The ant is a collectively intelligent and an individually stupid animal;

man is the opposite
                                                                                                          Karl Von Frisch

  Key Questions:

• How can I form cooperative groups?
• How can I help students work cooperatively?
• What are strategies to transition students into cooperative teams?
• How do I give students opportunities to express their thoughts?
• How do I help students to participate in a group?
• What about students whose main strengths are not in academic skills?
• How are differences in student ability levels addressed?

Process of Skill Development
The teambuilding process is not always a smooth journey. In one team, with all good intentions, Susie, the high achiever is telling everyone what to do. Resentments are building. In another team, Sam is not participating. The teammates are frustrated trying to include him. In yet another team, a high achiever is telling a low achiever all the right answers. She wants to help, but does not know how. She never learned "Telling an answer hurts a teammate; showing how to get an answer helps a teammate." Students are getting too noisy; they tease each other with put-downs; they get off task; they do not listen well to the ideas of others. Further, they don't know how to deal with difficult teammates such as students who dominate, are shy, hostile, feel rejected, or who would simply rather walk alone.

How to Motivate Students to Work in Collaborative Teams

Modeling and Reinforcing Social Skills 

Building a Positive Community Through Reflection

Examples of reflection questions to ask are:

• How did that go for you?
• How did it feel to participate in that activity?
• What’s hard about this? Why?
• What’s easy about this? Why?
• On a scale of zero to five, five being the best, how did we do as a group?
• What could we try differently?
• How could we challenge ourselves?

When an activity doesn’t go well, try asking reflection questions such as:

• What made that difficult to accomplish?
• What could we do or try next time?
• What are some areas for growth?

Addressing Social Skill Problems: All of the social skill problems indicate only that there is some part of the social skills curriculum that has yet to be learned or relearned. After identifying which social skills to focus on, earmark one at a time as the social skill of the week, the month... Introducing Skill-of-the Week...

• Teacher Talk: Simply say to the students that you are not comfortable with the noise level, or a rationale for paraphrasing, i.e., Paraphrasing is one of the main ways we have of letting others know that we are listening, and that we know and understand their thoughts and ideas. Paraphrasing communicates a basic respect for the other person.
  

• Ask "What if?" Ask the students to think about what would happen if the skill were never used. For example, " I have been noticing that you have been working hard in your groups, but we seldom stop to appreciate each others efforts. What would happen if we never got appreciation for our efforts?" If the skill is Inner Voice, the "What if question would be: One team in the class is talking , so the team next to them talks louder to hear themselves. This makes the first team talk even louder. What would happen if we never did anything to break this cycle?
  

• Simulations: For example, if the focus skill is staying on task, give the teams a difficult puzzle to solve. Then give each team member a secret role. The students are instructed to keep their role assignments secret. One student is assigned the role of Off-Task Captain.
  
• Resources and Games small cost but I think worth their value.

Communication Skills Structures: 

Success in life is more a function of a communication set of skills than any other. Progress which has set mankind apart from other species has been built on the ability of one generation to communicate its learnings to the next. Whether workers will build upon or wastefully duplicate efforts of fellow company employees is a function of communication skills. The extent to which a marriage will flourish or falter is a function of communication skills. Communication skills are learned. Given these realities, improving communication skills should be one of education's highest priorities. 

1. Talking Chips (similar to Spend-a-Buck): Each person on a team is given a marker (a pencil will even do) If a team member wants to talk, he/she places a chip in the center of a table. You cannot talk again until everyone has placed their chip on the table. When all the chips have been used, they are retrieved, and anyone can talk again.
2. Colored Chips: Each person is given a different color chip. When a person speaks s/he puts in a chip. After the discussion is over the group or teacher leads a discussion on the participation as they examine the number of colored chips,
3. Timed Turns: No one can talk for more than a minute and there is a timekeeper on each team.
4. Freebies: You can briefly respond to yes/no questions without giving up a chip
5. Paraphrase Passport: The ticket to talking is correctly paraphrasing the person who has just spoken. After someone has contributed an idea, another person must correctly restate that idea before contributing his/her own idea. This structure encourages group members to participate. It also lets individuals know how their ideas are heard by others.

Decision Makers

1. Voting has inherent drawbacks for decisions. It leads to winners and losers. The result is to undermine spirit of team unity. Losers are less committed to any team decision.
2. Consensus Seeking: When their is sufficient time and no need for immediate decision, consensus seeking is the decision making structure of choice. Students are to find the best solution to which they can all agree. They are told that they are not trying toget their own way, but rather to find a solution which they all can live with. Critical in the process is the rule "We do not have a decision until we all agree."
3. Spend-a-Buck for decision making: When students must reach a decision quickly. Each student is given four chips to spend on the choice alternatives. Each student must spend his/her chips on more than one item. This framework is unlike voting because it does not produce clear winners and losers.

Communication Builders

1. Value Lines: Students place their mark on an agree-disagree line. After taking a stance, they must listen to why each person took his/her stance. You may include a Paraphrase Passport. Value lines allow students to clarify their own values and to understand and accept differences. They also encourage clarification of one's own values

• Step 1: Statement of Value Issue. Example are: Capitol punishment should be abolished; Students should receive monetary rewards for good grades; Parents should decide what is appropriate TV shows to watch. (teacher class sample Issue of Merit Pay)
• Step 2: Taking a Stand. At the count of three each student simulataneously puts his or hers mark (initials) on a value line
• Step 3: Uncovering Differences. Students use strategies like Passport Paraphrase, chips, or bucks to discuss the basis for value differences
• Optional Step 4: Taking a New Stand. Students may repeat step 1 to discover if there has been any movement as a result of their discussion.

Social-Emotional Learning: Relationship Skills

More people are employed today in the information segment of our economy than any other. That is, they spend their time, generating, analyzing, and communicating information. And it is the fastest growing segment of our economy. As students in cooperative learning experience the range of ways to share information, they are preparing for the world of the future. 12:1

Information Sharing Structures: There are two main types of information sharing structures: Structures for sharing information within teams and structures for sharing information among teams. Sharing among teammates is central to teambuilding. Sharing information among teams is central to classbuilding 

The traditional approach to sharing information has been to call on one student at a time to speak. To have each student share information for two minutes. This approach can be tedious. Simultaneous sharing structures can accomplish this more effectively.
Structures.doc

• Spending chips to speak handout: To promote equal participation, each student is given the same amount of chips ( buttons, cardboard etc...) Every time a student contributes a comment to the group, s/he places a token in the center. When an individual's chips are gone, w/he can no longer contribute. When everyone's tokens are gone, the group redistributes the chips and starts again.

Assigning Students to Groups Suggestions:

• Stratified group: workable combination of varying abilities
• Numbering: students number off
• Math method: Give each student a math problem and ask students with the same answers to form a group
• Promoting Interdependence through distribution of materials and information
• Give only one copy of the materials to the group
• Groups members given different resources or materials to be synthesized to complete a task, http://www.jigsaw.org/overview.htm
  

The Jigsaw template has students write keywords or phrases into jigsaw pieces. Students then arrange the pieces to show the connections between the keywords in the those pieces. Students can color code each piece in their puzzles.

What are The Pros and Cons of Assigning Roles?
Cooperative Learning Duties 

• Having each member explain how to get the answer
• Asking each member to relate what is being learned to previous learnings
• Encouraging everyone to participate
• Listening accurately to what others are saying
• Consensus - everyone agrees with the answers
• Not changing your mind unless you are logically persuaded
• Criticizing ideas, not people

Sharing Among Teams

• Blackboard Share: Have one representative from each team go to the board or chart paper and brainstorm ideas. facts or answers. It allows teams to continue working while the ideas are posted.
• Roam the Room: Teams have completed projects. At a signal, students move around the room or circle in a proscribed direction, When the signal is given to return, they do a Roundtable to share what they have learned. Alternatively, this could be done to observe board displays. TEacher may provide a worksheet to help teams organize their thoughts.
• Empathy Through Game Play
• Three Stray, One Stay (Carousel): When  team projects are ready to share, three members rotate to a table of the next team while student one stays back to explain the project to the visiting team. Options: return to home team and discuss differences in projects and use information to improve their own. Or do the process vice versa
• Rotating Review: Following a unit, chart paper is posted. At the top of each sheet is a topic covered in the unit. Teams have their own colored marker. The team stand at a chart for one minute and write down all the information they can on a topic. Rotate groups. One minute to read what has been written and one more minute to add information to the chart. If a team disagrees with what a previous team has written, it places a question mark by the questionable information for later discussion.
• Spending chips to speak handout: To promote equal participation, each student is given the same amount of chips ( buttons, cardboard etc...) Every time a student contributes a comment to the group, s/he places a token in the center. When an individual's chips are gone, w/he can no longer contribute. When everyone's tokens are gone, the group redistributes the chips and starts again.
• Mindmapping: Place chart paper and markers at each station. A different topic or issue is written in a circle in the center of each chart. Without talking team members create a concept map/web feeding off each others written comments. Then the teams rotate and add their comments to another team's chart. After the rotations are completed, hold a debriefing session.
• Overview of group Sharing Strategies Website