Interdependence And The Social Skills Needed In Education Case Study
1 Introduction
There is age-old and on-going struggle for the soul of education, fought over models of teaching and learning between those who believe in education as ‘acquisition’ and those who see education as ‘participation’. Frank Coffield typifies the key ideas of the former as “delivery, transmission, internalisation, achievement, accumulation and transfer” Coffield (2008:8) and the latter as “community, identity, meaning, practice, dialogue, co-operation and belonging” (ibid). This essay will focus on one of this second set and argue that what is needed in education is more cooperation. Students need to learn about interdependence and the social skills needed in our world today. The basic unit of society is the family – Families practice interdependence. They support, respect and maintain positive social relations. These traditional family practices are absent in the classroom. The dominance of the individualistic and competitive structures removes a caring and cooperative social orientation from the classroom. In Johnson, Johnson and Holubec (1994:1) the following story is related.
On July 1982, Don Bennett became the first amputee ever to climb Mount Rainier. He climbed 14,410 feet on one leg and two crutches. It took him five days. When asked to state the most important lesson he learned from doing the climb, Bennett said …show more content…
They believe that placing students in groups and getting them to sit together is cooperation. In reality ill-structured cooperative learning groups can create numerous problems. For instance, some student/s may do all the work and the other students may not contribute any way. Group membership in itself will not produce higher levels of achievement or productivity.
Five components have emerged that are considered essential to successfully structure cooperative learning groups and to maximize learning goals. These five elements will be briefly
There is age-old and on-going struggle for the soul of education, fought over models of teaching and learning between those who believe in education as ‘acquisition’ and those who see education as ‘participation’. Frank Coffield typifies the key ideas of the former as “delivery, transmission, internalisation, achievement, accumulation and transfer” Coffield (2008:8) and the latter as “community, identity, meaning, practice, dialogue, co-operation and belonging” (ibid). This essay will focus on one of this second set and argue that what is needed in education is more cooperation. Students need to learn about interdependence and the social skills needed in our world today. The basic unit of society is the family – Families practice interdependence. They support, respect and maintain positive social relations. These traditional family practices are absent in the classroom. The dominance of the individualistic and competitive structures removes a caring and cooperative social orientation from the classroom. In Johnson, Johnson and Holubec (1994:1) the following story is related.
On July 1982, Don Bennett became the first amputee ever to climb Mount Rainier. He climbed 14,410 feet on one leg and two crutches. It took him five days. When asked to state the most important lesson he learned from doing the climb, Bennett said …show more content…
They believe that placing students in groups and getting them to sit together is cooperation. In reality ill-structured cooperative learning groups can create numerous problems. For instance, some student/s may do all the work and the other students may not contribute any way. Group membership in itself will not produce higher levels of achievement or productivity.
Five components have emerged that are considered essential to successfully structure cooperative learning groups and to maximize learning goals. These five elements will be briefly