6. Cooperative Learning – Learning Teams do questions on resource material

This is the same as ‘teaching by asking', except that resources are provided.

Students are given a handout or similar resources. They are asked to use the text to answer a question(s) prepared by the teacher.

•  These questions relate to the key points in the text and to the key lesson objectives. They should be thought provoking. E.g. “Who supported Cromwell and why?”

•  The answer to the question(s) should not appear baldly and simply stated in one place in the text. Students should need to read, understand, and then reformulate (i.e. think about) the text to answer the question. This requires that students construct their own understanding and don't just repeat the text back to you.

•  There should ideally be a range of materials of differing difficulty which must be shared by the group. Alternatively, different students can be assigned different resources, and then be required to cooperate to answer the questions.

•  It helps a great deal to give students individual roles in their group such as scribe, vocabulary checker etc as described in the section on Managing Group Work for maximum participation.

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Students work in groups, and when they have finished, feedback can be elicited from the groups one idea at a time, as it is in ‘teaching by asking'.

It is useful to test learning at the end with a test, quiz or an exam style question on the subject, on which students work individually.