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Being Responsible | Little Mandy Manners | TinyGrads | Children's Videos | Character Songs

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Classroom Management Education Assignment, writing homework help

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I am changing my major to business and do not have time with work to focus on this last education class. I would like to have someone just help with this final assignment. Requirements:Your submission must be your original work.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
A note on terminology: The acronym ESL is used less often now in schools than it used to be, because we recognize that many students who are learning English already speak several other languages, so English would not be a "second" language. I use it several times in the post because schools sometimes refer to the teachers as ESL teachers, and the term is still widely used as a search term for this topic. My intent in using the acronym is to make this post easier to find online.

You have a new student, and he speaks no English. His family has just moved to your town from Japan, and though he receives English as a Second Language (ESL) support, he will also be sitting in your room every day to give him more exposure to his new language. How can you be a good teacher to someone who barely understands you?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities. Although many of these students start off in high-intensity, whole-day English programs, most are integrated into mainstream classrooms within a year, well before their English language skills would be considered proficient.

How prepared are you to teach these students? If you're like most classroom teachers, you have little to no training in the most effective methods for working with English language learners (Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). So that means we have a problem here: Lots of ELL kids in regular classrooms, and no teacher training to ensure the success of that placement.

Below, three ESL teachers tell us what they know about the things regular classroom teachers can do to improve instruction for ELL students. These 12 strategies are simple, they are not very time consuming, and best of all, they will help everyone in your class learn better:

1. Make it Visual

"Avoid giving instructions in the air," says Melissa Eddington, an Ohio-based ESL teacher. "ELL kids have a harder time processing spoken language." So instructions - even basic directions for classroom procedures - should be written on the board whenever possible. Challenging concepts should be diagrammed or supported with pictures. And modeling the steps of a process or showing students what a finished product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. "Sometimes showing our students what to do is all they need in order to do it," Eddington says. Not only will this kind of nonlinguistic representation improve comprehension for ELL students, it will help all of your students grasp concepts better.

2. Build in more group work.

"Kids aren't just empty glasses that we pour stuff into and then at the end of the day they dump it back onto a test," says Kim, an ESL teacher who was the subject of my very first podcast interview. "If you really want the kids to learn, they've got to be engaged." That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. And if ELL students attend your class with a resource teacher, make use of that person: In most cases the resource teacher doesn't have to work exclusively with the ESL students; they can work with smaller groups that happen to contain these students, helping to improve the teacher-student ratio and give kids more time to practice.

3. Communicate with the ESL teacher.

Mary Yurkosky, a former ESL teacher in Massachusetts, credits much of her students' success to the strong relationship she had with the regular classroom teachers. "The classroom teachers were always talking to me about what they were doing in their classes," she says. "They made it so easy for me to support them: If a teacher was going to be doing a unit on plants, I could make sure we used some of that same vocabulary in the ESL class."

Ideally, this could be systematized, where ESL teachers could regularly get copies of lesson plans or collaborate with regular classroom teachers to build solid back-and-forth support, but "it doesn't have to be that much work," Yurkosky insists. "Just talk to each other. Talk about what's going on in your classrooms, invite each other to special presentations, share what your students are learning, and the words will naturally find their way into the ESL class."

4. Honor the "silent period."

Many new language learners go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. "Don't force them to talk if they don't want to," says Eddington, "A lot of students who come from cultures outside of America want to be perfect when they speak, so they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they're perfect." Just knowing that this is a normal stage in second language acquisition should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward talking too quickly.

5. Allow some scaffolding with the native language.

Although it has been a hotly debated topic in the language-learning community, allowing students some use of their first language (L1) in second-language (L2) classrooms is gaining acceptance. When a student is still very new to a language, it's okay to pair him with other students who speak his native language. "Some students are afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of sounding stupid or just not knowing the words to use," Yurkosky says. "Letting them explain things or ask questions in their first language gets them to relax and feel like a part of the class."

And this doesn't only apply to spoken language. If you give students a written assignment, but the ELL student doesn't yet have the proficiency to handle writing his response in English, "Don't make them just sit there and do nothing," Eddington says. "Allow them to write in their first language if they're able. This allows them to still participate in journal writing or a math extended response, even if you can't read what they write." There has even been some evidence that allowing second-language learners to pre-write and brainstorm in L1 results in higher-quality writing in L2 in later stages of the writing process (Yigzaw, 2012).

6. Look out for culturally unique vocabulary.

"For most of these kids, their background knowledge is lacking, especially with things that are unique to American or westernized culture," says Eddington. It's important to directly teach certain vocabulary words: "Show them videos of what it looks like to toss pizza dough, show pictures of a juke box or a clothing rack - things that are not common in their own language."

One way to differentiate for ELL students is to consider the whole list of terms you're going to teach for a unit, and if you think an ELL student may be overwhelmed by such a long list, omit those that are not essential to understanding the larger topic at hand.

7. Use sentence frames to give students practice with academic language.

All students, not just English language learners, need practice with academic conversations. Sentence frames - partially completed sentences like "I disagree with what _________ said because..." - show students how to structure language in a formal way. Keep these posted in a highly visible spot in your classroom and require students to refer to them during discussions and while they write.

For this kind of language to really sink in, though, Kim says it has to become a regular part of class. "They won't do it if it's not the norm in the class, because they'll be embarrassed to use it among their peers," she says. "But if they can put it off on the teacher and say, Oh, well, you know, Miss Kim makes me talk like this, then they don't look as hoity-toity as they would otherwise."

8. Pre-teach whenever possible.

If you're going to be reading a certain article next week, give ESL students a copy of it now. If you plan to show a YouTube video tomorrow, send a link to your ESL students today. Any chance you can give these students to preview material will increase the odds that they'll understand it on the day you present it to everyone else. "That kind of thing is wonderful," Yurkosky says. "The kids feel so empowered if they've had a chance to look at the material ahead of time."

9. Learn about the cultural background of your students...

Our second-language populations grow more diverse every year. Taking the time to learn the basics of where a child comes from - exactly, not 'somewhere in the Middle East/South America/Asia/Africa' - tells the student that you respect her enough to bother. Kim remembers one time when she had to set the record straight about the diverse South American population at her school: "I was listening to the teachers talking about the 'Mexican' kids in our building," she says, "and I was like, 'We don't have any Mexicans.'" Not taking the time to at least correctly identify a child's country of origin, much like not bothering to pronounce their name correctly, is a kind of microaggression, a small, subtle insult that communicates hostility toward people of color. Make a commitment to be someone who bothers to get it right.

Once you have the country straight, take things up a notch by learning about students' religious and cultural practices. If he is a practicing Muslim, he should be told if one of the pizzas you ordered for the class party has sausage on it. If she comes from a culture where eye contact with adults is viewed as disrespectful, you'll know not to force her to look you in the eye when she's talking.

10. ...but don't make a child speak for his entire culture.

In her podcast interview, Kim shared a story about watching a teacher ask a new Iraqi student how he felt about the war in his country, right in the middle of class. "That's not cultural inclusiveness," she explains. "I've seen teachers do this and then pat themselves on the back. The students' English is limited so they can't express themselves very well, and they don't want to 'represent'; they just want to be there." If you anticipate a theme coming up in your class that's going to be relevant to one of your students, have a conversation with them in advance, or check with your ESL teacher to see if they think it's appropriate for in-class discussion.

11. Show them how to take themselves less seriously...

By modeling the risk-taking that's required to learn a new language, you help students develop the courage to take their own risks, and to have a sense of humor about it. "I tried to say the word 'paint' ( pinta) in Portuguese and instead I said the word for 'penis' ( pinto). They all roared with laughter while I stood there with a What?? look on my face," Yurkosky says. "When they explained what I'd said, I laughed so hard! I told them that laughing was fine because sometimes mistakes are really funny, but ridicule is never okay."

12. ...but always take them seriously.

One of Kim's pet peeves about how teachers interact with English language learners is the way they often see students' efforts as 'cute,' missing the whole point of what the student is trying to say. "A student will be desperate to communicate, and the teacher will get distracted by the delivery and miss the message," she says. "That's painful for me to watch." It bothers her when teachers mistake a lack of language for a lack of intelligence or maturity. When a child can't express themselves as well as they would in their native language, it's far too easy to assume the concepts just aren't in their heads.

"It breaks my heart when I hear teachers say (ELL kids) don't know anything," says Eddington. "These are brilliant kids and they know a lot. They just can't tell us in English yet." Make a conscious effort to see past the accent and the mispronunciations and treat every interaction - every student - with the respect they deserve.

"They're doing twice the job of everybody else in the class," Kim adds, "even though the result looks like half as much." ♦

Further Reading

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide is one of the highest-rated books on teaching English-language learners available. In addition to offering an overview of the research on second-language learners and best practices in teaching ESL, it also includes a whole section on teaching ESL in the content areas and another specifically geared toward teaching ELL students in mainstream classrooms.
References:
Walker, A., Shafer, J., & Iiams, M. (2004). "Not in my classroom": Teacher attitudes towards English language learners in the mainstream classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1), 130-160.

Yigzaw, A. (2012). Impact of L1 use in L2 English writing classes. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 8(1), 11-27.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Advice from three ESL teachers on the things regular classroom teachers can do to help English language learners thrive in mainstream classrooms.

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Overview

Papers, projects, and presentations are excellent opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning and investment in a course. Students typically welcome such assignments when they come with clear guidelines as well as room for some flexibility in topics and creativity in content.

Guidelines

Creating Interesting and Effective Assignments

Because papers, projects, and presentations allow students to spend a significant amount of time preparing the end product, these kinds of assignments can focus on the highest-level goals for the course. For example, assignments may require analysis and synthesis of competing perspectives, application of theory to real-world problems, or creative extensions of course material.

When you choose a topic or format for this kind of assignment, make sure that it challenges students to meet these kinds of high-level goals. Otherwise, exams and homework are usually a simpler assessment tool.

Several approaches can make a basic assignment more interesting. Consider adding the following angles to your assignment:

Have students target their paper, project, or presentation for a specific audience, other than the instructor. Target audiences might include a review board or funding agency (for research papers), a judge or jury (for logical arguments or analyses), the general public (for informational reports), or a historical figure. The format of the assignment can be tailored to the audience, for example a proposal to a review board or a letter to a historical figure.

Require students to use experiential resources alongside traditional library resources. For example, students can conduct an interview or engage in observer-participation at a relevant site or event.

Invite an expert to discuss students' work at the end of the quarter. For example, you might invite a colleague in academia, industry, or service to oversee a presentation of student projects and select the most innovative project, or discuss how the students' relate to professional or real-world activities.

Allow for some aspect of collaboration or peer feedback. For example, students can respond to drafts of another student's work. Or, you can assign students to different aspects of a single topic and reserve some class time for discussion among students working on the same topic.

When writing your assignment instructions, recognize that introductory students (especially first-years) appreciate specific assignment topics and instructions, whereas advanced students often prefer more freedom. If you decide to allow for a wide range of topics and formats, make sure that your instructions are still specific enough to ensure that students produce high-quality work.

For example, you might allow students to choose their own topic, but provide specific instructions on how to produce a good literature review, grant proposal, or informational website (whatever the format is); or, you might let students choose the format, but still give specific requirements about the number and quality of resources they need to use. For all students and assignments, it is helpful to:

The Hume Center for Writing and Speaking also has a variety of resources for help in assigning oral or written projects.

Grading Papers

There is nothing more arbitrary to a student than a paper passed back with a grade but few comments. To avoid this, when grading papers:

Write comments judiciously and legibly. Do not obliterate the text-use the margins, the back, or append a note.

Try to be specific enough with your suggestions so that the student has a good chance of doing better next time.

If you find that you are saying similar things to several students, prepare a handout on whatever the students are stumbling over-how to write a review, for example, or how to develop an argument.

Even better, give such a handout at the time an assignment is announced, so students are prepared.

A paper should be judged on its content, organization, and style. It is useful to the students if you evaluate the paper in each of these areas; however, students should understand that the overall strength of a paper's "content" (ideas, analysis, or insights) cannot be separated from its execution (organization, mechanics, and style). After all, language is the medium through which students must present and arrange their thoughts.

Some teachers have had good success with asking students to write papers twice. The first draft is submitted and subjected to constructive criticism on these areas of content, organization, and style. The second draft is graded and usually shows the kind of improvement that is satisfying to both the student and the teacher.

Follow the same strategies for grading papers as you would for essay exams:

For further strategies, check out the Grading Exams portion of our Testing Guidelines page.

Grading Projects and Presentations

Projects and presentations can present special grading challenges because of their unique formats. To ensure a fair and painless process:

Grading Group Assignments

While group assignments can achieve learning goals (such as improving collaboration skills) not easily addressed by traditional coursework, they are notoriously difficult to grade fairly, for a variety of reasons:

Also recognize that some projects do not lend themselves well to collaboration; traditional or scientific papers, for example, are almost always "divvied up" by students with little discussion, feedback, and integration of perspectives. Assignments that work well with collaboration often result in "products," such as films, computer programs, physical inventions, or "proposals," presented in class or in writing, based on a problem-solving assignment or case study.

See Also:

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Papers, projects, and presentations are excellent opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning and investment in a course. Students typically welcome such assignments when they come with clear guidelines as well as room for some flexibility in topics and creativity in content.

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Type in an Internet search for "accountability" and "higher education," and the top results will form a pattern all too familiar to college and university leaders: Nearly every one details some kind of accountability being imposed from an external source on higher education.

President Obama's proposal last summer to rate higher education institutions (see article on page 21) is only the latest effort to "hold colleges accountable for cost, value, and quality." It joins the 2006 recommendations of former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education and numerous efforts at the state level in calling for increased accountability and transparency at colleges and universities.

It's an irony that's difficult for many in the higher education world to swallow. As policymakers, think-tankers, and pundits clamor for more higher education accountability, presidents are often left battling misperceptions that their institutions are asleep at the wheel. Yet higher education has been holding itself accountable-at the institutional, system, and association levels-since long before "accountability" became a buzzword.

A Long History of Accountability

"[T]here is a long history here of feeling . . . that we should be accountable to the people of Wisconsin," said Kevin P. Reilly, outgoing president of the University of Wisconsin System, home to one of the first comprehensive accountability reports for a U.S. university system.

Since 1993, what was then called Accountability for Achievement has clearly detailed the system's performance on key metrics across a wide range of goals. The most recent update, called Knowledge Powers Wisconsin's Future: UW System's Annual Accountability Report, centers on seven core strategies: preparing students, a stronger workforce, stronger businesses, stronger communities, resources, operational excellence, and collaborations. Under each heading are indicators, along with the goals for each, a status report explaining progress, and other information such as national and state comparisons and granular data.

In the 2012-13 report, for example, the strategy on stronger businesses aims to "increase the creation of well-paying jobs by expanding the university research enterprise while linking academic programs to entrepreneurship and business development." There are three indicators: tracking progress on research funding, graduates' contribution to the economy, and the annual number of bachelor's, graduate, and professional degrees in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and health fields.

In addition to the system-wide report, each of the system's 15 institutions issues its own accountability report. While some measures are the same across all of the reports, each institution may customize parts of the report based on its individual mission, outreach services, and programs, Reilly said. "When I evaluate the chancellors for their performance every year and make salary recommendations, we always look at accountability reports and say, 'How are we doing?' So they are used in terms of evaluation and improvement."

In fact, the university system traces such accountability roots to the earliest parts of the last century: Charles Van Hise, the University of Wisconsin's president from 1903 to 1918, said he would "never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every home in the state." Van Hise is often credited as the founder of the "Wisconsin Idea," the notion that-in the university's case-higher education should influence people's lives beyond the classroom.

A Group Effort

That's also the idea behind the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA)-created by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (A*P*L*U)-a tool that public four-year institutions use to share information about themselves. The information is translated into individual school profiles on a website called College Portrait of Undergraduate Education.

AASCU President Muriel A. Howard said the two groups wanted to be the ones developing the system, and particularly a voluntary one, instead of waiting for the federal government to establish a new policy.

As the centerpiece of the VSA, the College Portrait site provides information about student and faculty characteristics, admissions requirements, average class sizes, cost of attendance, financial aid, and the expected learning outcomes of students in critical thinking and writing. The site makes it possible to compare two institutions, search by state, or conduct an advanced search based on specialized criteria such as campus size, degree levels offered, and special study options. So far there are 281 VSA participants, according to Christine M. Keller, the system's executive director.

Howard said the voluntary aspect is important, because it allows institutions to go at their own pace without incurring additional costs. The biggest challenge, she said, is providing the public with the right amount of clear, useful data: "I know certainly for families and students it can just be overwhelming, and too much information. That's why we are trying to get schools to use the VSA and College Portrait, because then people can look and say, 'This is consistent, easy to read.'" If users don't find what they're looking for initially, Howard said, they can drill deeper into the site for greater detail.

Other voluntary accountability plans from associations include the American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC's) Voluntary Framework of Accountability, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities' (NAICU's) University and College Accountability Network, and the Student Achievement Measure, a joint project of A*P*L*U, AACC, AASCU, the American Council on Education, the Association of American Universities, and NAICU.

Clearly Accountable in Massachusetts

When University of Massachusetts President Robert L. Caret arrived at the five-campus system in 2011, one of his top priorities was implementing a new accountability plan. Caret wanted to adapt a report-card system he had set up during his presidency at Towson University in Maryland, where he served from 2003 to 2011. In early 2013, he unveiled the first part of the plan, a report called UMass Performance: Accountable and On the Move. It focuses on six priorities developed and adopted by the university's board of trustees: student experience and success, workforce and citizenry, research and development, social well-being, resource stewardship, and promoting the UMass story.

For each priority there are key goals-a total of 21-and future reports will measure progress on the goals, based on several metrics. Under student experience and success, for instance, the third goal is to improve student success, retention, and graduation rates. An example of a metric for that goal is to measure six-year graduation rates for first-time freshmen. At UMass Amherst, the goal is 70 to 73 percent; currently the graduation rate is 70.4 percent and has ranged between 66 and 68 percent over the last five years.

Goal-setting is key, according to Caret. "[J]ust reporting what happened and reporting what happens based on goals you have set is a very different thing," he said. "It's not just reporting graduation rates. It's saying, 'These rates are not good enough; I am going to improve them by this amount next year, and then report on that.'"

The first report showing UMass's progress on its set goals-due out in February 2014-will be distributed at events, mailed to constituents, and posted online. The idea is to circulate the report widely, so UMass can be "totally transparent about how successful we are," Caret said.

Caret said the report will likely use red, green, and yellow arrows to indicate whether a campus is moving in the wrong or right direction, or not moving at all. He believes a simple indicator style is best, because it draws readers in without bogging them down in details. If more information is requested, the university will point people to additional resources.

More Than Just Graduation Rates

Among the metrics most often cited by accountability enthusiasts is a college's or university's graduation rate-in part because it seems the most clear-cut, though it can be anything but clear, according to Anna Mays, vice president of student services and enrollment management at Cedar Valley College, one of Dallas County Community College District's (DCCCD) seven institutions. In the state of Texas, only 14.5 percent of full-time students in public two-year colleges graduated within three years, according to 2012 data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, but that only tells a fraction of the story, Mays said.

"Policymakers and the public do not always understand how higher education is funded or what performance measures [such as graduation rates] mean," Mays said. "For example, community colleges are required to report the graduation rate of first-time-in-college, full-time students who complete a degree in three years. Since the majority of community college students are part-time and need additional course work to attain college-level course requirements, this 'graduation rate' is only representative for a small percentage of students in community colleges." At DCCCD, for example, fall 2013 figures show 69 percent of students enrolled part time-a proportion in line with national figures.

It's also important to understand that students attend community colleges with different intentions and grapple with a variety of demands outside of school, she said: They may want to take a few courses to get a promotion or find employment, increase their skills in a particular area, transfer to another college, or take courses for personal enrichment. Some students are simultaneously supporting their families, raising children, or caring for aging parents, necessarily spreading out the time it takes them to earn a degree. Graduation rates don't reflect these realities, and shouldn't be the only measure to indicate how well community colleges perform, Mays noted.

Not that such students and colleges in the state aren't focused on their goal of raising graduation rates, as evinced by Texas Completes (TC), a statewide effort aimed at increasing the number of students who finish associate degrees or certificates before transferring to four-year institutions or entering the workforce. Growing out of Completion by Design (CBD), an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the five original fundees-the Lone Star College System, DCCCD, Alamo Community College District, El Paso Community College, and South Texas College-banded together to independently create and manage TC.

Despite such efforts, Walter G. Bumphus, president and CEO of AACC, said that community colleges still face a double challenge: increasing institutional transparency while also explaining how the diverse demographics and goals of students at community colleges make their graduation and completion rates a more nuanced picture than is often captured by overly simplistic accountability measures.

Not all students come with the goal of transferring to a four-year institution, he said-some may remain focused on completing a very specific credential or class for a job. "We want to make sure that when we are evaluated and held accountable, that people understand what that means," Bumphus said. "So if you only look at graduation rates, that is a very narrow view."

How to Keep Costs Accountable

In addition to graduation rates, the rising costs of a college degree tend to be uppermost in the minds of parents and students, but also those of higher education leaders. Pamela A. Eibeck, president of the University of the Pacific (UOP) in Stockton, California, is striving to make sure her institution stays accountable on money matters.

"We are in an era where students are asking the most fundamental question: 'Is college worth it?' We recognize that the cost of college relative to family income has gone up tremendously over the last few decades. They are graduating with student loans, but not the jobs. It has been aggravated by the economic downturn," Eibeck said. "So as a university, we have to demonstrate the value of our education-that a degree is worth the investment. We recognize that is a combination of making sure we have high-quality learning experiences relevant to great programs, but also that we are doing our best to contain cost."

To that end, UOP has launched a university-wide assessment and accountability initiative called Focusing on Our Future. Under the plan, Eibeck is leading the university in reviewing all administrative and academic activities. The process will help UOP identify funds for reallocating into a strategic investment fund of about $15 million. That money will go toward improving current programs, activities, and services, and launching new initiatives consistent with the school's strategic plan.

To kick the process off, Eibeck asked all administrative units to examine their programs and gauge whether they serve students in high-impact ways, fall in line with the strategic plan, and represent the wisest use of limited resources.

Based on the findings, each unit prepared a report for its vice president or provost, who then made preliminary recommendations. They ranged from maintaining a program as-is to reducing it, reorganizing or consolidating it, eliminating it, and on rare occasions, enhancing it. The findings were discussed at town hall-style meetings, after which UOP's provost and vice presidents made final recommendations and submitted them in a report to a review committee, which included members of the president's advisory council and selected student, faculty, and staff members. The committee gave its feedback to Eibeck, who solicited anonymous input from the university through a secure online survey. A few weeks later, the president announced her final decisions.

"This has been a lot of work for people. There will be some activities eliminated because of this, so there are hard choices and some hard impacts on some individuals," Eibeck said. "The other reality is that there's nothing we do that is not worthy, and that is true at every university or college. We all start programs and activities with excellent intentions, but we can't be everything to everyone anymore. . . . [W]e might call this 'Focusing on Our Future,' but it's very much focusing on our students' future."

The academic review will follow a similar process, she said, though the time frame will be longer because of faculty members' busy teaching schedules. The final report, which will integrate the administrative and academic reviews, is expected in the spring of 2014.

A Long-Range View of Accountability

But higher education leaders note that their intense focus on the particulars of accountability is necessarily balanced by the bigger-picture goal of what they do.

It's vital not to overlook the long-range accountability that higher education has to educate students for life, said Reilly, the University of Wisconsin System head. "We need to keep reminding ourselves and the public that we are preparing students for not just their first job, but for a career, for life after graduation. We want them to get that first job after graduation-a well-paying job. But our obligation does not stop there. We have to prepare people for the unknown," he explained.

Others shared Reilly's view. UOP's Eibeck said higher education equips students to be effective thinkers, communicators, and citizens-invaluable skills that are inherently difficult to measure. Other unquantifiable but vital elements of the college experience include peer networks, mentoring from faculty, and learning how to apply content in new environments and tackle open-ended problems. "I just cringe when I see that salary within six months of graduation is being used as a measure of the value of a university's education," Eibeck said. "A high-quality university education prepares a young person for a lifetime of achievement."

Kristina Cowan is a freelance journalist based in the Chicago area.

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Type in an Internet search for "accountability" and "higher education," and the top results will form a pattern all too familiar to college and university leaders: Nearly every one details some kind of accountability being imposed from an external source on higher education.

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Accountability measures

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With No Child Left Behind (NCLB) off the table for at least 32 states in the U.S., accountability measures will be left to states and local school systems. NCLB has been clear about closing achievement gaps between groups of students considered at risk. To ensure that there is an ongoing focus on school improvement, accountability should continue to be rigorous and focused on achievement gaps along with whole school improvement.

Clear accountability systems have to be in place at seven different levels to ensure student success now and in the future. Goals, beliefs, values, visions and actions must be aligned similar to what one may find in a balanced scorecard. If these things are not operating in tandem, then the system may be doomed to fail.

The seven levels of accountability for student success are: 1) state; 2) school system; 3) school; 4) principal; 5) teachers; 6) parents; and 7) students.

Level 1: STATE

All states should have a strong plan in place to measure accountability. Out of the 32 states approved for No Child Left Behind waivers, eight states have a conditional waiver, meaning they have not yet satisfied the Obama administration's requirements for a new principal/teacher evaluation system, incorporation of College and Career Readiness Standards and other stipulations. If these states are granted waivers, it is imperative that they have a plan in place so that all educators, parents, students and other stakeholders understand how schools will be monitored and what criteria will be used to determine school improvement.

Many of the states that have received No Child Left Behind waivers have developed impressive accountability plans.

According to the Kentucky Department of Education, their new accountability model is a more robust - next generation model that holds all schools and school systems accountable for improving student performance and creates four performance classifications that determine consequences and guide interventions and supports. School and system classifications are based on the following measures: 1) Achievement (Content Areas are reading, mathematics, science, social studies and writing.); 2) Gap (percentage of proficient and distinguished) for the Non-Duplicated Gap Group for all five content areas; 3) Growth in reading and mathematics (percentage of students at typical or higher levels of growth); 4) College Readiness as measured by the percentage of students meeting benchmarks in three content areas on EXPLORE at middle school; 5) College/Career-Readiness Rate as measured by ACT benchmarks, college placement tests and career measures and 6) Graduation Rate.

Level 2: SCHOOL SYSTEM

For school systems located in states where NCLB is still active, the accountability standards remain the same: required scores in key subject areas, test participation rates at 95 percent, attendance, graduation rates and adequate performance of special populations such as disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. What will be the accountability of school systems in states with waivers? The measures should certainly be well aligned to the state accountability plan components that we monitor and hold systems accountable for. In many cases, the new accountability measures growth over a period of time. Superintendents, boards of education and school system leaders will need to be visionary, progressive thinkers who are well versed about what is happening around the country and how to keep their school system on the cutting-edge of transformation.

A strong strategic plan that communicates the school system vision, mission, goals, beliefs, values and objectives should be transparent for all to see. The metrics embedded in it should communicate what the system is holding itself accountable for. There has to be a whole school system focus on building a culture of continuous improvement.

Curriculum, instruction, assessment and professional learning are critical success indicators for school systems. All levels of system operation have to link back to improvement of student achievement. High expectations must be in place for school system leaders, principals, teachers, students and their parents.

Level 3: SCHOOL

An important question for a school to ask: "How do we know if our students are successful and what actions will we take if they are not?" Schools with an answer to this question and an accountability plan in place will have the greatest level of success. Generally, the school improvement plan is the accountability plan for the school. It outlines the same components one would find in a school system strategic plan; it is clear about the actions that will take place to address the question posed earlier. There should be an action plan for improving each content area based on current school realities or baseline data from the most recent school assessments; a professional development plan aligned to the action plans; a technology plan; a plan for improving student attendance and parent involvement; and a plan that outlines how data will be utilized, analyzed and interpreted.

Ensuring student success in schools means holding teachers and other staff accountable for quality work directly impacting student achievement. Identification of root causes for lack of student success and aggressive interventions to address areas of weakness must be implemented. Use of research-based practices in all key areas of instruction, leadership and school operation should be evident in schools aiming for high levels of student success. Innovation and creativity are not only encouraged but celebrated.

Level 4: PRINCIPAL

It is often said that principals must be strong instructional leaders. That is only part of what principals should know and be able to do. They also must be change agents, capable of dealing with vast ambiguities; human relations gurus; school culture shapers; savvy budget administrators; and outstanding performance managers. If principals are knowledgeable, courageous and willing to hold everyone accountable for keeping their students at the center of everything they do, success is bound to follow.

An effective principal is needed in every school building of a school system striving for excellence in education. These principals understand the complexity of their position, perform duties and responsibilities at a high level, and are able to multi-task, fitting all of the interconnected pieces of school life together for the good of their students. They are results-driven and accept no excuses from anyone. Success is the only option and mediocrity is simply not acceptable in a school run by a strong leader.

Many states have new leader accountability instruments that will be used to evaluate system and building level leaders. Principals operating at the proficient to exemplary level of these accountability systems will have the most positive impact on student achievement.

Level 5: TEACHERS

Research is clear about the damage an ineffective teacher can do. It can take years of instruction with an effective teacher to turn that damage around. Schools and school systems will need a laser-like focus on building the capacity of teachers through strong induction programs, job-embedded professional learning, support for implementation of the new Common Core Performance Standards with accompanying assessments and teacher evaluation programs linked to student achievement outcomes. Teaching children at a high level of proficiency should be the core work of every teacher.

All teachers should continue to be highly qualified to teach the subjects and grade levels they are assigned. Use of varied instructional strategies, effective assessment techniques, data utilization and integration of technology are a given for teachers who want their students to be successful. Teachers should be held accountable; however, their success begins with holding students accountable for learning what is taught.

Level 6: PARENTS

The outside curriculum of children does matter. This curriculum has to do with how they spend their time away from school, what they value, the support systems they have in place and how parents involve themselves in the school. What is learned in schools can be easily unlearned if not sufficiently enforced at home, in the community, ingrained in character and properly supported.

Parents need the requisite skills to help their children succeed in school. The local school and school systems should provide these skills through parent education workshops, parent involvement meetings, adult education classes and engagement in volunteerism. The Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets is a good starting point, along with the six types of parent involvement established by Joyce Epstein.

The chances of children being successful increase when their parents are fully vested in the school community; capable of monitoring school work; communicating effectively with teachers; and able to identify resources to help with social, emotional health issues and other impediments to school success.

Level 7: STUDENTS

Students must be taught to be responsible and take ownership for their education. Personalized learning environments are significant when it comes to establishing schools where students can thrive and be successful. Working with teachers who understand the importance of building relationships cannot be overemphasized. We must remain steadfast in our mission to prepare 21st century students in our country to compete in a global economy. Failing to do so will be detrimental to not only the individual child, but to our future as a nation.

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Seven Levels of Accountability for Student Success

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With No Child Left Behind (NCLB) off the table for at least 32 states in the U.S., accountability measures will be left to states and local school systems. NCLB has been clear about closing achievement gaps between groups of students considered at risk.

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An Overview Of Cooperative Learning

David W Johnson and Roger T Johnson

Without the cooperation of its members society cannot survive, and the society of man has survived because the cooperativeness of its members made survival possible.... It was not an advantageous individual here and there who did so, but the group. In human societies the individuals who are most likely to survive are those who are best enabled to do so by their group.

(Ashley Montagu, 1965)

How students interact with each another is a neglected aspect of instruction. Much training time is devoted to helping teachers arrange appropriate interactions between students and materials (i.e., textbooks, curriculum programs) and some time is spent on how teachers should interact with students, but how students should interact with one another is relatively ignored. It should not be. How teachers structure student-student interaction patterns has a lot to say about how well students learn, how they feel about school and the teacher, how they feel about each other, and how much self-esteem they have.

In the mid-1960s, cooperative learning was relatively unknown and largely ignored by educators. Elementary, secondary, and university teaching was dominated by competitive and individualistic learning. Cultural resistance to cooperative learning was based on social Darwinism, with its premise that students must be taught to survive in a "dog-eat-dog" world, and the myth of "rugged individualism" underlying the use of individualistic learning. While competition dominated educational thought, it was being challenged by individualistic learning largely based on B. F. Skinner's work on programmed learning and behavioral modification. Educational practices and thought, however, have changed. Cooperative learning is now an accepted and often the preferred instructional procedure at all levels of education. Cooperative learning is presently used in schools and universities in every part of the world, in every subject area, and with every age student. It is difficult to find a text on instructional methods, a teacher's journal, or instructional materials that do not discuss cooperative learning. Materials on cooperative learning have been translated into dozens of languages. Cooperative learning is now an accepted and highly recommended instructional procedure.

Definition of Cooperative Learning

Students' learning goals may be structured to promote cooperative, competitive, or individualistic efforts. In every classroom, instructional activities are aimed at accomplishing goals and are conducted under a goal structure. A learning goal is a desired future state of demonstrating competence or mastery in the subject area being studied. The goal structure specifies the ways in which students will interact with each other and the teacher during the instructional session. Each goal structure has its place (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1999). In the ideal classroom, all students would learn how to work cooperatively with others, compete for fun and enjoyment, and work autonomously on their own. The teacher decides which goal structure to implement within each lesson. The most important goal structure, and the one that should be used the majority of the time in learning situations, is cooperation.

Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals. Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and beneficial to all other group members. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning. It may be contrasted with competitive (students work against each other to achieve an academic goal such as a grade of "A" that only one or a few students can attain) andindividualistic (students work by themselves to accomplish learning goals unrelated to those of the other students) learning. In cooperative and individualistic learning, you evaluate student efforts on a criteria-referenced basis while in competitive learning you grade students on a norm-referenced basis. While there are limitations on when and where you may use competitive and individualistic learning appropriately, you may structure any learning task in any subject area with any curriculum cooperatively.

Theorizing on social interdependence began in the early 1900s, when one of the founders of the Gestalt School of Psychology, Kurt Koffka, proposed that groups were dynamic wholes in which the interdependence among members could vary. One of his colleagues, Kurt Lewin refined Koffka's notions in the 1920s and 1930s while stating that (a) the essence of a group is the interdependence among members (created by common goals) which results in the group being a "dynamic whole" so that a change in the state of any member or subgroup changes the state of any other member or subgroup, and (b) an intrinsic state of tension within group members motivates movement toward the accomplishment of the desired common goals. For interdependence to exist, there must be more than one person or entity involved, and the persons or entities must have impact on each other in that a change in the state of one causes a change in the state of the others. From the work of Lewin's students and colleagues, such as Ovisankian, Lissner, Mahler, and Lewis, it may be concluded that it is the drive for goal accomplishment that motivates cooperative and competitive behavior.

In the late 1940s, one of Lewin's graduate students, Morton Deutsch, extended Lewin's reasoning about social interdependence and formulated a theory of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1949, 1962). Deutsch conceptualized three types of social interdependence-positive, negative, and none. Deutsch's basic premise was that the type of interdependence structured in a situation determines how individuals interact with each other which, in turn, largely determines outcomes. Positive interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative interdependence tends to result in oppositional or contrient interaction, and no interdependence results in an absence of interaction. Depending on whether individuals promote or obstruct each other's goal accomplishments, there is substitutability, cathexis, and inducibility. The relationships between the type of social interdependence and the interaction pattern it elicits is assumed to be bidirectional. Each may cause the other. Deutsch's theory has served as a major conceptual structure for this area of inquiry since 1949.

Types Of Cooperative Learning

Formal Cooperative Learning

Formal cooperative learning consists of students working together, for one class period to several weeks, to achieve shared learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008). In formal cooperative learning groups the teachers' role includes (see Figure 4):

1. Making preinstructional decisions. Teachers (a) formulate both academic and social skills objectives, (b) decide on the size of groups, (c) choose a method for assigning students to groups, (d) decide which roles to assign group members, (e) arrange the room, and (f) arrange the materials students need to complete the assignment. In these preinstructional decisions, the social skills objectives specify the interpersonal and small group skills students are to learn. By assigning students roles, role interdependence is established. The way in which materials are distributed can create resource interdependence. The arrangement of the room can create environmental interdependence and provide the teacher with easy access to observe each group, which increases individual accountability and provides data for group processing.

2. Explaining the instructional task and cooperative structure.Teachers (a) explain the academic assignment to students, (b) explain the criteria for success, (c) structure positive interdependence, (d) structure individual accountability, (e) explain the behaviors (i.e., social skills) students are expected to use, and (f) emphasize intergroup cooperation (this eliminates the possibility of competition among students and extends positive goal interdependence to the class as a whole). Teachers may also teach the concepts and strategies required to complete the assignment. By explaining the social skills emphasized in the lesson, teachers operationalize (a) the social skill objectives of the lesson and (b) the interaction patterns (such as oral rehearsal and jointly building conceptual frameworks) teachers wish to create.

3. Monitoring students' learning and intervening to provide assistance in (a) completing the task successfully or (b) using the targeted interpersonal and group skills effectively.While conducting the lesson, teachers monitor each learning group and intervene when needed to improve taskwork and teamwork. Monitoring the learning groups creates individual accountability; whenever a teacher observes a group, members tend to feel accountable to be constructive members. In addition, teachers collect specific data on promotive interaction, the use of targeted social skills, and the engagement in the desired interaction patterns. This data is used to intervene in groups and to guide group processing.

4. Assessing students' learning and helping students process how well their groups functioned. Teachers (a) bring closure to the lesson, (b) assess and evaluate the quality and quantity of student achievement, (c) ensure students carefully discuss how effectively they worked together (i.e., process the effectiveness of their learning groups), (d) have students make a plan for improvement, and (e) have students celebrate the hard work of group members. The assessment of student achievement highlights individual and group accountability (i.e., how well each student performed) and indicates whether the group achieved its goals (i.e., focusing on positive goal interdependence). The group celebration is a form of reward interdependence. The feedback received during group processing is aimed at improving the use of social skills and is a form of individual accountability. Discussing the processes the group used to function, furthermore, emphasizes the continuous improvement of promotive interaction and the patterns of interaction need to maximize student learning and retention.

Informal Cooperative Learning

Informal cooperative learning consists of having students work together to achieve a joint learning goal in temporary, ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008). During a lecture, demonstration, or film, informal cooperative learning can be used to focus student attention on the material to be learned, set a mood conducive to learning, help set expectations as to what will be covered in a class session, ensure that students cognitively process and rehearse the material being taught, summarize what was learned and precue the next session, and provide closure to an instructional session. The teacher's role for using informal cooperative learning to keep students more actively engaged intellectually entails having focused discussions before and after the lesson (i.e., bookends) and interspersing pair discussions throughout the lesson. Two important aspects of using informal cooperative learning groups are to (a) make the task and the instructions explicit and precise and (b) require the groups to produce a specific product (such as a written answer). The procedure is as follows.

1. Introductory Focused Discussion: Teachers assign students to pairs or triads and explain (a) the task of answering the questions in a four to five minute time period and (b) the positive goal interdependence of reaching consensus. The discussion task is aimed at promoting advance organizing of what the students know about the topic to be presented and establishing expectations about what the lecture will cover. Individual accountability is ensured by the small size of the group. A basic interaction pattern of eliciting oral rehearsal, higher-level reasoning, and consensus building is required.

2. Intermittent Focused Discussions: Teachers divide the lecture into 10 to 15 minute segments. This is about the length of time a motivated adult can concentrate on information being presented. After each segment, students are asked to turn to the person next to them and work cooperatively in answering a question (specific enough so that students can answer it in about three minutes) that requires students to cognitively process the material just presented. The procedure is:

a. Each student formulates his or her answer.

b. Students share their answer with their partner.

c. Students listen carefully to their partner's answer.

d. The pairs create a new answer that is superior to each member's initial formulation by integrating the two answers, building on each other's thoughts, and synthesizing.

The question may require students to:

a. Summarize the material just presented.

b. Give a reaction to the theory, concepts, or information presented.

c. Predict what is going to be presented next; hypothesize.

d. Solve a problem.

e. Relate material to past learning and integrate it into conceptual frameworks.

f. Resolve conceptual conflict created by presentation.

Teachers should ensure that students are seeking to reach an agreement on the answers to the questions (i.e., ensure positive goal interdependence is established), not just share their ideas with each other. Randomly choose two or three students to give 30 second summaries of their discussions. Such individual accountabilityensures that the pairs take the tasks seriously and check each other to ensure that both are prepared to answer. Periodically, the teacher should structure a discussion of how effectively the pairs are working together (i.e., group processing). Group celebrations add reward interdependence to the pairs.

3. Closure Focused Discussion: Teachers give students an ending discussion task lasting four to five minutes. The task requires students to summarize what they have learned from the lecture and integrate it into existing conceptual frameworks. The task may also point students toward what the homework will cover or what will be presented in the next class session. This provides closure to the lecture.

Informal cooperative learning ensures students are actively involved in understanding what is being presented. It also provides time for teachers to move around the class listening to what students are saying. Listening to student discussions can give instructors direction and insight into how well students understand the concepts and material being as well as increase the individual accountability of participating in the discussions.

Cooperative Base Groups

Cooperative base groups are long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable membership (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008). Members' primary responsibilities are to (a) ensure all members are making good academic progress (i.e., positive goal interdependence) (b) hold each other accountable for striving to learn (i.e., individual accountability), and (c) provide each other with support, encouragement, and assistance in completing assignments (i.e., promotive interaction). In order to ensure the base groups function effectively, periodically teachers should teach needed social skills and have the groups process how effectively they are functioning. Typically, cooperative base groups are heterogeneous in membership (especially in terms of achievement motivation and task orientation), meet regularly (for example, daily or biweekly), and last for the duration of the class (a semester or year) or preferably for several years. The agenda of the base group can include academic support tasks (such as ensuring all members have completed their homework and understand it or editing each other's essays), personal support tasks (such as getting to know each other and helping each other solve nonacademic problems), routine tasks (such as taking attendance), and assessment tasks (such as checking each other's understanding of the answers to test questions when the test is first taken individually and then retaken in the base group).

The teacher's role in using cooperative base groups is to (a) form heterogeneous groups of four (or three), (b) schedule a time when they will regularly meet (such as beginning and end of each class session or the beginning and end of each week), (c) create specific agendas with concrete tasks that provide a routine for base groups to follow when they meet, (d) ensure the five basic elements of effective cooperative groups are implemented, and (e) have students periodically process the effectiveness of their base groups.

The longer a cooperative group exists, the more caring their relationships will tend to be, the greater the social support they will provide for each other, the more committed they will be to each other's success, and the more influence members will have over each other. Permanent cooperative base groups provide the arena in which caring and committed relationships can be created that provide the social support needed to improve attendance, personalize the educational experience, increase achievement, and improve the quality of school life.

Integrated Use Of All Three Types Of Cooperative Learning

These three types of cooperative learning may be used together (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008). A typical class session may begin with a base group meeting, which is followed by a short lecture in which informal cooperative learning is used. The lecture is followed by a formal cooperative learning lesson. Near the end of the class session another short lecture may be delivered with the use of informal cooperative learning. The class ends with a base group meeting.

Basic Elements of Cooperation

Not all groups are cooperative (Johnson & F. Johnson, 2009). Placing people in the same room, seating them together, telling them they are a group, does not mean they will cooperate effectively. To be cooperative, to reach the full potential of the group, five essential elements need to be carefully structured into the situation: positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, promotive interaction, appropriate use of social skills, and group processing (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). Mastering the basic elements of cooperation allows teachers to:

1. Take existing lessons, curricula, and courses and structure them cooperatively.

2. Tailor cooperative learning lessons to unique instructional needs, circumstances, curricula, subject areas, and students.

3. Diagnose the problems some students may have in working together and intervene to increase the effectiveness of the student learning groups.

The first and most important element is positive interdependence. Teachers must give a clear task and a group goal so students believe they "sink or swim together." Positive interdependenceexists when group members perceive that they are linked with each other in a way that one cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds. If one fails, all fail. Group members realize, therefore, that each person's efforts benefit not only him- or herself, but all other group members as well. Positive interdependence creates a commitment to other people's success as well as one's own and is the heart of cooperative learning. If there is no positive interdependence, there is no cooperation.

The second essential element of cooperative learning is individual and group accountability. The group must be accountable for achieving its goals. Each member must be accountable for contributing his or her share of the work (which ensures that no one "hitch-hikes" on the work of others). The group has to be clear about its goals and be able to measure (a) its progress in achieving them and (b) the individual efforts of each of its members. Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual student is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual in order to ascertain who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in completing the assignment. The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her right. Students learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals.

The third essential component of cooperative learning is promotive interaction, preferably face-to-face. Promotive interactionoccurs when members share resources and help, support, encourage, and praise each other's efforts to learn. Cooperative learning groups are both an academic support system (every student has someone who is committed to helping him or her learn) and a personal support system (every student has someone who is committed to him or her as a person). There are important cognitive activities and interpersonal dynamics that can only occur when students promote each other's learning. This includes orally explaining how to solve problems, discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, teaching one's knowledge to classmates, and connecting present with past learning. It is through promoting each other's learning face-to-face that members become personally committed to each other as well as to their mutual goals.

The fourth essential element of cooperative learning is teaching students the required interpersonal and small group skills. In cooperative learning groups students are required to learn academic subject matter (taskwork) and also to learn the interpersonal and small group skills required to function as part of a group (teamwork). Cooperative learning is inherently more complex than competitive or individualistic learning because students have to engage simultaneously in taskwork and teamwork. Group members must know how to provide effective leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management, and be motivated to use the prerequisite skills. Teachers have to teach teamwork skills just as purposefully and precisely as teachers do academic skills. Since cooperation and conflict are inherently related, the procedures and skills for managing conflicts constructively are especially important for the long-term success of learning groups. Procedures and strategies for teaching students social skills may be found in Johnson (2009) and Johnson and F. Johnson (2009).

The fifth essential component of cooperative learning is group processing. Group processing exists when group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships. Groups need to describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change. Continuous improvement of the process of learning results from the careful analysis of how members are working together.

These five elements are essential to all cooperative systems, no matter what their size. When international agreements are made and when international efforts to achieve mutual goals (such as environmental protection) occur, these five elements must be carefully implemented and maintained.

The Validating Research

Amount And Characteristics Of Research

The study of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts is commonly recognized as one of the oldest fields of research in social psychology. In the late 1800's Triplett in the United States, Turner in England, and Mayer in Germany conducted a series of studies on the factors associated with competitive performance. Since then over 750 studies have been conducted on the relative merits of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts and the conditions under which each is appropriate. This is one of the largest bodies of research within psychology and education.

An extensive literature search was conducted aimed at identifying all the available studies from published and nonpublished sources. Seven-hundred-fifty-four studies contained enough data to compute an effect size (there are many studies from which an effect size could not be computed) (Johnson & Johnson, 1989). The research on social interdependence, furthermore, has an external validity and a generalizability rarely found in the social sciences. The more variations in places, people, and procedures the research can withstand and still yield the same findings, the more externally valid the conclusions. The research has been conducted over twelve decades by many different researchers with markedly different theoretical and practical orientations working in different settings and countries. A wide variety of research tasks, ways of structuring social interdependence, and measures of the dependent variables have been used. Participants in the studies varied from ages three to post-college adults and have come from different economic classes and cultural backgrounds. The studies were conducted with different durations, lasting from one session to 100 sessions or more. Research on social interdependence has been conducted in numerous cultures in North America (with Caucasian, Black-American, Native-American, and Hispanic populations) and countries from North, Central, and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Africa. The research on social interdependence includes both theoretical and demonstration studies conducted in educational, business, and social service organizations. The diversity of these studies gives social interdependence theory wide generalizability and considerable external validity.

Promotive, oppositional, and no interaction have differential effects on the outcomes of the situation (see Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). The research has focused on numerous outcomes, which may be subsumed within the broad and interrelated categories of effort to achieve, quality of relationships, and psychological health (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005) (see Table 1 and Figure 2). Figure 1 shows the relationships among the outcomes.

Table 1

Mean Effect Sizes For Impact Of Social Interdependence On Dependent Variables

ConditionsAchievementInterpersonal AttractionSocial SupportSelf-Esteem

Total Studies

Coop vs. Comp0.670.670.620.58

Coop vs. Ind0.640.600.700.44

Comp vs. Ind0.300.08-0.13-0.23

High Quality Studies

Coop vs. Comp0.880.820.830.67

Coop vs. Ind0.610.620.720.45

Comp vs. Ind0.070.27-0.13-0.25

Note: Coop = Cooperation, Comp = Competition, Ind = Individualistic

Reprinted By Permission From: Johnson, D. W. & Johnson, R. (1989). Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research.Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company

Effort To Achieve

From Table 1 it may be seen that cooperation promotes considerable greater effort to achieve than do competitive or individualistic efforts. Effort exerted to achieve includes such variables as achievement and productivity, long-term retention, on-task behavior, use of higher-level reasoning strategies, generation of new ideas and solutions, transfer of what is learned within one situation to another, intrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, continuing motivation to learn, and positive attitudes toward learning and school. Overall, cooperation tends to promote higher achievement than competitive or individualistic efforts (effect-sizes = 0.67 and 0.64 respectively). The impact of cooperative learning on achievement means that if schools wish to prepare students to take proficiency tests to meet local and state standards, the use of cooperative learning should dominate instructional practice.

An important aspect of school life is engagement in learning. One indication of engagement in learning is time on task. Cooperators spent considerably more time on task than did competitors (effect size = 0.76) or students working individualistically (effect size = 1.17). In addition, students working cooperatively tended to be more involved in activities and tasks, attach greater importance to success, and engage in more on-task behavior and less apathetic, off-task, disruptive behaviors. Finally, cooperative experiences, compared with competitive and individualistic ones, have been found to promote more positive attitudes toward the task and the experience of working on the task (effect-sizes = 0.57 and 0.42 respectively).

Quality Of Relationships

Quality of relationships includes such variables as interpersonal attraction, liking, cohesion, esprit-de-corps, and social support. The degree of emotional bonding that exists among students has a profound effect on students' behavior. The more positive the relationships among students and between students and faculty, the lower the absenteeism and dropout rates and the greater the commitment to group goals, feelings of personal responsibility to the group, willingness to take on difficult tasks, motivation and persistence in working toward goal achievement, satisfaction and morale, willingness to endure pain and frustration on behalf of the group, willingness to defend the group against external criticism or attack, willingness to listen to and be influenced by colleagues, commitment to each other's professional growth and success, and productivity (Johnson & F. Johnson, 2009).

There are over 175 studies that have investigated the relative impact of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts on quality of relationships and another 106 studies on social support (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). As Table 2 shows, cooperation generally promotes greater interpersonal attraction among individuals than does competitive or individualistic efforts (effect sizes = 0.67 and 0.60 respectively). Cooperative experiences tend to promote greater social support than does competitive (effect-size = 0.62) or individualistic (effect-size = 0.70) efforts. Stronger effects are found for peer support than for superior (teacher) support. The high-quality studies tend to have even more powerful effects.

It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of these research results. Friends are a developmental advantage (see Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). There is a close association between antisocial behavior and rejection by the normal peer group. Rejected children tend to be deficient in a number of social-cognitive skills, including peer group entry, perception of peer group norms, response to provocation, and interpretation of prosocial interactions. Among children referred to child guidance clinics, 30 to 75 percent (depending on age) are reported by their parents to experience peer difficulties. Moreover, children referred for psychological treatment have fewer friends and less contact with them than nonreferred children, their friendships are significantly less stable over time, and their understanding of the reciprocities and intimacies involved in friendships is less mature. Peer group acceptance and friendships may be built through the extensive use of cooperative learning.

Psychological Health

Asley Montagu (1966) was fond of saying that with few exceptions the solitary animal in any species is an abnormal creature. Similarly, Karen Horney (1937) stated that the neurotic individual is someone who is inappropriately competitive and, therefore, unable to cooperate with others. Montagu and Horney recognized that the essence of psychological health is the ability to develop and maintain cooperative relationships. More specifically, psychological health is the ability (cognitive capacities, motivational orientations, and social skills) to build, maintain, and appropriately modify interdependent relationships with others to succeed in achieving goals (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). People who are unable to do so often (a) become depressed, anxious, frustrated, and lonely, (b) tend to feel afraid, inadequate, helpless, hopeless, and isolated, and (c) rigidly cling to unproductive and ineffective ways of coping with adversity.

With our students and colleagues, we have conducted a series of studies relating cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts and attitudes to various indices of psychological health (see Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). The samples studied included middle-class junior-high students, middle-class high school seniors, high-school age juvenile prisoners, adult prisoners, Olympic ice-hockey players, adult step-couples, and business executives in China. The diversity of the samples studied and the variety of measures of psychological health provide considerable generalizability of the results of the studies. A strong relationship was found between cooperativeness and psychological health, a mixed picture was found with competitiveness and psychological health, and a strong relationship was found between an individualistic orientation and psychological pathology.

Finally, there is evidence that cooperation promotes more frequent use of higher level reasoning strategies than do competitive (effect size = 0.93) or individualistic (effect size = 0.97) efforts. Similarly, cooperation tends to promote more accurate perspective taking than do competitive (effect size = 0.61) or individualistic (effect size = 0.44) efforts. Thus, the more cooperative learning experiences students are involved in, the more mature their cognitive and moral decision making and the more they will tend to take other people's perspectives in account when making decisions.

Conclusions and Summary

Teachers who wish to use cooperative learning should ideally base their classroom practices on theory validated by research. The closer classroom practices are to validated theory, the more likely they will be effective. When more directly practice is connected to theory, furthermore, the more likely practice will be refined, upgraded, and improved over the years. There are, however, few classroom practices that are directly based on validated theory. The close relationship between theory, research, and practice makes cooperative learning somewhat unique. It also creates a set of issues for teachers using cooperative learning.

The first issue is understanding the nature of social interdependence. Social interdependence is created when goals are structured so that the accomplishment of a person's goal is affected by others' actions. The interdependence may be positive (which results in individuals working cooperatively to achieve their mutual goals) or negative (which results in individuals competing to see who will achieve the goal). The absence of interdependence indicates no connection between people's attempts to achieve their goals. In cooperative situations, students' actions substitute for each other, students are inducible, and a positive cathexis is created toward other's actions. In competitive situations, the opposite psychological processes may be found. The fundamental premise of social interdependence theory is that the way in which goals are structured determines how individuals interact, and those interaction patterns create outcomes. Positive goal interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative goal interdependence tends to result in oppositional interaction, and no interdependence tends to result in no interaction.

The second issue is understanding the research validating social interdependence theory. There are hundreds of studies indicating that cooperation, compared to competitive and individualistic efforts, tends to result in greater effort to achieve, more positive relationships, and greater psychological health. The diversity of this research provides considerable generalizabiity to the findings.

The third issue is to understand the five basic elements that make cooperation work. There is nothing magical about putting students in groups. Students can compete with groupmates, students can work individualistically while ignoring groupmates, or students can work cooperatively with groupmates. In order to structure cooperative learning effectively, teachers need to understand how tostructure positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, appropriate use of social skills, and group processing into learning situations.

The fourth issue is to understand the flexibility and many faces of cooperative learning. When the five basic elements may be effectively implemented in formal cooperative learning situations (formal cooperative learning may be used to structure most learning situations), informal cooperative learning situations (informal cooperative learning may be used to make didactic lessons cooperative), and cooperative base groups (which are used to personalize a class and the school). Together they provide an integrated system for instructional organization and design (as well as classroom management). When utilizing these three types of cooperative learning, any learning situations in any subject area with any age students and with any curriculum can be structured cooperatively.

References

Deutsch, M. (1949). A theory of cooperation and competition. Human Relations, 2, 129-152.

Deutsch, M. (1962). Cooperation and trust: Some theoretical notes. In M. Jones (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation, (pp. 275-319). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Horney, K. (1937). The neurotic personality of our time. New York: Norton.

Johnson, D. W. (2003). Social interdependence: The interrelationships among theory, research, and practice. American Psychologist, 58(11), 931-945.

Johnson, D.W. (2009). Reaching out: Interpersonal effectivenessand self- actualization (10th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Johnson, D.W., & Johnson, F. (2009). Joining together: Group theory and group skills (10th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Johnson D. W., & Johnson, R. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: interaction Book Company.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1999). Learning together and alone: Cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning (5th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Montagu, A. (1966). On being human. New York: Hawthorn.

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What is Cooperative Learning? - Cooperative Learning Institute

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David W Johnson and Roger T Johnson Without the cooperation of its members society cannot survive, and the society of man has survived because the cooperativeness of its members made survival possible.... It was not an advantageous individual here and there who did so, but the group.

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Theories on working together

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Lev Vygotsky and Social Learning Theories

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Social learning theories help us to understand how people learn in social contexts (learn from each other) and informs us on how we, as teachers, construct active learning communities. Lev Vygotsky (1962), a Russian teacher and psychologist, first stated that we learn through our interactions and communications with others.

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Participation usually means students speaking in class: answer and ask questions, make comments, and join in discussions. Students who do not participate in those ways mentioned above are often considered to be passive and are generally penalized when participation is graded (Jacob & chase, 1992).

Participation in classroom:

To engage the students in Participation in a classroom is an important method of teaching. It provides the students opportunity to receive input from fellow students, to apply their knowledge and to enhance public speaking skills. From the Participation of teachers can get a more accurate idea that what is the understanding level of students about the concept being taught (Maznevski 1996).

Engagement in classroom participation:

Engagement within the learning environment generally refers to the relationship between the learner and the content or topic being pursued. While the highest levels of engagement are seen when the learner is passionate about the topic, significant levels of engagement can be achieved through a variety strategies that actively involve the learner in activities and environments that make learning both interesting and challenging. Engagement with content leads to higher levels of learning (Whelan, C.1997).

Our experience reveals that for many students class participation is a big problem. Teachers often complain about student's passive behavior in class participation. But up till now there has been a very little research into the promotion of class participation. But studies have been conducted in social scial sciences and business studies (e.g., Egan 1996, Hyde & Ruth 2002, Litz 2003).

More often low self-esteem, anxiety, and general lack of confidence is considered responsible for student's non-participation in the classroom (Kennedy, 1997; Thomson, 2001).

Student Participation:

Lack of participation could be due to multiple factors. My first thought was that student's reluctance could be due to lack of understanding, but it could very well be that he does not feel connected to the curriculum; he cannot relate to it. Students who are empowered by their school experiences develop ability, confidence, and motivation to succeed academically. They participate competently in instruction as a result of having developed a confident cultural identity as well as appropriate school-based knowledge and interactional structures (Cummins, 1983).

Active learning

Bonwell, C.C., and J. A. Eison (1991) suggest that Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process. Active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing. The core elements of active learning are student activity and engagement in the learning process.

Adopting instructional practices that engage students in the learning process is the defining feature of active learning. The importance of student engagement is widely accepted and there is considerable evidence to support the effectiveness of student engagement on a broad range of learning outcomes.

Importance of language:

Language is a mean of communication by which human beings express their feelings, emotions and fulfill their needs.

According to Tariq Rehman, 1996:

Language is a coin and what it buys in the market is "power". Higher status and attractive jobs are attached with English language. The demand for learning a language is linked to empowerment. So English language is promoted in university education, so that the students can attain their goals. But this prevailing of language in higher education is not as simple as it seems because all the students have diverse demographics which do not equally support the speaking of English in classroom.

The language barrier becomes an additional hurdle in student's classroom participation. kachru (1992 pp.66-67) found that poor pronunciation and Accent problem stops many students to participate in classroom discussion.

Kachru, (1995) points out majority of Asian students study through the medium of English but they are not proficient enough in English and reflect their regional varities of English while speaking.

Sociolinguistics view of language:

Sociolinguists are of the view that individual differences in oral communication among students are dependent upon social variables like age, status, ethnicity, gender etc. when students step in classroom, their pattern of language is already influenced by these factors (ScottHYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#scott95", 1995).

In he earlier studies, student's communicative competence was considered as an important set of rules by learning these rules they can comprehend and participate in classroom context. If the student fulfills the specific requirements about language use, he can communicate effectively with class fellows and teachers. If they don't comprehend the class room communication system their learning is affected and they learn comparatively less. Due to language problem they participate passively in classroom activities. Difference between home language and classroom language also reflect upon development of student's communicative competence. If these both languages are identical somehow, students are motivated to learn literacy events taken place in classroom (Morrow, HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#morrow93"1993; van Kleeck, HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck90"1990HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck90", HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck90"1995HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck90", HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck90"1998; van Kleeck HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck87"&HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck87" Schuele, HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#vankleeck87"1987; Whitehurst HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#whitehurst98"&HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#whitehurst98" Lonigan, HYPERLINK "http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/wilkinson/#whitehurst98"1998).

Vygotsky's social constructivist theory played a major role in language learning theories. He is of the views that all learning is socially integrated.

Motivation:

The process of learning begins when an individual faces various social situations. These situations provide certain type of experience to the individual as the nature of the situation, which further enables the individual to behave in a certain way. All of these social situations give some sort if instigation, which act as motives and drivers for the individual. These motives and drives may be evident in the form of behavior of the individual concerned. Such kind of behavior undertakes the purposes which are indirectly dominated by the drives and motives. Therefore, a motive may be said as the base of the behavior of the individual, which works as internal factor to make individual behave in the desired direction.

A motive is an internal factor that arouses, direct and integrates a person's behavior. It is not observed directly but inferred from his behavior or simply assumed to exist in order to explain his behavior (Marry, 1964, p.7).

These motives not only describe the desired goal but also the role of the individuals in the concerning social situation. This undertakes individual's social as well as psychological condition.

Motivation is a general term used to refer to any arousal of an individual to goal-directed behavior. The term motivation when applied to human is a Social-psychological concept and motivation cannot be considered apart from the individual's conception of himself, his social status and roles, and the existence of society and culture which define situations and appropriate and desirable behavior.

(Theodorson and Theodorsm 1969, p.26)

Motivatin & participation:

Studies have linked motivation and participation to students achievement (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). Students who gave importance to learning the material and have greater expectancy to be successful in a course are more likely to achieve at higher levels (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000).Learners with a more positive attitude towards lifelong learning tend to be more persistent, more self-directed, and more self-confident (de la Harpe & Radloff, 2000). They efficiently use cognitive strategies to maximize their learning (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1992).

Achievement Motivation:

Achievement motivation is an important determinant of aspiration, effort and persistence when an individual expects that his performance will be evaluated in relation to some standard of excellence (Sill 1972, p. 27).

Relationship between Performance and Achievement motivation:

Atkinson and Connor (1966) conducted a study to find out the relationship between the task performance of students and the strength of their achievement motivation. The texture of the study revealed that the students with stronger motives to achieve success and avoid failure show greater performance for difficult risks and more efficient and faster tasks performance for difficult risks and efficient and faster tasks performance than those who had relatively weak motive to achieve success and avoid failure. The finding of this study suggests that stronger achievement motives determine the degree of the performance of the individuals which struggling to achieve their certain desired goals In the same token (Atkinson, & O'Conner. 1996).

Achievement goal theory:

Various kinds of purposes of students towards participating in class room activities are based on their sentiments, thinking, performance and attainment according to achievement goal theory (Midgley, 2002; Ames, 1992).

Most of the researchers emphasized on two major types of goals:

Mastery goal: it enhances competence in the students.

Performance goal: it concentrates on acting upon that competence.

Both of these goals may be attained through the personal goal of the students (Urdan 1997; Kaplan, Middleton, Urdan, & Midgley, 2002).

Personal Goals

The competence of the students might be improved through their personal goal and that competence is based on their own prior performance instead of the other's (Maehr, 1984; Ames, 1992; Nicholls, 1989).

Kaplan et al., (2002) argue that students of full devotion for the sake of being proficient in some specific skills may show their mastery goal.

Both performance-approach goals and performance-avoid goals are ultimately depend on students' personal goal (Skaalvik, 1997; Middleton & Midgley, 1997).

Diligence, attempts and efficacy beliefs are related with performance approach goal. However, refusal from participating in class room for the sake of achieving some tasks is often linked to performance-avoid goals (Elliot, McGregor, & Gable, 1999; Kaplan et al., 2002; Urdan, Ryan, Anderman, & Gheen, 2002).

Adopting difficult tasks, good learning strategies, questing for something at the time of need, positive behaviour according to various tasks and fascinating class room atmosphere are the good consequences which could be attained through mastery goals

( Ames, 1992; Urdan, 1997; Kaplan et al., 2002).

Classroom Goal Structures:

Ames (1992) stated that according to goal theory, class room, the nature of the students and their beliefs may affect the motivational factor of the students.

Class rooms with more performance- focused may put negative impact on students than that of a normal class room. Negative results may include various types of cheating and different kind of misbehavior in the classrooms (Kaplan et al., 2002; Turner et al., 2002; Urdan et al., 2002).

Multiple Goals

Students may have multiple goals along with other various types of goals as some researchers have noticed this in different ways. This is compound of different sorts of personal goals and it is therefore, called multiple goals. A few researchers indicated that multiple goals may have positive or negative effect as well (Meece & Holt, 1993; Pintrich, 2000; Wentzel, 1991)

Teacher Instruction and Achievement Goal Structures:

The students perceive their goal structures according to the instructions of their teachers (Ames, 1992). Different teachers give instructions according to their vision. Middle class teachers detail their students according to their knowledge and in the same manners teachers of all classes motivate and direct their students in their own way.

Turner et al., (1998) gave a brilliant idea about motivation of the students that what teacher says and in which manner, is main pillar among students to be motivated.

The Association between Personal and Environmental Factors

Covertly or overtly, the motivation of the students depends upon their behaviour as individuals as they treat in the classroom whether they obey the instructions or demonstrate ignorantly (e.g., Elliot et al., 1999; Pintrich, 2000; Patrick, Ryan, & Pintrich, 1999).

Most of the researches try to inquire in learning process in the class room but they seldom effort for knowing the atmosphere of interaction among students that how much differently they behave in the same classroom (Patrick et al., 2001; Turner et al., 1998, 2002 )

Aspect of person-in-context undertakes the responsibility to know how individuals and environments influence on each other (Lemos, 2001; Vauras, Salonen ; Magnusson & Stattin,1998).

Socio-cultural theories are used to assay the process of children being socialized in the classroom and in the systems of meanings along with the way they try to take these meanings by their own as well (Brown & Campione, 1994).

` According to Rogoff, (1990), pint of view, the child and social world are essencial for each other.

Factors affecting students' participation in the class and suggestions as well:

More of the students appear to have an inactive role in the class room participation (Weaver & Qi, 2005).

Synthesis, evaluation, analysis and application are the more important things which are to be developed during class room participation (Tinto, 1997); (ACER, 2008).

Weaver & Qi (2005) argues that in large class room size, most of the students maintain their secrecy as well and have less opportunity to participate in the class room activities.

The power of the instructor (Howard & Baird, 2000), gender and the age discrimination of the pupils (Howard, James & Taylor, 2002), the cognitive level towards class room(Chung, 2000;Tinto 1997) and also the sentiments of the students (Chung, 2000;Howard et al., 2002) are such factors which have significant influence on the interaction amongst students in the class room.

The societal behaviour of students and teachers as well has a great effect on class room participation (Weaver and Qi (2005).

The students get frightened by the instructor and lose their confidence to participate in different kind of activities in the class room (Dallimore, Hertenstein & Platt, 2004;Chung, 2000).

To lessen the gap among students and teachers and to provide student-friendly atmosphere enhance the degree of participation in various activities in the class (Weaver & Qi, 2005; Auster & MacRone, 1994). It means, the more the social links among student-teacher and among student-student, the more student-centered atmosphere there will be.

The participation in the class room increases the reasoning of the students, critical thinking and creativity skills in them as well. (Tinto, 2002; Foster et al., 2009; Wilson & Fowler, 2005). The best learning environment and participation could be increased through demolishing the factors like uncertainty and anxiety in the class room (Sim, 2006).

McInnis (2001) suggested that the participation of the students could be increased in the class room through redesigning our curriculum and different types of courses in a significant manner which may prove a mile stone in engaging different groups of students with one another. Tinto (1997), related class room with academic and social interchange and by keeping this point of in mind, even a lay man can propose the idea of producing the social links among students with other students and with teachers also.

Confidence & Classroom participation:

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines 'confidence' as the 'mental attitude of trusting in or relying on; firm trust, reliance, faith, assured expectation, assurance arising from reliance (on oneself, circumstances, etc.)'. In the literature on the topic, confidence has been defined as a trait (Bernstein et al, 1994; McKinney, 1960) and as a situationally specific concept (Brodie, Reeve & Whittaker, 1995; Champion, 1993).

Confidence is "assuredness in oneself and in one's capabilities" (Erwin & Kelly, 1985, p.395).

In relation to social interaction it has been defined by Manning & Ray (1993) as "calmness and assertiveness during social interaction" (p.180).

Manning & Ray (1993) found confidence as being the opposite of shyness and as situational.

Some researchers referred to self- efficacy as confidence (Wanberg, Watt & Rumsey, 1996) whereas, Bandura, originator of the term "self-efficacy" wrote in 1997, that confidence and self- efficacy are not the same. Confidence has been thought to be part of self-esteem or to be synonymous with the concept of self-esteem (Wells & Marwell, 1976), whereas Coopersmith (1967) argued that self-confidence was a term used to describe the "subjective state" of self-esteem and reported that "an individual who expresses negative attitudes towards himself thereby indicates that he has little confidence in his abilities to deal effectively with the events that confront him."

Lawrence (1999) defined self-esteem as confidence writing "confidence is self-esteem in practice and has two aspects:

Confidence in abilities

Confidence in personality

Owens (1993) viewed self-esteem as being comprised of general self-confidence and general self-deprecation; he explained general self-confidence in terms of positive self-evaluation.

Indeed, this lack of confidence' (DFES, 2002, p.1) on the part of large numbers of students was considered specifically in recent policy documents concerned with the drive to enhance basic skills. It is, certainly, a crucial factor in learning at all levels.

Reisenberger (2002) suggests that although there are still situational and institutional barriers for student's participation in the classroom to be overcome more attention need to be directed towards dispositional barriers, particularly factors linked to learner's confidence.

Students feel shyness when they are asked to take part in classroom (Fassinger 1995; CELT 1998).

Sometimes students show lack of confidence because of the fear that they may seem unintelligent to their fellows and teachers while answering the questions or presenting their point of view on an assigned topic and so they feel it comfortable to remain silent (CELT, 1998).

Thsee issues can sometimes be traced to a lack of participation by students (Howard & Henney 1998).

Many research work indicates that although the individual learner can affect his/her own level of confidence, tutors, peers, mentors and workplace supervisors can help increase the learner's confidence by providing support, encouragement, and constructive feedback. Such learning support needs to unpack meanings of confidence in task-specific contexts in order to overcome particular dispositional barriers.

Self confidence:

The students who feel shy and hesitate to ask the various questions in the class are assumed to have lower level of achievement motivation. Whereas those who do not feel this kind if hesitation are expected to have higher level of achievement motivation

Students' Personality Type and Attitudes towards Classroom Participation:

Personality is one of the affective factors that are equally important for explaining differential success among students. Extroversion is linked with risk-taking; introversion is considered under the concept of self-esteem (Brown, 2000).

Passive students: mean who do take part in class room activities frequently are often punished by the teachers. Overtly or covertly, their being passive in the class could be either because of their personality. Personality is two types as following:

Extrovert

Introvert

These types of personality affect classroom participation according to the situation.

Personality is also more important for learning process. Extrovert personality is linked with risk-taking where as introvert is associated with self-esteem. (Brown, 2000)

Similarly, Galvan and Fukada (1997/1998) put forth their experience of avoidance from participation in student-centered classroom because of personality factor. They also concluded that extroverts participated in the classroom more than introverts. Often students of introvert personality couldn't raise even a single question.

Extroverts are more interactive than that of introvert students in class room because introverts like to have few friends in the class but extroverts keep on enhancing their company (Myers, 1962).

Introverts often fail to achieve the norms of the academic requirements due to less participation in classroom (Barrett & Connot, 1986) as Carskadon (1978) concluded that extroverts, though have few thoughts, they act more than that of introverts who have more thinking power but act less than extroverts. Myers (1962), suggests that extroverts tend to prefer learning situations that afford interaction, while introverts tend to prefer small groups. Galvan and Fukada (1997/1998) found that extrovert students participated more than introverts. The participants who self-reported as having passive learners were least likely to initiate a question or volunteer an answer to a teacher's question. Additionally, knowledge of personal preferences can help teachers and administrators understand and predict student performance so they can restructure the situation to facilitate more student participation. Barrett and Connot (1986) found that introvert learners do not get involved in classroom activities and have lower academic achievement. Extrovert students usually produce more action with fewer thoughts whereas introvert students produce various thoughts with little action (Carskadon, 1978).

Constructivism of theory of classroom learning:

Constructivism theory of learning and knowledge emphasis upon the learner's active participation in constructing his own knowledge (Anderson, 1987; Jonassen, 1995; Resnick 1983, 1987; Schauble, 1990; von Glasersfeld, 1989, 1992). Constructivists consider that knowledge is gained when a learner uses his prior knowledge to understand the new information. So knowledge can be enhanced by instruction or guidance of teacher, but it is not a direct outcome of teacher's instruction. As the construction of knowledge is dependant upon the prior knowledge of student, so all students get the understanding from teacher's lecture according to his existing level of knowledge.

Social constructivist perspective:

Knowledge is socially constructed through collaborative efforts made by human beings (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Cole, 1985; 1-lewson, Kerby & Cook, 1995; Lave, 1988; Vygotsky, 1978). Knowledge can not be gained or a new concept is difficult to understand without its social context.

Classroom factors:

Tha construction of knowledge is also affected by classroom environment factors (Garner, 1990). A new concept is well understood by interaction with fellow students and teacher in classroom.

Student' Self-regulation of classroom behavior:

Self-regulation of cognition and behavior is an important aspect of student learning and academic performance in the classroom context (Corno & Mandinach, 1983; Corno & Rohrkemper, 1985). There are a variety of definitions of self-regulated learning, but three components seem especially important for classroom performance. First, self-regulated learning includes students' metacognitive strategies for planning, monitoring, and modifying their cognition (e.g., Brown, Bransford, Campione, & Ferrara, 1983; Corno, 1986; Zimmerman & Pons, 1986, 1988).

Students' management and control of their effort on classroom academic tasks has been proposed as another important component. For example, capable students who persist at a difficult task or block out distractors (i.e., noisy classmates) maintain their cognitive engagement in the task, enabling them to perform better (Corno, 1986; Corno & Rohrkemper, 1985). A third important aspect of self-regulated learning that some researchers have included in their conceptualization is the actual cognitive strategies that students use to learn, remember, and understand the material (Corno & Mandinach, 1983; Zimmerman & Pons, 1986, 1988).

Knowledge of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies is not sufficient to promote learners achievement; they also must be motivated to use the strategies as well as regulate their cognition and effort (Paris, Lipson, & Wixson, 1983; Pintrich, 1988, 1989; Pintrich, Cross, Kozma, & McKeachie, 1986). There are some classroom tasks that can motivate the students (cf., Corno & Rohrkemper, 1985; Malone, 1981), it is also evident to suggest that student's perceptions of the classroom and their individual motivational orientations and beliefs about learning are relevant to cognitive engagement and classroom participation and performance (e.g., Ames & Archer, 1988; Nolen, 1988).

General expectancy-value model of motivation (cf., Eccles, 1983; Pintrich, 1988, 1989):

This model presents three motivational components linked to the three different components of self-regulated learning.

An expectancy component, which includes students' beliefs about their ability to perform a task in the classroom:

The research suggests that students who believe they are capable engage in more metacognition, use more cognitive strategies, and are more likely to persist at a task than students who do not believe they can perform the task (e.g., Fincham & Cain, 1986; Paris & Oka, 1986; Schunk, 1985).

A value component, which includes students' goals and beliefs about the importance and interest of the task:

It includes students' goals for the task and their beliefs about the importance and interest of the task. This motivational component essentially concerns students' reasons for doing a task. The study recommends that students with a motivational orientation involving goals of mastery, learning, and challenge, as well as beliefs that the task is interesting and important, will participate in more meta-cognitive activity, more cognitive strategy use, and more effective effort management (e.g., Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Eccles, 1983; Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988; Nolen, 1988; Paris & Oka, 1986).

An affective component, which includes students' emotional reactions to the task:

It deals with students' affective or emotional reactions to the task. There are a number of affective reactions that might be relevant (e.g., anger, pride, guilt), but in a classroom

learning context one of the most important seems to be test anxiety (Wigfield & Eccles, 1989).

Effect of Socio-economic factor on classroom participation:

Socioeconomic status is positively correlated with both educational attainment and achievement. The higher the student's socioeconomic status, the greater his or her educational accomplishment is likely to be.

The national Longitudinal Studies revealed several direct positive relationships between educational success (classroom participation) and socioeconomic status. One such relationship was found between the student's socioeconomic statuses and their scores on various standardized tests administered as part of the study. One each test students from successively higher socioeconomic categories got better mean scores.

Students come to college/university with variety of talents and handicaps that predispose them to towards academic success or failure and as they move through academic institute they continue to be influenced by these factors and others that are beyond the control of educational institutions.

Family background and classroom participation:

Student's position in college and society are determined in large parts by their family background. Coleman (1996) and Jencks (1972) found that one-half to two third of student achievement variance is directly related to home variables such as socioeconomic level (Greenwood and Hickman, 1991, p. 287).

Some home environment factors that influence student achievement include social class of family, early home environment, parenting style, "type" of mother child interaction, effect of the mother working, parent involvement in school decisions and activities, family and student aspirations, and the number of children in the family (Rubin and Borgers, 1991). The more children in the family, the less time parents interact with each child.

Family and students aspirations for the future are another aspect of the influence of class, racial, or ethnic background. Parents who set high standards and have high aspirations for their children are more likely to have high-achieving children. James Coleman and colleagues found that black and white seniors had comparable aspirations; the difference was in taking the necessary steps to carry out their goals. Black students felt that they had less control over their environment and left their fate to luck and chance (coleman et al., 19666), though many lower-class black mothers find multiple strategies to encourage their children's academic achievement (Rosier, 1993).

Educational and social class background and classroom participation:

Educational and social class background is the most important factor in determining differences between students. In fact, Jencks findings indicate that family background accounts for more than one-half of the variation other in educational attainment. Regardless of the measure used -occupation, income, parent education-family socioeconomic status is a powerful predictor of academic performance.

Children succeed in large part because of their family background and what parents do to support their children in their education. Parenting style and parental expectations play a crucial role in setting the child, educational agenda. Guidelines about after - school and weekend activities, television watching, home- work and other school- related decisions give the child structure and help the child set goals (Dornbush and Ritter 1992; lee, Dedrick and Smith,1991). One of the most important ingredients in a child's success in school is the degree of what parental activities help or harm child's school achievement. Involvement of parents is shaped by their social financial resources, their opportunities to be involved, and their own orientation towards education.

Cultural effect on classroom participation:

Difference in cultural background does also have effect on perceptions about classroom participation. Japanese students show long silence in interpersonal dealings and protection of face in classroom as well (Winbush 1995). Chu & Kim (1999) found that Vietnamese students prefer to be right than to initiate the discussion.

According to Chu & Kin (1990) Concept of classroom participation among Asian students is different than other students. They consider the class participation just as answering the questions not to interact actively with fellow students and to pose questions. They are reluctant to comment on fellow's presentations. They always prefer one-sided feedback from the teacher rather than from whole class critique.

Dunphy (1998) found that western universities have their own social conventions that are not familiar to overseas students. Their social conventions also include the rules for classroom participation.

Parent's involvement in the educational process affects achievement:

Parent's involvement in the educational process also differs by social class. A great deal of research has focused on the "cultural capital" that students bring to institute from their family life. Some of this facilitates classroom learning; some does not (Bourdieu, 1977). In fact, social class can become a form of "cultural capital" lead to different learning experiences. The cultural capital of middle-and upper-class students- for instance, those with educated mothers (Rosenwing, 1994) provides useful resources for educational experiences, where as that of the lower classes provides resources not valued by dominant social institutions (Lareau, 1985).

Higher class parents are active in their children's education at home and at institute, whereas lower class parents do what the faculty asks. Both sets of parents hold similar educational values, however the higher class parents have more cultural capital and as they use it their children get benefits from it in achieving academic goals. Parents of working-class students are less comfortable dealing with teacher than those of higher-class students, who feel more comfortable communicating with teacher and are involved with institute's activities (Lareau, 1989).

Unless there is significant parental support and supervision, these factors are correlated with children being tardy or absent from school, not doing homework, not having contact with their parents (Mulkey, Crain, and Harrington, 1992; Pallas, 1989; Moore et al., 1996).

Effect of teacher on classroom participation:

The results of (Wright, S.R., Sanders, W. L., & Horn, S. P. (1997) study well document that the most important factor affecting student learning is the teacher. In addition, the results show wide variation in effectiveness among teachers. The immediate and clear implication of this finding is that seemingly more can be done to improve education by improving the effectiveness of teachers than by any other single factor. Effective teachers appear to be effective with students of all achievement levels, regardless of the level of heterogeneity in their classrooms. If the teacher is not effective, students under that teacher's tutelage will achieve inadequate progress academically, regardless of how similar or different they are regarding their academic achievement.

This finding is corroborated by recent research on the cumulative effects of teachers on the academic progress of students (Sanders & Rivers, 1996). These recent studies show that teacher effects on student learning as inferred from standardized test scores are additive and cumulative over grade levels with little evidence of compensatory effects. Thus, students in classrooms of very effective teachers, following relatively ineffective teachers, make excellent academic gains but not enough to offset previous evidence of less than expected gains.

Differences in teacher effectiveness were found to be the dominant factor affecting student academic gain. The importance of the effects of certain classroom contextual variables (class size and classroom heterogeneity) appears to be minor.

Effect of co-education on classroom participation:

According to 'second- wave' feminist in the 1970s and early 1980s work, girl were marginalized and belittled in the classroom, the victims of systematic discrimination from male classmates and teachers and the school system itself. The account provided in these studies resonated with female readers, as they reflected many of our own educational experiences. It was argued convincingly that the catalogue of discrimination that girls and women experienced in the educational system explained the low achievement of girl at moths and science in compulsory education, and the relatively low numbers of women progressing to further and higher education(stanworth,1981;spender,1982).

There are broadly two explanations for boy's failure to match girls in terms of achievement. The first emanates from the 'poor boys' discourse identified by Epstein et al.(1998),which argues that boys are now disadvantaged in schools. In this discourse, girls' improvements are often presented as having been at the expense of boys. Cohen (1998) has shown how low educational achievement among boys is seen as the result of external fault, such as the teacher, school, or method of learning or assessment. So suggested remedies to improve boys' educational achievement emanating from the 'camp tend to be based on a supposition that boys' comparative underachievement results from a failure to make education sufficiently appealing to boys.

Strategies for Improving Class Participation

Divide the class into small groups:

Dividing the class into many small groups for open discussion will minimize student's fear of their fellow's negative feedback (CELT 1998; Chu & Kim 1999). It can also enhance direct teacher feedback which many Asian students treasure (Chu & kim, 1999).

Guide the students to show good attitude to their fellow's comments:

The students who show positive attitude towards their fellows participation should be encouraged, but the students who decrease the other student's confidence level should be discouraged (Fassinger 1995).

Encourage students to take part in class freely:

Give free hand to students to response and actively interact in the classroom. They should be ensured that it is their time to speak now and minimize their fear of being wrong.

Use better questioning strategies:

To enhance the students rate of class participation better questioning strategy is needed. Teacher should use open ended question that they could response according to their point of view. Students should be given a waiting time to prepare their answer. Students should be called by name in class. Their responses should be appreciated so that they overcome their fear of being wrong (CELT 1998, Howard & Henney 1998, Nunn 1996).

Dunphy (1998) and Howard and Henney (1998) suggested that to guide the students and make the concept of class participation according to student's cultural background can prove beneficial for the class participation to take place. Fritschner (2000) also supports the above of view by saying that teacher should prepare the students from beginning of classes so that class participation happens itself.

Structured is also an effective mean to enhance participation. Winbush (1995) found that all the students read out the notes which they take on cards during discussion.

Classroom environment that encourages classroom participation:

Constructivist theory does not deal with pedagogy. It describes some techniques for students to get benefit from learning experiences and multiple ways to think over a problem e.g.

To pertain their own ideas

To determine how much new information is understood with help of their own ideas.

To take into account a number of possibilities by which now concept can be comprehend.

To assess the value of various perspective about a concept.

As instruction by the teacher facilitates the learning of students, so there should be some challenging classroom activities for the students. Such environment is created if student is actively engaged in learning process rather than just listening (Anzai & Simon, 1979).

In constructivist classroom students are actively engaged in discussing, taking notes, explaining ideas, convincing others, and commenting upon other's views. Such type of student's activities is not carried out in traditional classroom.

Such classrooms are feasible only for those students whose style of learning is dependent on listening carefully the teacher and taking the notes. But the student who construct their knowledge while to enhance student's understanding in the lesson it is essential that teacher give him chance to think over the concept or problem independently, and concentrate on student's work to guide and help him to integrate the concept. Such task can be accomplished by creating group work, class discussion and interactive lectures in the classroom time. Such class room environment helps the students to develop critical thinking, to initiate the discussion, and comment upon others views (Mazur, 1993; Van 1-leuvelen, 1991).

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The Effects and Importance of Classroom Participation

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Published: Disclaimer: This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers. You can view samples of our professional work here. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.

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Call it "active learning," or "classroom participation" -- every teacher wants to know how to motivate students to particpate, and how to nurture more involved students and fewer apathetic ones. With a little extra planning, that is possible.

Below are four common reasons students don't participate and techniques to solve those problems and spice up your lessons.

Maybe it needs to be repetitive because the students don't really "get it," or maybe you're reviewing for a test. In any case, they're tuning out.

Solution #1: Assess their prior knowledge.

This could be as simple as asking students, "What do you know about (topic)?" and writing their responses on the board. You could also try a pre-test or a graphic organizer like a K-W-L chart . The goal is to find out what they already know (or think they know). You create buy-in for the students because they feel smart, and you can tailor your lesson to the information they don't know or don't remember correctly.

Solution #2: Try skills grouping.

Divide the class into groups based on what skills they need to practice - not forever, but for a class period or two, so they can focus on what they really need help with. So have a group that works on multiplying fractions, one on dividing fractions, and one on converting fractions to decimals. Make a group of "already got 100% on the test" kids and give them an extra credit activity or let them preview the next lesson. Then take time to move between the other groups and help them review. You'll have more students engaged in the lesson and they'll get specific, focused practice time.

Solution #3: Let them teach each other.

Especially good when reviewing before a test: divide the class into groups and give each group a topic. Set some guidelines and then let them teach each other. Encourage them to do interesting activities - write tests for each other, design review games, etc. - and evaluate each group on the accuracy of their content, the creativity of their approach, and how well they work together as a team. This is also a great way to discover how to motivate students.

This is really half the problem. The other half - especially with older students - is their fear of "looking stupid" by asking questions.

Solution #1: Allow anonymous questions.

Put out a "question box" where students can submit questions any time. Give each student an index card and ask them to write something about the reading assignment they did for homework. If they don't have a question, instruct them to write a comment on the reading. Collect the cards and use them to lead a class discussion. You'll easily recognize what parts of the reading confused a lot of students and they won't feel embarrassed.

Solution #2: Allow them to work together.

We can't do this all the time; individual students need to be assessed. Ask yourself: is the goal of this activity for them to learn the content, or for them to be assessed? If you want them to learn the content, why not let them work together? When they bring in their homework, do a quick survey for completeness, then put them in pairs and let them review the homework together. Encourage them to make changes if their partner's answer looks right. When they've finished, review as a class. Students may be less embarrassed to share a group's answer than their own and you may be able to complete the review more quickly.

Solution #3: Try a jigsaw approach.

No, we're not talking about puzzles or scary movies. If you're introducing new, difficult content, divide the class into groups and ask each group to master only one portion of it at a time. If, for example, you're teaching the American Revolution, have one group focus on the Continental Congress, one on Washington's Army, one on French support for the war, and so on.

Ask them to do a reading on their topic - to become the class "experts" on that subject. Then split up the class into new groups that include one "expert" on each topic. Ask these new groups to work together to write an essay or complete a worksheet that requires information about all the topics. They will teach each other in the process. Learn more about the Jigsaw Approach.

Problem: There's too much information to present in too short a time.

Sometimes there's no way around it: you simply have to get a lot of information out there in a short amount of time. So you opt for a lecture and just want your students to absorb the content. Instead, they fall asleep or stare out the window. What can you do?

Solution #1: Keep it "bite-sized."

Remember: research shows the average student's attention span is as long as her age. So even high school kids can only handle about 15 minutes. If you have a lot of information to convey, re-arrange your lesson plans so you never lecture for more than 10-15 minutes.

Break up large concepts into smaller sections - give a brief lecture, then do an activity to help it "sink in." Repeat this process over several days. You'll increase participation - and improve comprehension, too.

Solution #2: Keep them busy.

Don't allow students to stare into space while you talk. Give them something to stay connected. Try "fill in the blank" lecture notes. Delete key words and phrases in your lecture notes to create a "fill in the blank" worksheet. Then ask students to fill in the worksheet while you lecture. Another fun variation - lecture bingo .

Solution #3: Look into the future.

Before a lecture, give students a prediction activity. For example, tell them you will be lecturing on Shakespeare and ask them to predict what you will say, or give them a set of true/false statements and ask them to take their best guess.

As you lecture, instruct students to compare their guesses with what you actually say.

When the lecture is over, have a class discussion and evaluate how accurate student predictions were.

Problem: The lesson emphasizes the teacher, not the students.

Solution #1: Keep them busier than you are.

The traditional classroom of yesteryear had the teacher at the front of the room, droning on while students doze. Re-imagine your classroom as a place where students are busier than you are.

Keep the "sit still and let me talk to you" moments as brief as possible; get those kids working! Give them worksheets, activities, discussions, and projects. That doesn't mean you get to sit around -- you will still be busy, moving from student to student or group to group, correcting, evaluating, or providing feedback. But now everyone is busy and involved.

Homogeneous grouping? Heterogeneous grouping? Tracking? Forget the buzz words: having students work in groups is one of the best ways to increase student participation. Don't keep them in the same groups all the time -give them a chance to be the "smart kid" who can help someone one day and the kid who needs help the next.

Take a traditional worksheet or activity and give it to students in groups. Offer a reward to the group who finishes first with the most answers correct and watch them go! Note: it helps to have additional prizes available to keep groups motivated after the first group "wins." Even high school students enjoy these competitions.

Solution #3: Give them a voice and a choice.

Do students ever get a "say" in your classroom? Of course you need to make most decisions, but there must be some things you could leave up to them - whether it's what color chalk you use today or how long they practice a specific activity.

Kids tune out because they feel like their ideas don't matter. Show them their opinions are important and they'll pay better attention and speak up more in class.

There will always be some unreachable student who won't respond, even with these efforts. But if you give these a try, you may be presently surprised at the previously unreachable students who just might join in!

How do you encourage participation in your class? In what ways did you discover how to motivate students? Share in the comments section!

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top 12 ways to increase student participation

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Top 12 Ways to Increase Student Participation

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Call it "active learning," or "classroom participation" -- every teacher wants to know how to motivate students to particpate, and how to nurture more involved students and fewer apathetic ones. With a little extra planning, that is possible. Below are four common reasons students don't participate and techniques to solve those problems and spice up your lessons.

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Group Involvement

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While increasing participation is an obvious goal in courses that include frequent discussions and small-group work, it is also important in a lecture course. In short, if only a few students participate by volunteering answers, asking questions, or contributing to discussions, class sessions become to some extent a lost opportunity to assess and promote learning. You can improve student participation in your course by devoting time and thought to shaping the environment and planning each class session. Furthermore, the way in which you interact, both verbally and non-verbally, communicates to students your attitude about participation.

Ideally, the goal of increasing participation is not to have every student participate in the same way or at the same rate. Instead, it is to create an environment in which all participants have the opportunity to learn and in which the class explores issues and ideas in depth, from a variety of viewpoints. Some students will raise their voices more than others; this variation is a result of differences in learning preferences as well as differences in personalities. For example, some students who do not speak often in class are reflective learners, who typically develop ideas and questions in their minds before speaking; others are shy students who feel uncomfortable speaking in front of groups (at least initially). Many students who frequently volunteer to contribute are active learners, who typically think while they speak. The instructor's goal is to create conditions that enable students of various learning preferences and personalities to contribute. To reach this goal, you will need to take extra steps to encourage quiet students to speak up and, occasionally, ask the more verbose students to hold back from commenting in order to give others a chance.

This handout is divided into the following sections:

Shaping the Environment
Planning
Listening and Responding
Links and References for Increasing Student Participation

Reserve a classroom that will accommodate the kind of participation you have in mind. Starting on the first day of class, arrange the room in a way that encourages active engagement. When it is time to reserve a classroom, keep in mind not only the number of student chairs you will need, but also whether these chairs should be moveable. If you lead frequent discussions, consider moving the chairs into a circle or "U" to ensure that students can see, and speak to, one another. If you are teaching in a large lecture hall, consider asking students to move so that they are concentrated near the front of the room. Move the chairs back to their standard configuration at the end of class (in University-managed classrooms, see the diagram posted near the door).

Make clear from the beginning your expectation that students will participate. On the first day of class, explain what you see as valuable about class participation. Indicate that you want to do all you can to ensure that the classroom dynamics and activities support full participation, including calling on students who do not raise their hands and sometimes asking frequent contributors to allow others to have a chance. Ask students to inform you if you can make any changes to improve the classroom dynamics and rates of participation.

On the first day of class, give students a clear idea of what to expect regarding participation. If you plan to lecture each day with pauses for questions and discussion, do so on the first day; if you plan to lead more extended discussions, then do so on the first day.

Consider whether you will assign a grade to students' performance in discussions so that they understand the importance of participating. If you do plan to grade participation, inform students of the specific criteria that you will use. For example, will you evaluate the frequency and quality of their contributions, as well as how effectively they each respond to others' comments? Will you include in each participation grade the student's performance on informal writing, online discussions, minor group projects, or other work? Grading student participation is especially important, and usually essential, in discussion courses (see Teaching with Discussions).

Learn and use students' names. Students will be more engaged if they believe that you perceive them as individuals, rather than as anonymous members of a group. Encourage students to learn one another's names, as well; this strategy will increase the possibility that they will address one another by name and direct their comments to one another, not just to you.

In a discussion course, assign to your students some of the responsibility for increasing participation by all. For example, on the first day of class, you might tell students your goals for class participation (e.g., informed and lively discussions in which everyone participates) and ask them to come up with a list of guidelines that will help the class reach this goal. Typically, they will generate excellent guidelines such as "do not interrupt others when they are talking" and "critique the ideas; don't criticize the person." Post this list on the course Web site and hand it out in class. Students who feel invested from the beginning in making the discussions successful will be more likely to work together to increase participation.

Consider requiring students to lead discussions or to submit discussion questions before class. Provide guidance and assess student performance on these tasks (assigning a score, for example, that forms a part of the class participation grade.)

In discussion courses in which you are having trouble getting students to participate, consider asking students to submit anonymous comments on class participation as well as suggestions on how to get more people involved; often, they will let you know that there are problems with the classroom dynamics that you may not see yourself (such as that some students resent the "domination" of discussion by one or two others) or that the structure of the discussions has become too predictable or formulaic.

Use a variety of teaching methods, including lectures, discussions, and small-group work. If you are teaching a lecture course, set aside time during each lecture to ask and answer questions, to ask students to solve a problem, or to discuss an issue. Pause every 15-20 minutes for this purpose. When students learn to expect these opportunities for discussion or questioning, they will listen more actively to the lecture. If you lecture for 45 minutes before you pause for questions or discussion, your students will have been taking notes for so long that they may find it difficult to switch modes quickly. Furthermore, they may well have forgotten questions, comments, or unclear concepts from the earlier parts of class (see Teaching with Lectures).

If you are teaching a discussion course, integrate short lectures into the lesson plan in order to introduce concepts, clarify and order ideas, and help students make connections. Use small-group discussions, informal writing assignments, and online discussions before or at the start of class to prompt student thinking about the discussion topic. These strategies can be effective ways to provide reflective learners and shy students a means of developing ideas that they can then contribute to the class discussion. Commenting on the insights that quieter students contribute in small-group discussions and on informal writing assignments and online discussions can encourage them to speak up in the larger group; you might comment on a student's written work, for example, "this analysis is insightful; the entire class would benefit from hearing your ideas more often" (see Teaching with Discussions).

Organize each class session to include opportunities throughout to ask and answer questions; prepare initial and follow-up questions ahead of time. Use questions to assess student learning, to signal to students which material is the most important, and to help students advance their knowledge and thinking. (For a discussion of strategies for formulating questions, see Asking Questions to Improve Learning). Encourage students to ask questions throughout the class (approximately every 15 minutes), not just at the end.

If grading student participation, plan to give students a preliminary participation grade, as well as a brief written evaluation of their performance. If you will grade class participation, give students preliminary grades as early as 3-4 weeks into the semester and at midterm so that they will know where they stand. Your written evaluation can be designed to encourage the quiet students to talk more often and the verbose students to hold their comments to give others a chance to participate).

Use verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage participation. Do not rely on the same volunteers to answer every question. Respond to frequent volunteers in a way that indicates that you appreciate their responses, but want to hear from others as well. Move to a part of the room where quiet students are sitting; smile at and make eye contact with these students to encourage them to speak up. By the same token, when frequent volunteers speak, look around the room rather than only at them to encourage others to respond (see below).

Reduce students' anxieties by creating an atmosphere in which they feel comfortable "thinking out-loud," taking intellectual risks, asking questions, and admitting when they do not know something; one of the best ways to do this is to model these behaviors yourself.

Give students time to think before they respond to your questions. Do not be afraid of silence. Give students 5-10 seconds to think and formulate a response. If 10-15 seconds pass without anyone volunteering an answer and the students are giving you puzzled looks, rephrase your question. Do not give in to the temptation to answer your own questions, which will condition students to hesitate before answering to see if you will supply "the answer." Patience is key; do not be afraid of silence. The longer you wait for students to respond, the more thoughtful and complex those responses are likely to be.

Often, there is at least one student in every class who will quickly raise her or his hand to answer nearly every question. If you consistently call on this student, those who require more time to formulate answers will simply learn to wait for this student to answer. (See Asking Questions to Improve Learning.)

Listen fully to your students' questions and answers; avoid interrupting. Resist the urge to interrupt when you think you know what the student is going to say or ask. Often, well-meaning and enthusiastic instructors make incorrect assumptions and leave their students' actual questions unanswered or misrepresent what the students had planned to say.

Provide specific, encouraging, varied responses. Point out what is helpful or interesting about student contributions. Pick up on comments that were made but not discussed. Do not use the same, standard praise to respond to every comment. When students hear "good point" again and again, they start to lose motivation. Ask follow-up questions to prompt students to clarify, refine, and support their ideas. When a student gives an incorrect or ill-conceived answer, respond in way that challenges the student to think more deeply or to reconsider the evidence. The best way to shut down participation, and learning, is to embarrass a student.

Repeat student responses to summarize or clarify ideas. Use this strategy when a student's comments are vague or "all over the map," but do not over-use it, leading students to rely on you to "translate" or validate their ideas.

Redirect comments and questions to other students. Encourage students to respond to one another, rather than merely to you. When a student is speaking, look around the room, not just at the student who is speaking; making eye contact with other students lets them know that you expect them to be listening and formulating responses. Provide students with a model of civil discourse by demonstrating respect for, and interest in, the views of others. Learn to limit your own comments. Particularly when facilitating a discussion, hold back from responding to every comment; otherwise, students will learn to wait for you to respond rather than formulating their own responses.

Place the emphasis on student ideas. Encourage students to share their ideas and use those ideas (with attribution) whenever you can. Referring back to a comment made by a student in an earlier class demonstrates that you have thought about and appreciated what your students have to say.

Active student participation does not happen naturally in university courses; it must be carefully planned and encouraged. Set aside time throughout the semester to assess student participation in your course and to develop strategies for improvement; administer midterm student evaluations to help you with this process. Consider asking a colleague to observe your class; often, outside observers can discern patterns that hinder participation but that may not be apparent to participants. Take notes during and after a semester so that you have a record of what went well and what you would like to change the next time you teach the course in order to increase student participation.

Davis, Barbara Gross. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

"Questioning Strategies." Center for Teaching Excellence. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://cte.illinois.edu/resources/topics/methods/strateg.html.

"Encouraging Interaction in Science and Engineering Classes." The McGraw Center. Princeton University. https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/661.

"Facilitating Discussions in Humanities and Social Science." The McGraw Center. Princeton University. https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/656.

McKeachie, Wilbert, et al. McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. 12th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. © 2009, Washington University.

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While increasing participation is an obvious goal in courses that include frequent discussions and small-group work, it is also important in a lecture course. In short, if only a few students participate by volunteering answers, asking questions, or contributing to discussions, class sessions become