How can I make the content accessible and

understandable for the students in my classroom

through cooperative instruction?
Guillaume (2008) identifies cooperative instruction as collaborative learning that is
designed to capitalize on every classrooms diversity to enrich students cognitive
learning and social behaviors (p. 161). When students are placed into heterogeneous
small groups, they are expected to interact and work together to help each other learn.
One of the main principles required to accomplish cooperative instruction in my future
classroom will be to provide students with individual accountability. This means that,
each student must remain accountable for exhibiting mastery of the
content (Guillaume, 2008, p.162). It is critical that students are personally responsible
for their groups achievement of the learning goal. Lets say a cooperative instruction
lesson objective was to teach the dierent California regions. One way to provide
individual accountability is to assign each member within a group of four one of the
states geographical regions; Coast, Desert, Central Valley, Mountains. They must
become a master in this region and teach the information to their peers. This shows
evidence of Teacher Performance Expectation 4.7 which says to, plan instruction that
promotes a range of communication strategies and activity modes between teacher
and student and among students that encourage student participation in learning.
Cooperative instruction maximizes the students participation in their learning and
requires them to communicate and collaborate with their peers.