IASCE Forum - Why Do Teachers Begin at the Top?

Editor’s note: Peter Gobel’s article in the last issue of this newsletter, “Dealing with Learning Style Conflicts in the Cooperative Learning Classroom,” generated a lively discussion between Peter, an experienced university teacher and teacher educator in Japan, IASCE Board member Yael Sharan, and T.H. Sim, a primary school teacher in Singapore with less than two years experience. To join the discussion, please write to me at gmjacobs@pacific.net.sg or to any of the three authors: pgobel@cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp, yaelshar@zahav.net.il, zonghao@singnet.com.sg. What topic should we suggest for the next issue of the IASCE Forum?

Yael Sharan - The Johnsons write it, Kagan prescribes it, even Cohen and Sharan & Sharan advise it, so . . . what song would Cole Porter write about the fact that so many teachers, contrary to recommendations, begin with complex CL strategies, such as Jigsaw or Group Investigation, before their students are ready?

This issue arose with the reemergence of CL on the educational scene in the 70s. While trainers and researchers were enthusiastically disseminating their models, they didn't always take care to emphasize that actually they, too, set the stage by giving students time to practice the necessary skills. Soon one handbook after another addressed the need to help teachers structure their lessons so that cooperative academic and social skills are mastered "safely," step by step. The major CL methods were ranked from simple to complex, with parallel listings of how concomitantly the teachers' role changes from a very structured one to one more resembling a guide.

These sources and many others are still available, so why is it that many teachers jump right in with Jigsaw or some other way of organizing cooperative learning that requires skillful communicative and social behaviors? Recently the heightened awareness of cultural differences has added urgency to the problem. Putting aside the written sources that counsel teachers to progress slowly and periodically check their students' mastery of the required skills, life itself should be example enough. Children learn to walk slowly, step by step; athletes are careful to warm up before strenuous action; budding violinists and singers spend hours on "easy pieces". . . .

And don't teachers themselves learn cooperative learning gradually?  No seasoned workshop leader would throw teachers into a multilevel investigation task without first having them experience Roundtable or Numbered Heads and simple CL tasks.

Well then, if the cause does not lie in responsible authors of CL books or in experienced workshop leaders, or even in the visible course of human development, where does it lie?

While writing this, I realized that I set myself the traditional trap for teachers and walked right into it. My dilemma is based on the assumption that because there are written guidelines for gradual, systematic, and structured introduction of CL skills and behaviors, and many people have talked about them with teachers, teachers would therefore learn them. If in the beginning there was the word, then surely the rest would follow easily.

Long ago, the educator John Holt was inspired by watching a toddler build a tower of blocks on his own. Every time it fell, the child tried again, till he succeeded. From Chinese sages to Piaget and beyond, it's an accepted truth that to learn something one has to experience it. Knowledge is what people construct out of elements of information, feeling and experience.

So it must be with teachers. Hearing or reading about the need to build collaborative skills, about the need to structure safe and successful activities, even experiencing these in workshops with peers, does not guarantee that's the way it will be done in the classroom. I suppose teachers must watch the blocks fall several times before they stop to think why they fall and how best they can build a tower that stays up. In addition to hearing and reading about how to create cooperative classrooms, teachers must habitually reflect on their practice. When they stop to ask a few pertinent questions of themselves and of their students to find out what went wrong, as did Peter Gobel (2006), then they can modify their teaching accordingly. Hopefully the lesson will "stick" when they learn it themselves, through their own experiences and reflections.

Peter Gobel - I think that perhaps teachers take too much for granted. The interface between real life and the classroom is a tenuous one at best. Look at all of the other skills that we feel students should inherently have at their disposal because they are available to them in their L1 (first language, i.e., mother tongue). For example, depending on the community, personal and social skills can go out the window the moment students enter a classroom. I see this all the time with exam-oriented students in Japan. Although they frequently collaborate with their family and friends during their free time, academic test-oriented study has become an individual effort (and in fact, collaboration is often frowned upon, as has been mentioned frequently in the literature). Or, look at reading skills and strategies, used every day in the L1, which do not seem to be readily available (or readily accepted as viable strategies) to the students in the L2. Teachers have to carefully lead students to the point where they can employ various skills in the L2, and this can best be done in a step-by-step, and recursive manner.

Ah. . . . I think you (Yael) hit one nail on the head with your use of the word “methods” in the second paragraph. Is it possible that, like many methods that have been advocated over the years, many teachers and teacher trainers blindly follow a procedure, without fully investigating what the underlying principles are? This, I think may be one point. In other words, teachers look at CL and think, “This is great; I can get my students talking right away,” without carefully considering how difficult it can be to get students to cooperate in a second language in a traditional learning environment like the classroom. Having had lots of experience with various ‘methods’ and teachers who taught in these methods, it all starts to sound a little familiar.

You know, reading and writing teachers often emphasize the need for the entire class-–including the teacher--to engage in ten minutes of silent reading or journal writing every class. Having the teacher as a reading or writing role model has a positive effect on student performance. Although I believe this, we might go one step further by saying that having the teacher actively experience activities and reflect on them is one of the most important parts of teaching. It is this active reflection, often found in action research, which can be missing from many teachers’ repertoires. Of course, many teachers are overworked as it is, but time spent analyzing, questioning, and reflecting on classroom practice and the student responses to classroom tasks never goes unrewarded.

Many teachers I meet in Japan have an aversion to research, feeling that it is far removed from their classroom and that Monday morning lesson. Although I understand their attitude to some degree, I don’t feel it is a healthy one. Research is discovery and reflection, and the best place for this to begin is in one’s own backyard, so to speak. Many interesting action research projects have started with classroom problems to be solved, and these have led the investigators to modify their practices and outlooks in such a way that everyone benefited. What’s better than that?

Yael Sharan – On the other hand, teachers can learn to spend a few minutes reflecting on their practice even if they're not engaged in any kind of research, especially if research is threatening in some way. Reflection in action should be a habitual part of the teacher's craft.

T.H. Sim - Learning in Singapore has always been associated with assessment. From the tender age of four till we are in the workforce, almost everything we learn is assessed. As teachers, even during our in-service training, we cannot escape rigorous assessment. The traditional focus on end-product assessment is deep-rooted and, in most schools, is still the main form of assessment. This assessment can have quite an impact on staff appraisal.

Assessment of CL use is no exception. To do well on assessments of a teacher’s use of CL is no easy feat; one has to showcase the ability to handle CL strategies, and, sometimes, teachers have only a few opportunities or only one opportunity to demonstrate their competence. As such, when preparing to be evaluated on CL use, teachers may have a tendency to jump into the difficult strategies. 

The goal of obtaining a positive evaluation may not be the only reason that teachers start at the top. Two insights from psychology should also be taken into consideration. One is the Yerkes-Dodson Law of Arousal (1908). This law states that people find moderately difficult tasks to be more stimulating than easier ones. Then, there is Covington’s (1998) Self-worth Theory, which suggests that people tend to avoid taking up tasks that might imply low ability or incompetence. Thus, educators who jump the gun and use complex CL strategies soon after they begin with CL may well be following their psychological instincts.

A final thought on this issue of why teachers start at the top has to do with the intended learning outcomes when teachers begin to explore the use of CL. Often, training focuses on exposing teachers to a repertoire of techniques and their implementation. Thus, teachers may imagine themselves to have achieved a mastery of CL based on knowledge of techniques. My feeling is that this is a mistake, because knowledge of CL principles and general principles of education is more important than knowledge of techniques. In the same vein, when we start CL in our classrooms, we should examine our underlying intentions for doing so. In this way, we can maximize the benefits of CL as well as impart to students the principles of collaboration.

In conclusion, I would like to share that I was able to start CL with the simpler techniques because of my CL trainer, as well as my school’s approach in evaluating in-service learning. Progression was a key focus in their assessment. This provided me space to explore strategies which allowed students to succeed at cooperation and appreciate the benefits of CL. In addition to CL being taught based on principles, rather than a set of protocols, there was also time for my colleagues and I, as a community of teachers learning CL, to do joint reflection on CL and to fine-tune strategies to suit the students and the targeted learning outcomes.

This reflection helped me in two main ways. First, I learnt that CL is not about acquiring techniques with big names; it is about discovering how we can organize learning to take advantage of cooperation. Second, CL is not something that can be done alone, it is a journey of a party of people sharing and reflecting on its use, implementation and improvisations. Thus, the implementation of CL should not be a journey of one. To teach cooperation, one must start with cooperation.

Covington, M. V. (1998). The Will to Learn: A Guide for Motivating Young People. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gobel, P. (2006). Dealing with learning style conflicts in the cooperative learning classroom. IASCE Newsletter, 25(2), 2-6.

Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459-482. Available at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Yerkes/Law, retrieved October 8, 2006.