Thursday, June 28, 2012

Are cooperative learning and peer teaching the same?


Underneath the buzz at the recent National Summit on Teaching in Minneapolis, there was a desire for a more crisp statement about the difference between cooperative learning and peer teaching. This came up in several ways, and the following is some thinking I've done since then on this issue.

As always, your input is appreciated and desired.
A note about the hyphen in Cooperative Learning-Peer Teaching

The teaching strategies of cooperative learning and peer teaching have more in common than in contrast. Both are used to advance students' engagement, and improve academic achievement through peer exploration, discovery, and sharing of knowledge and motor skills. Both emphasize structure, individual roles, and group recognition of achievement. Both aim for deliberate methods to build knowledge, skill, and insight in peer students. Both have considerable research support and wide use in schools at all levels, business, government, industry, the trades, and social and religious organizations.

The verified benefits of both are well established and well known.

However, any time people are paired or grouped to accomplish a goal, social stratification develops and power relationships are likely to become salient unless managed.

In cooperative learning, the assumption is that members of the pair or group are roughly at the same level of expertise with respect to the content.

In peer teaching, the assumption is that one member of the pair or group knows more than the other(s) before the classroom activity begins.

These assumptions drive the distinction in the ways power relationships are handled differently in the two strategies.

In cooperative learning, destructive power relationships are ameliorated by shaping in advance the interactions among the participants. This is accomplished by establishing parity among members in their assignment to groups and guiding the members' functions, actions, and expectations once the group is formed.

In peer teaching, an 'expertise gap' is either present in the assignment of participants, or is created during classroom strategies such as the jigsaw activity. Destructive power relationships are ameliorated by training the more knowledgeable member(s) of the groups in how their information and insights can be learned most effectively by others.

In sum, cooperative learning and peer teaching share the overall purpose of student achievement. They differ in the ways that the professional educator structures the classroom activity and charges pairs and groups with their functions and tasks.


Cooperative Learning and Peer Teaching

Cooperative Learning
Peer Teaching
Advance student engagement
X
X
Improve academic achievement
X
X
Promote student-generated exploration
X
X
Encourage discovery learning
X
X
Share knowledge
X
X
Share motor skills
X
X
Learn teaching skills
X
X
Used widely in the US schools
X
X
Used in government, industry, business, etc.
X
X
Used in social and religious organizations
X
X
Benefits are well established
X
X
Has solid research support
X
X
Teacher structures the groups, sets parameters
X
X
Guide members' functions, actions, expectations thru training
X
X



Establish knowledge parity of group members before activity
X

Establish an 'expertise gap' before activity begins

X