Meaningful learning Pt. 2: Double Entry Journal #14

Inquiry approaches to learning occur most when teachers do not have the knowledge and understanding of how the process works. Students can also be a fafactor if they do not understand or do not have previous experience. They may have issues in the methods or skills needed to complete the process. The main challenge is inexperience with the strategy. Teachers and students alike need practice working with inquiry-based learning to make it most successful.

Group work engages students in an active and social learning environment. Students build a community of learners.

Most recently, the focus of research has gone beyond the practical benefits of collaboration for individual learning to recognize the importance of helping children learn to collaborate as necessary preparation for all kinds of work. For example, the Science for All Americans, Project 2061 (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989) suggests that a core practice of scientific inquiry is collaborative work and that schools should prepare students for this kind of work through classroom activities that require joint efforts.

They also found that low-income students benefited more than high-income students and that urban students benefited more than suburban students. Racial and ethnic minority students benefited even more from cooperative group work than non-minority students, a finding repeated over several decades (see Slavin & Oickle, 1981).

Tasks or Roles give all students a specific job to be responsible for in thier group.
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson277/cooperative.pdf