In this team task you are going to take on the role of being a central office curriculum and instruction (CI) team. One of your teachers, Chris, has shared that he was ready to take some steps to formalize Cooperative Learning in his classroom. In his words, he wanted to take it to “a new level.”  Specifically, he referred to his experience in coaching and how he tried to build teams where players with less developed talent could still feel like they were valued members and could make important contributions to the team. He said he had been thinking a lot about that lately and was looking for specific ideas.

When you asked if he was familiar with the work of Robert Slavin and such strategies as STAD and TGT, the teacher had heard the terms in college, but that was about it. In closing the conversation, you offer to get with your CI team to pull together some resources that Chris might find helpful.

Your team task is as follows:

Step 1:  Decide whether to recommend STAD or TGT. Choose which you think would work best for this scenario. You need to make the decision based on a team discussion that follows internet research on the two approaches. Assign some of your team members to look for information on STAD, and others to look up TGT.

Step 2:  Once you’ve made your choice, prepare a brief rationale for why you are recommending the approach selected (approximately 100 words). Your team’s rationale must include an explanation of how your recommended strategy will help the teacher create a learning experience where “less developed” players can still contribute to the team!

Step 3:  Prepare a “Teacher Resource Kit” for the strategy that you recommended. In this case the kit will be web-based and should include at least one on-line article or website that provides “teacher-friendly” and “step-by-step” instructions on how to plan and implement the strategy.

Step 4:  The final report should include the “Rationale” followed by hyperlinked Urls for the articles and websites you are including in your kit. Each Url should be followed by a 25-50-word annotation describing the source and nature of the material that is linked.

Resource used: PP.81-114