Kagan Cooperative Learning

Where were these strategies when I was going through school?! I first had my first real experience learning about Kagan Cooperative Learning three years ago when our principal scheduled an all-day professional development day with a Kagan representative.  We were lucky enough to have another full day of training the next year as well.  This is one of the most valuable things I have learned in my teaching profession.

Kagan uses Kagan Structures to increase student engagement and achievement.  I have witnessed this first hand in my classroom and cannot speak more highly of these structures.  Kagan also produces some great tools to use in the classroom and have just added new Kagan Tools Apps in the iTunes store. 

I just let my college aide borrow my Kagan training book to read because I believe so much in cooperative learning.  One of the best things about learning these structures is that you can then create meaniful material to use in your classroom that fits the needs of all students.  My previous post I created "I Have Who Has" cards to practice customary measurement with my students for the upcoming assessment.  By using this activity, all of my students are engaged and responsible.     

The following if from their reasearch and rationale article that can be read in its entirity HERE.  Kagan also has FREE articles that you can download to learn more.

        Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is one of the most extensively researched educational innovations of all time. There are approximately one thousand research studies which document its effectiveness on quite a range of outcome variables. More detailed descriptions of studies and more extensive lists of references are found in the most comprehensive research volume, Learning to Cooperate, Cooperating to Learn (Slavin, et.al, 1985) and the work of Ted Panitz who presents his summary on the web, at (http://home.capecod.net/~tpanitz/tedsarticles/coopbenefits.htm).
Among the most strongly supported findings:
 
Cooperative learning improves:

• Academic achievement among students, especially for low achieving students.
• Race relations among students, including frequency of cross-race friendship choices.
• Social skills and relations, including empathy, diversity skills, leadership skills, caring, sharing, helping, and feeling cared about.
• Self-esteem among students, including intellectual/academic self-esteem, and peer self-esteem.
• Class climate, including liking for class, content, and teachers.
• Higher-level thinking, including questioning and synthesizing diverse viewpoints and data.