Friday, August 26, 2005

"Turn to the person beside you..."

...and that's what we did for about three hours during the workshop on Cooperative Learning during Professional Development Week in August.

Dr. Hill presented various techniques for incorporating cooperative learning into the classroom, and then we practiced on each other.

I liked the part when Dr. Hill asked us to "turn to the person beside you" and find out who had been teaching the longest. Steve Adams won...teaching for over three decades, but there were lots of runner-ups. We probably had over 250 years of teaching in that room!

So Dean Dopson thought it would be a good idea if participants might share which techniques they are trying in their classrooms, and what kinds of results they are having.

Dr. Hill says the research indicates that these techniques really do increase students' retention...
What do we say?