A Cooperative Classroom

Lately in social studies--and throughout all of MRH--students have been engaging in a lot of cooperative learning activities.  Most of the teachers in the MRH school district have been trained in Kagan Cooperative Learning structures, and this year we've been using them in full-force within our classrooms.

However, students probably don't see all of the "structures" behind what they're doing in class; they see it as just another day with another "group" or "partner" activity that they're participating in.

For all of my teacher friends out there, these are amazing cooperative learning structures that promote very high levels of engagement.  For my parent followers, these structures really get your student thinking, collaborating, and cooperating to a very high degree with their classmates.  Plus it gets the students up and moving (getting that blood flow pumping to their brains!) which also leads to higher engagement because students are not simply just "sitting" in class but they're actually up and moving about while they are learning!

Below are some recent pictures of cooperative learning activities going on in our social studies classroom.  Students are reviewing for a quiz using stand up-hand up-pair up to find a partner and then engaging in quiz-quiz-trade (quizzing each other and then swapping cards before finding a new partner to "high five" and quiz again!).  Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like to know more about what's going on with all of our cooperative learning activities! :)