You may be able to enhance learning by working with students at other grade levels, or by teaming with another teacher. Your budget may go farther, too, if a number of classes, classrooms, or schools become part of your effort. Build teams of students for your project. In Establishing Groupwork Elizabeth G. Cohen shows that children who learn in well-managed groups under a skilled teacher or teacher team are active learners who achieve at greater levels. Teachers benefit from being better able to observe and coach students, challenging individuals instead of teaching to a large group.
Children challenge each other in controlled group learning situations.
We recommend the strategies in her book and those outlined by researcher-practitioners David and Roger Johnson . Analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are the skills of constructing and critically verifying knowledge claims. Being given someone else's supposedly authoritative knowledge requires that the student merely nod and give passive assent. Our students are spectators much of the time. Action projects are an opportunity to learn, to share knowledge with a larger community, and to do meaningful work in the world they will soon inherit.