No Contest (50 page)

9. “If we want to enhance self-esteem, we must first check to see whether the social environment is safe for the individual. A debilitating environment is likely to squash fledgling self-confidence no matter how much we exhort the individual to persist. . . . Moreover, suggesting that self-esteem can be preserved by developing ‘coping skills' endorses the status quo” (James A. Beane, “Sorting Out the Self-Esteem Controversy,” p. 27). Also see a thoughtful essay by Ellen Herman, “Toward a Politics of Self-Esteem?”

10. The work of Ruth C. Wylie is especially useful for understanding the peculiar characteristics and weaknesses of some of the many instruments used to measure self-esteem.

11. For an account of “the role education itself has played in causing students to fail” (p. xiii) and to feel like failures, see William Glasser,
Schools Without Failure
.

12. Johnson, quoted in my article “It's Hard to Get Left Out of a Pair,” p. 54.

13. Johnson and Johnson,
Cooperation and Competition,
chap. 7; Slavin,
Cooperative Learning,
chap. 3.

14. Johnson and Johnson,
Cooperation and Competition,
p. 122.

15. Carol Hymowitz, “Five Main Reasons Why Managers Fail.”

16. Slavin,
Cooperative Learning,
chap. 2.

17. Johnson and Johnson,
Cooperation and Competition,
pp. 40–41. Those studies in which the subjects cooperated within their groups but the groups competed against each other found less of a benefit than those in which there was no intergroup competition. In seven studies that directly compared cooperation with and without intergroup competition, no differences were found. The Johnsons' conclusion is that having groups compete against each other “does
not
enhance achievement and may decrease it” (p. 46). (For a fuller discussion of the achievement effects of competition, see chapters 3 and 4 of their book.)

18. Johnson and Johnson,
Learning Together and Alone,
p. 40.

19. Richard J. Light,
The Harvard Assessment Seminars,
pp. 6, 21, 64–65. The science courses that students rated highest and lowest in overall quality had almost identical work loads. What distinguished the lowest-rated courses was more intense competition for grades.

20. For more on the destructive effects of extrinsic motivators than the brief remarks on pp. 59–61, see my article “Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative
Learning
.” Three indispensable books on the topic are
The Hidden Costs of Rewards
(edited by Mark R. Lepper and David Greene),
Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior
(by Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan), and
The Competitive Ethos and Democratic Education
(by John G. Nicholls).

21. See especially the work of Carole Ames and her colleagues listed in the reference section, some of which I described in earlier chapters.

22. This dynamic was noticed by a researcher as early as 1932: “Generally, the usual classroom incentives call forth a response for maximum exertion only from the few very able pupils, while the majority of the pupils, knowing that their chances for excelling are limited, fail to be motivated to do their very best” (Joseph Zubin,
Some Effects of Incentives,
p. 50).

23. R. E. Slavin, “Cooperative Learning and the Cooperative School,” p. 9.

24. David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson, “Motivational Processes in Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning Situations,” p. 272. Slavin, by contrast, reports mixed results from questionnaires that ask children whether they like class during CL sessions (
Cooperative Learning,
pp. 48–49). He suggests that this may be due in part to some of the surveys having tapped students' genera! feelings about school rather than their relative preference for different classroom approaches. Here is another explanation for his ambiguous findings: the version of CL that Slavin uses (and tends to rely on in his research reports) depends on rewards to foster interdependence. We might expect, based on the documented consequences of using extrinsic motivators, that the enthusiasm generated by CL would be canceled out by the reduced interest in tasks for which a goody is offered. If this is true, then models of CL that do not reward children to get them to work together would be expected to produce much more enthusiasm than other approaches.

25. Sharan, “Cooperative Learning,” p. 288.

26. John I. Goodlad,
A Place Called School,
pp. 232, 233.

27. Ibid., pp. 229, 233.

28. “The subject of student boredom in school in general, and under varying instructional conditions in particular, has yet to be studied systematically. It is almost as if this topic was purposefully shunned by educational researchers!” (Sharan, “Cooperative Learning,” p. 287).

29. David W. Johnson, Roger T. Johnson, and Edythe Johnson Holubec,
Circles of Learning,
p. 65.

30. In addition to the sources cited below, see the discussions of this question in Bonnie K. Nastasi and Douglas H. Clements, “Research on Cooperative Learning,” pp. 117–20, 124–26; Sharan, “Cooperative Learning,” pp. 289–91; and Noreen M. Webb, “Peer Interaction and Learning in Small Groups.”

31. See Noreen M. Webb, “Student Interaction and Learning in Small Groups,” “Peer Interaction and Learning in Small Groups,” and virtually any of her other articles and chapters for further findings regarding the conditions that must be present for peer teaching to benefit the giver and recipient of help.

32. Hugh C. Foot et al., “Theoretical Issues in Peer Tutoring,” p. 72. Tutoring can also enhance the self-esteem, social skills, and motivation of the tutor.

33. Carl A. Benware and Edward L. Deci, “Quality of Learning with an Active Versus Passive Motivational Set.”

34. Gerald W. Foster and John E. Penick, “Creativity in a Cooperative Group Setting.”

35. Johnson and Johnson,
Cooperation and Competition,
p. 48.

36. This notion of learning through encounters with conflicting points of view is at the core of Jean Piaget's approach to cognitive development and, following his work, the model of learning known as constructivism. For a recent elaboration of this theory from another Swiss researcher, see Willem Doise, “The Development of Individual Competencies through Social Interaction.”

37. Michael Marland, a British educator, is quoted in Joan Green and John Myers, “Conversations,” p. 330.

38. Judy Clarke, “The Hidden Treasure of Co-operative Learning,” p. 3.

39. Robert Bellah et al.,
The Good Society,
pp. 172, 176.

40. For one discussion on this topic, see Johnson and Johnson,
Learning Together and Alone,
p. 64.

41. Webb, “Student Interaction and Learning in Small Groups,” pp. 165–67.

42. For some concrete suggestions on random-assignment procedures, see Dee Dishon and Pat Wilson O'Leary, “Tips for Heterogeneous Group Selection.”

43. For a thorough discussion of different kinds of learning groups, see Judy Clarke et al.,
Together We Learn,
chaps. 3 and 4.

44. Johnson and Johnson,
Learning Together and Alone,
p. 146. Also see their
Circles of Learning,
pp. 80–85; Clarke et al.,
Together We Learn,
chap. 5; and two papers by Nancy B. Graves and Theodore D. Graves: “Creating a Cooperative Learning Environment” and “Should We Teach Cooperative Skills as a Part of Each Cooperative Lesson?”

45. Selma Wassermann, “Children Working in Groups? It Doesn't Work!” pp. 203–204.

46. See Johnson and Johnson,
Learning Together and Alone,
pp. 58–59. For an example of research supporting the value of group processing, see Stuart Yager et al., “The Impact of Group Processing on Achievement in Cooperative Learning Groups.”

47. Kipling D. Williams and Steven J. Karau, “Social Loafing and Social Compensation,” p. 570.

48. Besides asking “accountable to whom?” we might ask “accountable with respect to what?” For one group of researchers, individual accountability is defined “in terms of operating in accordance with the norms of a classroom community . . . rather than in terms of performance on achievement tests” (Erna Yackel et al., “Small Group Interactions as a Source of Learning Opportunities in Second-Grade Mathematics,” p. 398).

49. Thomas L. Good et al., “Using Work-Groups in Mathematics Instruction,” p. 60. I am indebted to Judy Clarke for her incisive analysis of role assignments.

50. Slavin, “Cooperative Learning and Student Achievement,” p. 31.

51. Johnson and Johnson,
Learning Together and Alone,
pp. 134, 143.

52. See Yael Sharan and Shlomo Sharan, “Group Investigation Expands Cooperative Learning,” and virtually anything else written by either of them.

53. The best known of these programs is the Child Development Project, for information about which see Daniel Solomon et al., “Cooperative Learning as Part of a Comprehensive Program Designed to Promote Prosocial Development”; chapter 6 of my book
The Brighter Side of Human Nature;
or my article “The ABC's of Caring.”

54. See, for example, Mark Brubacher et al., eds.,
Perspectives on Small Group Learning,
the contributors to which repeatedly show how children learn by talking, and the work of Judy Clarke in Canada, Helen Cowie and Jean Rudduck in England, and Joan Dalton in Australia, among many others.

55. Together, in Mara Sapon-Shevin and Nancy Schniedewind, “Selling Cooperative Learning Without Selling It Short”; separately, in Schniedewind and Ellen Davidson's excellent guidebook for teachers,
Cooperative Learning, Cooperative Lives,
and in Sapon-Shevin's “Cooperative Learning, Cooperative Visions.”

56. See my article “Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative
Learning
” and a forthcoming book tentatively titled
Punished by Rewards
.

57. Nastasi and Clements point out that in all the studies purporting to show that rewards are necessary for learning to occur, CL was basically glued on to “traditional classroom structures which are individualistic and competitive in orientation” (“Research on Cooperative Learning,” p. 123). For additional criticisms of the claim that CL yields achievement gains only if extrinsic motivators are present, see my article “Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative
Learning
.”

58. Spencer Kagan notes that his “structural” method of CL shares with Slavin's approach “an emphasis on specific behaviors among teachers” as opposed to “general principles” of cooperation or collaboration (Brandt, “On Cooperative Learning,” p. 10). While I am not aware of any CL theorist or researcher who makes the connection explicitly, anyone who relies on extrinsic incentives to get children to cooperate might very well rely on extrinsic incentives to get teachers to use CL; concepts like merit pay are quite consistent with this paradigm.

59. Leann Lipps Birch et al., “Eating as the ‘Means' Activity in a Contingency.” The experimenters did not expect to find that verbal rewards would have precisely the same motivation-killing effects as tangible rewards.

60. “In STAD or TGT [two of the student team learning methods developed at Johns Hopkins University], learning and cooperating are the means; the goal is winning,” observed Spencer Kagan (“Co-op Co-op,” p. 439). The third edition of a book describing these methods (Robert E. Slavin,
Using Student Team Learning)
begins with the announcement that “competition between teams is no longer recommended” (p. 1). This is particularly remarkable for two reasons: first, the reason given for this shift is not a change of heart or mind on the part of the author but a growing resistance to the technique on the part of educators themselves: “The same teachers who are attracted to cooperative learning are often repelled by moving competition up to the team level” (p. 1). Second, notwithstanding this comment in the introduction, the manual proceeds to set out the rules for how “students compete” in the tournaments (p. 24; see also Slavin,
Cooperative Learning,
chap. 4).

61. Teresa M. Amabile and Judith Gitomer, “Children's Artistic Creativity.” For more evidence of, and a theoretical basis for, the auspicious effects of autonomy, see the work of Edward L. Deci, including his book with Richard M. Ryan,
Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior
.

62. Shlomo Sharan, “Cooperative Learning and Helping Behaviour in the Multi-ethnic Classroom,” p. 158.

63. Yael Sharan and Shlomo Sharan, “Group Investigation Expands Cooperative Learning,” p. 20.

64. These remarks were part of a speech delivered at the second annual cooperative learning conference in 1986. See Shlomo Sharan, “Cooperative Learning: Problems and Promise,” p. 4. Striking a similar theme, Mara Sapon-Shevin writes that instead of wondering “What cooperative learning method will increase student test scores?” we might ask “What kinds of cooperative learning methods and practice best allow students to experience control over their own learning and learn to make meaningful decisions related to their own education and that of others?” (“Cooperative Learning, Cooperative Visions,” pp. 26–27).

65. For discussions of task characteristics that tap and promote intrinsic interest, see Thomas W. Malone and Mark R. Lepper, “Making Learning Fun,” and Raymond J. Wlodkowski and Judith H. Jaynes,
Eager to Learn
.

66. Elizabeth G. Cohen,
Designing Groupwork,
p. 69. Cohen emphasizes that the curriculum, besides being interesting, must be structured so that different kinds of abilities are necessary for success. This allows everyone to make a contribution, which in turn reduces the differences in status that students represent in each other's eyes. (See also Cohen, “Continuing to Cooperate.”)