Research Journal Entry 13 Cooperative Learning

Recently I’ve read a master’s thesis about CL (Cooperative Learning). The topic is “The Effects of Cooperative Learning on Vocational High School Students’ English Reading”. In contrast to regular senior high school students, vocational high school students seem to pay much less attention to English learning, because, generally, they had lower English grades in their entrance exam. Secondly, Due to the frustrating learning experiences in junior high school, they might have less motivation to continue with English learning. Third, they tend to put more emphasis on specialized subjects than general subjects. Last, they vary a great deal in their English proficiency so that the teachers can hardly meet each student’s needs in one class period. The author would like to apply this method to enhance students’ learning achievement, to construct cooperative and interactive teaching and learning atmosphere, and to explore the effects of implementing cooperative learning. In methodology part, the subjects are 66 students, who are all males, third-year, and from Wheel Engineering Department. They are divided into two groups. One is experimental group, who accepted CL method, and the other one is control group who took the traditional method. The researcher implemented Student Teams-Achievement Division (STAD) combined with role assignment and peer evaluation checklist to reinforce CL effects. Finally, the results showed that there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. Meanwhile, there’re also some problems found during the experiment. For example, some students indicated that there were group members who did little work in small group learning. Some group members were even doing other non-related things during group discussion. Therefore diligent students felt it was unfair that they made greater efforts than those of free rider, and yet received the same rewards. In addition, the over-achievers were eager to express themselves and answer the teachers’ questions for the rewards. However, sometimes they were too aggressive rather than thoughtful in dealing with other group members.
Also, the unit of the group would be a problem because the members were randomly assigned, whether they liked to be with each other or not. The groups that had a good atmosphere of union learned better than the groups without such an atmosphere did. What’s more, noise produced by group discussion affected the other groups. It was a big problem because the classroom was small, so that there was no spare room to arrange seats for groups to conduct discussion without mutual interference.
Nevertheless, further analysis indicated that while HL (High Level) and IL (Intermediate Level) students benefited from CL instruction, LL (Low Level) students didn’t. HL and IL students showed improvement in English reading and positive attitudes toward CL instruction; the LL students showed less positive feedback in the questionnaire. Therefore, the CL instruction was beneficial, but the students’ levels would be a variable.