When students worked in isolation, they were unlikely to see each other as helpful. If they were in competition with one another, they were unlikely to see classmates as caring about each other’s work (Schaps et al., 1997). The good news about creating cohesiveness through classroom communities was that many things could be done with a modest investment of time and energy (Schaps et al., 1997). Martin (1992), recalling the success that Montessori had with the street urchins of Rome in the school she began, suggested that educators could serve the great needs of students by creating what she called a “school home” where the students would learn not only the three Rs, but also the three Cs: care, concern, and connection. The concept of the school home was essentially the same as that of the classroom community.
The aim of this assignment is to discuss whether or not cooperative learning methods actually help students. This will be done by defining
Bradshaw (2014) states that, “Bandura’s(1977) theory of social learning describes human learning as coming from others through observation, imitation, and reinforcement. We learn from society, and we learn to be social.” One of the pedagogical methods that Dr Maria Montessori used in ‘Children’s houses’ is OBSERVATION. According to Dr Maria Montessori (1912),“The method of observation must undoubtedly include the methodical observation of the morphological growth of the pupils. … The method of observation is established upon one fundamental base—the liberty of the pupils in their spontaneous manifestations.” In school, not only children are the learners, teachers too. One of the teachers’ roles is to teach children to learn through observing the environment, their peers, and children themselves.
(At Home With Montessori, n.d.) In each sensorial activity, the child is taught the appropriate language and in turn paving the way for a widened vocabulary and leading the child towards aspects of literacy. (Samui Montessori, n.d.) The foundation of the intellectual development of the child is laid throughout the sensorial exercises as it assists the child to continuously organize, make comparisons and judge the activity at hand (Montessori Mom, n.d.). The child is able to make a mental link between an abstract indication and its physical demonstration by his hand and mind acting together. (Montessori Mom, n.d.) The child is also taught logical reasoning as he is required to work in a systematic manner whereby following sequential steps in a specific order to complete the activity. In this way it enables the child to refine and expand his senses by differentiation, making observations and interpretations, life-long tendencies of precision and accuracy, being able to concentrate for a longer amount of time, understands feelings, tastes and noises as well as has a sense of order and to arrive at conclusions for himself.
Multi-Age grouping is employed-“A Montessori class is composed of students whose ages typically span 3 years” (American Montessori Society, 2016)-to enable students work together. According to Vygostsky’ theory, an advanced peer give a hand to juniors, which facilitates younger students’ learning (Driscoll, 2005, P. 257). Also, Bandura and Huston (1961) illustrated that children have tendencies to imitate the behaviors from models, which indicates that it is easy for children to activate learning or absorb learning strategy from advanced peers. In the same time, teachers should be cautious about it, because aggressive behaviors are also imitable objects for younger children (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961). In general, both the students and teachers build up a caring community in Montessori classroom, which enables the children to transfer the respect and obliging attitude to the societal life in their
Framework of the Study The following discussions present theories, principles, concepts, research findings, insights, generalizations, ideas which aided the researcher in the methodological and analytic designs and which formed the basis for evolving the framework of this study. Bandura stated that the major goal of formal education should be to equip students with the intellectual tools, efficacy beliefs, and intrinsic interests needed to educate themselves in a variety of pursuits throughout their lifetime (cited in Artino Jr., 2012). Relatedly, Bandura introduced self-efficacy as part of his Social Learning Theory which emphasizes how cognitive, behavioral, personal and environmental factors interact to determine motivation and behavior (Crothers, Hughes, & Morine, 2008). However, the influencing factors are not of equal strength, nor do they occur
(p. 423-424) One of the most noticeable outcomes of social interaction is its effect on how we develop our personalities and learn who we are. The main result is that inconsistencies and contradictions in who we are cannot be hidden, as might be the case in a single interaction or small number of interactions. Overtime, repeated social interactions reduce the contradictions until our views become singular and consistent and we achieve an integrated identity. Cooperative learning can be the start of stripping away the irrelevant, overly dramatic and superficial appendages that mask our deepest thoughts and feelings. We begin to gain an integrated sense of self.
Cooperative groups work face-to-face and learn as a team (p.24). Cooperative learning, according to Bulaon (2011), is based on two educational theories: a) Pragmatism by Charles Pierce, William James, and John Dewey; and b) Constructivism by Giovanni Battista Vico, Jean Piaget, and Lev Semenovich Vygostsky. For Dewey (in Bulaon, 2011), “the classroom should mirror the larger society and be a laboratory for real-life learning (p.25).” Bulaon further cites Dewey, stating that the emphasis is on small, problem-solving groups of students searching for their own answers and learning democratic principles through day-to-day interactions with one another (in Arends, 2009; p.
Cooperative learning is defined as an approach to organize classroom activities so that students are able to learn from and interact with another as well as from the teacher (Olsen & Kagan, 1992). In addition, cooperative learning is a within-class grouping of students, who learn to work together in such a way that all students in the group benefit from the interactive experience (Kessler, 1992). Armstrong (2000) states the use of groups that work toward common instructional goals as the core of the cooperative learning model. Cooperative learning can also be defined as a system of learning techniques and concrete teaching , rather than an approach, in which students are active agents in the process of learning through small group structures
Every great teacher knows that taking a, “one size fits all” approach to their students will not be effective enough in a classroom today. By looking at theories based on education and the ways that people learn. One will realize that theories are conceptual frameworks describing how information is absorbed, processed and retained during learning, so cognitive, emotional and environmental influences all play a role in the ways that a student will learn. Prior to being a secondary school student, to presently a prospective teacher at tertiary level, I can claim that there was a gradual change on my mentality towards teachers and their roles. I understand that when our interest is aroused in something such as an academic course or even a hobby,