Cooperative groups of students collect information, digest and rephrase it in a suitable manner for their peers and disseminate it via presentation. My basic premise is that to teach someone about something, one must first understand it oneself. The students design and present a lesson to an authentic audience of peers. Students are actively involved in the intellectual work of locating, organizing, summarizing, explaining, and integrating material into their existing conceptual structures, thus connecting past and present learning. Students research, integrate and present content both as a team-taught lesson for classmates and as a substantial paper.
Members accept that they sink or swim together, and, if one fails, they all fail.
As the teacher, I am the engineer, model, facilitator, guide, secretary, photocopier, evaluator, cheerleader, arbitrator, and any other role the students need me to play. In short, my method is an intricate performance assessment, injecting assessment directly into class on a daily basis. Many interpretations exist, any of which are correct, yet the topic is narrowed enough to isolate evidence of learning. Students receive immediate feedback from peers via evaluation forms based on a class-generated scoring rubric. Despite rigorous expectations, success remains within reach because the process is as important as the solution.