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4 - Making In-class Groups Work

Matt DeLong
Affiliation:
Taylor University
Dale Winter
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Summary

Since the Tulane conference [42], substantial amounts of time and resources have been put towards developing materials for non-lecturing, student-centered classroom techniques. Some techniques that are used by many instructors are cooperative learning activities, student presentations, laboratory activities, discovery learning, and the Moore method. In our classrooms we extensively use the technique of having students work in cooperative groups on mathematical problems. In this chapter we focus on developing the instructors' facility with implementing and managing in-class cooperative activities. If your program includes student- centered teaching methodologies not addressed by one of the meetings in this book, Chapter 16 provides support for developing new training meetings.

Cooperative learning is a popular pedagogical device in elementary collegiate mathematics classrooms. There are many reports that suggest that when cooperative learning is implemented effectively in a mathematics class, there can be dramatic gains in what students are able to accomplish in terms of solving non-routine problems, in students' appreciation of and enjoyment in mathematics, and in students' willing- ness to persist in their attempts to solve and develop meaningful understanding of mathematical concepts that go beyond simple imitation of “worked examples” from the textbook. Although some investigators have reported some gains in terms of students' scores on standardized tests, the reports are not usually of dramatic gains [35]. A typical report is of the form “The students in the cooperative learning group performed at least as well as students in a control group.”

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Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn Mathematics
Resources for Professional Development
, pp. 43 - 54
Publisher: Mathematical Association of America
Print publication year: 2002

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  • Making In-class Groups Work
  • Matt DeLong, Taylor University, Dale Winter, Harvard University
  • Book: Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn Mathematics
  • Online publication: 05 January 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.5948/UPO9781614443131.005
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  • Making In-class Groups Work
  • Matt DeLong, Taylor University, Dale Winter, Harvard University
  • Book: Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn Mathematics
  • Online publication: 05 January 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.5948/UPO9781614443131.005
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Making In-class Groups Work
  • Matt DeLong, Taylor University, Dale Winter, Harvard University
  • Book: Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn Mathematics
  • Online publication: 05 January 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.5948/UPO9781614443131.005
Available formats
×