Presented are guidelines for designing and incorporating cooperative group learning strategies into teacher preparation courses. Guidelines include determining appropriate content, selecting a cooperative format, forming cooperative groups, teaching cooperative skills, providing feedback, and evaluating learning. The student satisfaction results…

Focuses on the use of the Child Development Project (California) with young children as a means of promoting prosocial behavior. Discusses the selection of cooperative tasks relative to developmental considerations and the role of the teacher in selecting activities. Points out some activities which have been successfully used with early…

A description is given of a cooperative learning, group writing, and word processing project for seventh and eighth graders which used peer pressure to motivate students to improve their writing. Students published their stories in a newsletter. Information is provided on word processing programs suitable for classroom use. (IAH)

A new science program for elementary schools (developed by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study) emphasizes concrete experiences, providing students with opportunities to observe phenomena, record their observations, and discuss them with other students. Cooperative learning is a primary program component because it enhances children's ability…

Nine lessons are presented to help teachers incorporate a critical thinking program into their curriculum. The activities related address three skill areas: communication, creativity and problem solving. (IAH)

Cooperative learning situations are described in which children work in small groups toward a mutual goal. When such groups should be used are included, with classroom examples. (MNS)

Seven articles on classroom icebreakers are compiled: "Picture Stories and Other Opportunities" (Joy Egbert, Deborah Hanley, Rosemary Delaney); "Hey, What's Your Name" (Janet Leamy); "Surprise!" (Lynne Burgess); "Memory Game" (Sally Winn); "Picturesque" (Margaret Beiter); "The Name Game" (Jeanne-Marie Garcia); "Exercise the Body--And the Mind…

Thirty fifth-grade students participated in a study designed to describe the social interactions of ability-grouped dyads as they construct knowledge of balance concepts to elucidate the relationship between interactions and conceptual growth. Results revealed that high achieving students effectively used prior experiences and maintained focus on…

Describes cooperative learning activities that can be used in high school classrooms to focus prereading activities, to increase processing while reading, and to add punch to closing activities. (SR)

Explores how computer-mediated systems may support the professional development of adults by providing environments which allow individual needs and purposes to be met and experience and understanding to be shared. Highlights include descriptions of JITOL (Just in Time Open Learning), a project which combines computer-mediated communications with…

Examined the nature of sociocognitive growth in 66 kindergarten and first-grade children by having pairs of children work together to solve spatial perspective-taking problems. Found that the entering performance composition of the dyads did not affect cognitive growth, whereas the construction of shared cognitive experiences in which children…

Reports on a small-scale study of 13 dyads working at number tasks that found "sidework," a modified form of associative interaction, gave rise to more high order talk and to more posttest learning than did collaboration. Suggests sidework may have greater potential to enhance students' learning than the collaborative mode. (TJQ)

A teacher introduced folklore to multiage groups of students aged 5-12 by encouraging them to work together on projects that included locating family origins on a map, collecting family recipes for a cookbook, compiling a photo album, and writing a play based on war stories gathered from relatives. (LP)

Four basic steps for using cooperative learning to teach social skills to young children are discussed, including targeting specific social skills; defining the skills behaviorally; designing and implement the cooperative activities; and processing and evaluate. (DB)

The industrial age, by mechanizing production and reorganizing the workplace into large factory units, destroyed a pattern of life that saw living, working, and learning as a single interconnected entity. Conventional schooling, stressing abstract knowledge, has separated learning from the community and world of work. The new, higher order…