A Mom and More

“Long-term and persistent efforts to achieve do not come from the head; they come from the heart.” - Johnson and Johnson, 1989

I have just finished reading researches on cooperative learning (for my EducPsych report for Prof. Olegario’s class) when my daughter Aei comes home in the verge of tears because of her frustrations with what’s going on in one of her group projects. She felt overwhelmed at the remaining tasks she still needs to do given so little time to pitch in for some group mates not living up to their assigned roles. Multiply this scenario by five for her five other subjects requiring group projects and you can just imagine the stress she has to take (and the adverse spillovers of this stress on me and the rest of the family). She doesn’t verbally complain (like I do) but she becomes wordless, grows grumpy, gives blank stares and cries in front of her computer as she finishes her work till the wee hours of the morning, sometimes waiting for other classmates’ inputs through emails. Often, she wonders why the need to work with group mates which are assigned by her professors rather than to have the freedom to form a work group with her college friends with whom she is more comfortable with.

Good for me, during my time at UP (three decades ago), we were given the choice of working individually or with a partner. I recall having opted to work by myself aside from considering my mom’s prohibition from sleeping in others’ homes and staying out late when working with a group. In doing my undergrad thesis in Econ, while most paired with a friend or an organization mate, I worked solo (with a “silent partner”).

Like mother-like daughter, huh! Yes, since I didn’t know then what I was missing by working alone.

Now, having read much on cooperative learning, I’ve appreciated and explained to Aei why she should learn to live and like group work in class not just because she is forced to since cooperative learning has been proven by thousands of researches to result in higher academic achievement, better problem-solving skills, and improved self-esteem but more so because it enhances interpersonal, leadership, and communication skills, and promotes creativity, greater compassion and patience for others – the skills and values which we as moms wish we could impart to our kids.

Here are some bits and pieces on cooperative learning: a strategy which I will use in class (if ever I formally teach for an nth career) and apply at home — my everyday classroom as a mom-learner-teacher for over 22 years now.

1. What is cooperative learning?

“Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups through which students work together to maximize their own and each others’ learning.” (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1994)

Simply put, it is when students in a class are split into small groups after receiving instructions from the teacher. Each member of the group takes on a particular role to fulfill a collective task or assignment. As in a jigsaw, each piece—each student’s part—is essential for the completion of the project or the learning of the entire lesson. This strategy is based on synergy (where the interaction of two or more agents or forces creates a combined effect greater than the sum of their individual effects): people learn better when they learn together. Cooperative learning methods commonly used in the classroom are: learning together, jigsaw, team-games-tournaments, think-pair-share or dyads, brainstorming, graffiti, group discussion and group investigation. We and our children probably have been exposed to these learning methods without really having been told what they are called by educators. See http://www.co-operation.org if you want to read more on cooperative learning.)

In the home scene, this may take the form of moms teaching small kids about values and household chores. For instance, if our goal is to teach our kids to be neat and tidy and help with household chores, we can assign a younger child to just pick up toys and kid stuff strewn all over the house and put it in one big box or basket and then, ask an older child to classify things appropriately on the basis of their use and supposed storage place in the house.

2. What essential elements are needed for cooperative learning to succeed?

a. Clearly perceived positive interdependence. In class, individual student effort is required and indispensable for the group’s success. In the family, a culture of interdependence may be nurtured as family members sincerely enjoy being together, share beliefs and values and work together to solve problems or seize opportunities. Interdependence is an all-for-one and one-for-all attitude rather than a sink-or-swim orientation.

b. Considerable face-to-face interaction. This could be seen from students exchanging information, lessons, materials and resources for mutual benefits. At home, this manifests itself in effective communication between husband and wife, father-son, father-daughter, mother-daughter, mother-son, sibling-sibling and so on. It entails emphatic listening and understanding with one’s heart for needs and feelings which sometimes cannot be expressed in words.

c. Clearly perceived individual accountability and personal responsibility to achieve group goals. The classroom setting would require a test to ensure that individuals contributed their share to the group assignment and that there was no hitchhiking or social loafing involved. There are no tests or grades or rewards at home. Moms and dads have permanent 24/7 lifetime roles to play in their families and they can learn, work and have fun together with their children to attain their family goals.

d. Frequent use of interpersonal and small-group skills. In school and at home, cooperative learning can take place when each one gets to know, trust and respect each other; accept and support one another; resolve conflicts (if any), communicate effectively and forgive others who may have erred along the way and start anew.

e. Frequent and regular group processing of current functioning to clarify and improve the group’s future effectiveness. In group projects, feedback, clarification and refinements of working relationships and behaviors help the group remedy any weaknesses and deficiencies which may affect the group’s performance. In the family, learning together can mean one-to-one special dates between mom-dad and parent-child as well as a family time/hour/night or family council times where the whole family may review their calendar of upcoming events and their budget, discuss issues, teach lessons, make suggestions, come up with group decisions while enjoying each other’s company.

Obviously, ingredients which make cooperative learning a success are the very same elements which help foster effective family culture at home (our classroom for life) and on a still broader sense, the same factors which prepare students/children for family life, the workforce, and a democratic social order. This follows since cooperative behavior stimulates not only the learning of cognitive skills but affective or social skills.

At this point, given a choice among the three ways by which children can learn in school: competitively (in a win-lose battle in class for the highest grades), individualistically (in an independent pursuit of a standard of excellence) and cooperatively (in a group aiming for collective benefits), I would go for cooperative learning, to the extent possible.

My daughter Aei who finds it more efficient to work alone, who is lucky to always have a free rider or an abrasive personality or a loner for a group mate, and who wishes to have her choice members for her team – would just have to realize the need for study partners, adjust and even be thankful to her UP profs for using cooperative learning which teach her not only HOTS (higher order thinking skills) but heart and life skills which she would surely find handy when she graduates, start a family and go through adult life.