U.S. community college where faculty took pride in learning and growing as teachers. Previously, in my professional career, I had the privilege of working with elementary, middle and secondary teachers who were preparing for a career in teaching and with in-service teachers who were extending their learning through advanced degrees. I specialized in pedagogy that supports student-centered learning environments and particularly cooperative learning. But I learned in my role as a dean that facilitating college and university teachers’ classroom teaching was a particularly delicate art. Just as Millis and Cottrell assert in their book, Cooperative Learning for Higher Education Faculty, I found it true that college faculty take ideas about new approaches to teaching best from their department or program colleagues. I also found the faculty at my community college quite pragmatic; they wanted to see quickly that a strategy spoke to their question or concern. If what I proposed worked, they would eagerly come back for more. I was also privileged to observe many of the faculty through our peer team processes and the standard formative evaluations. Through these, I learned better how to address their concerns and speak language that would invite their innovation.

If something smacked of the K-12 way of doing things, or came primarily from the lexicon of K-12, college faculty had a difficult time buying into it. Even though the working conditions of most community college faculty are more like a high school, the significance of the subject discipline meant workshops on small group learning needed to be organized from the point of view of their concerns and their teaching contexts with as many examples from different disciplines as were faculty attending the workshops (I usually began a workshop with KWLs—“What do you know; What are you wondering about; and concluded with: What have you learned”). As I developed my workshops and seminars, I kept my eyes on resources that: 1) provided me with good theory and examples of what were effective ways to introduce cooperative and collaborative learning, and 2) were helpful resources on topics that faculty were interested in pursuing.

 With an upcoming opportunity to work intensively with university faculty in Thailand, I have been reviewing old standbys and a few newer texts to refresh my thinking. I will point out some of the strengths, weaknesses and uses of the four selected books from my experiences as a faculty developer and share how I have used them or would use them to facilitate college teachers learning to successfully implement cooperative and collaborative approaches to teaching.

 Johnson, Johnson & Smith’s workbook, Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom, was first published in 1991, but I didn’t discover it until well after I had started working with college faculty. By then, I had concluded that one of the easiest ways to begin with college teachers’ interests and concerns was to build a template or an approach that encouraged them to increase student participation during lectures. Most faculty work from the lecture model, and by integrating the use of informal pairs or groups strategically throughout the typical 50 or 90 minute class period, faculty could begin to experience ways to increase student participation, observe students’ thinking through verbal exchanges, learn how to cultivate conceptual learning more strategically and regularly, and practice the art of adjusting their instruction (e.g., need to re-teach, model or explain or question further) based on the feedback of pairs. Faculty also need to learn how to build in clear advance organizers, motivators and opportunities for students to summarize and master content. What a pleasure to find that the Johnsons and KarlSmith had already given structure to this model! I have found this one of the best ways to introduce cooperative learning to college faculty: using informal pairs or small groups at the beginning, middle and conclusion of a lecture. This model has enough elasticity and power to promote considerable basic learning for teachers new to small group work.

 The second critical form of groupwork that the Johnsons and Smith articulate is the use of base groups. The idea of creating base groups that provide the function of managing groups, offer emotional and social support, and assist with academic content throughout a term or a year is another useful way for faculty to begin cooperative learning. I found that learning about base groups improves faculty understanding of the importance of classroom climate, positive peer relationships and how to cultivate student responsibility and student development in learning, particularly in cohort programs such as nursing, emergency medical services, and forestry. I was particularly inspired observing Lynda Baloche, co-            president of IASCE, while she gave a workshop to tertiary faculty in Singapore. She, too, chose base groups as the way to introduce these university teachers and graduate students to cooperative learning. While faculty can continue teaching their content the way they have been doing, devoting 10-15 minutes per class period or week to base groups provides greater accountability and efficiency for both teachers and students. And, they provide wonderful laboratories for faculty to learn the basics of groupwork: assigning roles, creating specific time bound tasks, and teaching students individual accountability and positive interdependence. I have found that some use of extrinsic rewards, at least at the beginning of a term, can assist students in realizing that the effort they put into working as a base group or team can make a difference in their learning, both social and academic.

 Although Active Learning follows the Johnsons’ tradition of introducing the whys of cooperative learning, the five basic elements of a cooperative lesson, and some templates and outlines of social processes to coach for, the book’s tone and examples are sometimes  problematic for college faculty. For example, while most books on cooperative learning build the case for the importance of using cooperative or collaborative learning with the particular kind of student, Active Learning seems to send mixed messages by including parables from Hans Christian Anderson, stories about children in the third grade, and judgments such as, “Not wanting to appear unfit or stupid, faculty members conform to the current consensus about instruction and are afraid to challenge the collective judgment of how best to teach” ( p. 1:8). This book might benefit from additional streamlined templates, outlines, and examples from higher education. Teachers who try to learn with the help of this book may find they need the help of a more knowledgeable colleague or faculty developer.

 Barbara Millis and Philip Cottell have many years experience providing professional development and consultation to college and university faculties. Their book, Cooperative Learning for Higher Education Faculty, was part of the American Council on Education’s series on higher education. Interestingly, Millis & Cottell begin by briefly contrasting the two different but related traditions--cooperative and collaborative learning--but come down in favor of the benefits of following the lessons learned from cooperative learning. They frequently quote Jim Cooper of the California Community College system, one of the early adopters and promoters of cooperative learning in higher education, who stressed that college teachers need to be mindful of the importance of “Structure, structure, structure!” in planning and executing cooperative learning. Millis and Cottell organize their book around the topics: Classroom Management, Structuring the Cooperative Classroom, Assessing the Cooperative Classroom and Supporting Cooperative Efforts. They draw on what has come to be called, “Beginning Structures,” such as Think-Pair-Share, Talking Chips, Roundtable, and Three-Step Interview, but proceed to develop structures for problem solving in teams as well as Reciprocal Teaching. They make no apologies for drawing heavily from the K-12 experience and research, but their tone and examples are intended for college faculty. Due to its density, Millis and Cottell’s book may be best used as a resource for a facilitator who can selectively provide sections for faculty.

 Their chapters on assessing cooperative learning are among the best. They build on the work in T.A. Angelo and K.P. Cross’s 1993 edition of Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (Cross is one of the coauthors of Collaborative Learning Techniques discussed below). Although I am not reviewing this handbook, it is also a powerful resource for assisting teachers to consider how important it is to know what students know as quickly and frequently as possible. Being a good observer and gatherer of formative information is one of the hallmarks of a teacher who is effective in using cooperative learning. Many of the strategies in this book--referred to as CAT--such as one-minute papers, feedback forms and dialogue journals, work very well in cooperative pairs and assess pair and small groupwork.

 The next book among the four reviewed here, Collaborative Learning Techniques, by Elizabeth F. Barkley, K. Patricia Cross and Claire H. Major, is inviting, clear and useful. Published in 2002, this book makes the case for the collaborative learning tradition as popularized in higher education by James Bruffee (1993). The authors draw from the cooperative learning literature, notably the Johnsons’ tradition, to support the characteristics of effective learning groups. They emphasize, however, the collaborative learning approach because it “assumes that knowledge is socially produced by consensus among knowledgeable peers” (p. 6), a goal more in keeping with college and university levels.

 The focus on collaborative learning, the structuring of the task and the teacher’s role as a facilitator, appeals to faculty in higher education because it encourages them to maintain focus on content while considering their present and future relationships with college and university students as colleagues. My own experience, however, is that many college teachers aren’t ready to assume this constructivist relationship to knowledge and knowing and that they must learn to trust methods that cultivate student independence and interdependence and to see learners as people who are growing in their ability to take responsibility for their learning and that of others. Nevertheless, this book is oriented,like Millis and Cottell’s, toward collaborative learning techniques, which they coin as CoLTS: techniques for discussion, reciprocal teaching, and problem solving, using graphic     information organizers and focusing on writing. In looking down the list of techniques for conducting effective class discussions, the strategies will look familiar to many CL practitioners as they are called by the familiar names ascribed to simple “structures” in cooperative learning: Think-Pair-Share, Round Robin, Buzz Groups, Talking Chips and Three-Step Interview.

 Another book, Ellen Weimer’s 2002 Learner-Centered Teaching, published by Jossey-Bass, caught my eye during a literature review. Because the buzz word in college-level innovation these days is working toward achieving “student-centered learning” environments, I was intrigued by Weimer’s conscious differentiation of the concept “learner-centered” teaching from “student-centered learning.” At my own college, faculty have noticed a trend not so unique to them: more students are coming to college, or returning to college, as consumers. They “demand” certain kinds of teaching, and more students feel they are entitled to certain grades and privileges. Within a culture and environment that has prided itself on an exceptional degree of respect for students and sensitivity to their needs, interests and circumstances, this shift in student attitude has been disconcerting. Of course, the positive side is that students are, indeed, becoming less than passive recipients of whatever kind of teaching that is thrown at them. The negative aspect of this is that more and more teacher time has been spent with demanding students who have poor social skills and a facility to disrupt any learning environment for their own needs or ends. Many teachers feel caught between the values of mutual respect and regard and the need to exercise traditional power, authority and more sanctions and rules. Weimer takes on these issues within the larger paradigm of learning: “What the student is learning, how the student is learning, the conditions under which the student is learning, whether the    student is retaining and applying the learning, and how the current learning positions the student for future learning” (p. xvi). Learner-centered learning emphasizes the “ultimate responsibility students have for learning,” and the book features, in a no-nonsense, conversational and practical way, the issues of power, disciplinary content, the role of the teacher, the responsibility for learning, and the purposes and processes of evaluation. Weimer speaks directly to the developmental needs of college students and draws heavily on her own experience as a college psychology teacher and recently an associate professor of teaching and learning at Berks-Leigh Valley College of the Pennsylvania State University.

 I recommend the Weimer book because it provides a larger rationale and context for cooperative and collaborative learning, as well as many practical stories and examples of such practice at work. It keeps in mind the greater purposes of college and university education which are to prepare students to be problem solvers, independent learners, team members and critical thinkers who can achieve more potential than they now typically do within many college settings.

Taken together, these four books are useful for those in higher education who are working in teaching development centers or programs. College and university faculty should also review a related article on this topic by Caroline Clements and Daniel Johnson of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, “Encouraging Collaborative Learning in the Classroom: What Universities Can Do.” In the March 2006 IASCE newsletter, Clements and Johnson outline a practical process for implementing collaborative learning training in higher education. In keeping with the authors of the books discussed above, they highlight the importance of teachers starting small, learning and implementing together in small cohorts with the ability to receive one-on-one consultation, and the value of nesting trainings and workshops on data that speak to different academic traditions and fields.  These practical and time honored ways of supporting faculty, particularly those who are attempting to transform their classrooms and learning environments as active and engaging places, are gaining more attention and momentum in higher education.

Bruffee, K. A. (1993). Collaborative Learning. Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.

3. Deller, S., & Rinvolucri, M. (2002). Using the Mother Tongue: Making the Most of Learner’s Language. Addlestone, Surrey: Delta Publishing.

 Among second language (L2) educators, such as those who teach English in Paraguay or Chinese in Poland, one of the key concerns about group activities is that when away from the teacher’s immediate supervision, students will speak to their group mates in their first language (mother tongue), instead of their second language, the language they are studying. Different teachers take different approaches to students’ use of their first language (L1).These approaches range from attempting to ban the students’ mother tongue to the approach advocated by the book discussed here, subtitled “Making the most of the learner’s language.”

 The book’s two authors, veteran ESL teachers and teacher educators, offer almost a hundred different activities for utilizing the students’ L1 in L2 learning, not as the main ways that students learn, but as a supplement to L2 exposure and use. The book’s activities are subdivided in various ways:

1.      Whether the class is mono-lingual (they all speak the same L1) or multi-lingual

2.      How well the teacher speaks the students’ L1(s)

3.      The students’ proficiency in the L2

4.      Whether the activity deals with

a.       setting parameters for L1 use

b.      enhancing cooperation in groups

c.       encouraging student feedback

d.      contrasting the grammar of the L1 and L2

e.       teaching vocabulary

f.       increasing the comprehensibility of L1 input (what students hear and read)

g.       facilitating student output (speaking and writing)

h.       utilizing translation

Activities dealing with enhancing cooperation in groups may be of particular interest to readers of this newsletter. The seven activities described include getting-to-know-you activities, one for discussing learning preferences and another on ground rules for interaction.

There are many issues to consider when deciding how to balance L1 and L2 use and how teachers can attempt to achieve what they believe to be the optimal balance. On one hand, the goal of L2 instruction has always been to add a new language to students’ repertoires, not to subtract the old one. On the other hand, in many contexts, students’ very limited L2 use outside the classroom, and even inside the classroom, means that progress toward proficiency can be slow or nil. Furthermore, switching to the L1 by students and teachers can too often be the easy way out, when, with a bit of patience, effort and skill, the L2 might be possible. This book is welcome as it adds ideas for teachers and students to consider.