Cooperative Learning and Social Learning

If you have not read Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat than you are missing out on what are very near future is going to look like. He emphasizes that Americans must adapt to the fast-paced new global workforce. Jobs are being lost to outsourcing and we must find new innovative methods to keep up with other countries. Besides all of this great information on how to best prepare our future work force and what we need to look out for, he mentions that by incorporating cooperative learning in today's classroom will best prepare our students for their real life work environment. Classroom Instruction that Works states that teachers who use or plan on using some form of cooperative learning methods in their classes need to keep the groups small, do not base groups on student ability and there should be clear expectations on what the objective is for the group. If teachers cal follow these simple steps, using cooperative learning activities will greatly benefit your students.

It is obvious that our society today communicates in many forms. I mentioned this in this weeks discussion question that people of all ages communicate through emails, social networking sites, text messaging and Instant messaging services. Often times the communication is not based on anything of great importance such as keeping up with friends and family. However, there is great potential for our students to use this same technology in the classroom. If we want our students to best be prepared for the future workforce, it is important that we start now. You can easily assign a small group of students to create a wiki on a certain topic. This can be an ongoing assignment where each student is able to add some information over a period of time. When they finish, they can present their information to their class or classes across the nation. There is also the ability with today's technology for groups of students to complete a project together even when they are not in the same state. I feel as though this would be very interesting to gain the different opinions on topics from different regions of the United States.

It is without a doubt that social learning theories and cooperative learning are relatable in today's classroom. Our students need to possess these skills before we release them into adulthood. Thomas Friedman is correct in the fact that it does not state anywhere that the United States has to be world's leading economy. Recent signs are pointing that we are falling behind the likes of China, India and soon to be Brazil. We need to educate our youth to adapt and be able to compete with these foreign economies.