Colloque

Cooperative learning and the facilitation of moral growth

Teresa Thorkildsen

Candace Jordan

Membre a labase

Teresa Thorkildsen

Résumé du colloque

When students (ages 6-18) are asked to consider the fact of individual differences in intelligence and to evaluate the fairness of common classroom practices for helping high and low ability students learn, they typically argue that peer tutoring is most fair (Thorkildsen, 1989, 1993). This occurs even though only a small number of them (about 4%) have actually experienced this practice. Curious about whether this belief would be sustained in classrooms where students regularly engaged in cooperative learning, I collaborated with a teacher who worked with 10 to 12-year-olds. Candace Jordan joined in this collaboration because she was worried about the motivation and social development of some of her students. These students were being excluded from the informal collaborative arrangements that normally dominated the class, and needed more academic support than they were getting. Turning to cooperative learning research for guidance, Candace and her students tried out and critiqued the common practice of assigning students to groups. They discovered that this practice ignores the importance of trust, mood, and friendship in genuine collaboration. Together, students and teacher learned to seek responsiveness rather than tolerance, and communicated experience rather than consensus. They invented a scholarly community where the motivation of all its members was respected. We concluded that many of the formal cooperative learning models are morally questionable because long-term relationships are not valued and are in some cases explicitly undermined.

Contexte

Section :

Coopération dans la classe

Thème du colloque :

Coopération dans la classe

Hôte : Université du Québec à Montréal

Découvrez d'autres communications scientifiques

Dans le même colloque
Du même congressiste

Titre du colloque :

Coopération dans la classe

Réflexions sur la dimension morale de la coopération

Marie-France Daniel

La pédagogie de la coopération dans une perspective mondiale

Lucie Benoît

Conceptions morales de la coopération

Michael Schleifer

Voir tous les contenus de ce colloque

Autres communications du même congressiste :

Thème du colloque :

Coopération dans la classe

Cooperative learning and the facilitation of moral growth

Teresa Thorkildsen