Poor Students, Rich Teaching. Eric Jensen

or making friends, students often don’t want to lose face by letting down a friend or classmate. When they need help, there’s an affiliated group to offer a hand. In short, the emotional side gets a big boost when you add interdependency to lessons, which makes for more robust effect sizes. Interdependency (see figure 2.1) means that student success depends on another student’s success, which raises everyone’s effort level. Four students in a cooperative group or team has a 0.69 effect size on student achievement (Hattie, 2009).

Figure 2.1: Interdependency builds connections.

      In the next section, I begin with strategies for building effective cooperative groups and teams that foster interdependency. In the sections that follow, we’ll look at some other ways to build interdependency in the form of study buddies, mentors, and temporary partners. As you implement these in your classroom, remember it takes time to build and maintain relationships. Be patient, and your students will benefit from the good that comes from them.

       Cooperative Groups and Teams

      Many teachers will say how groups or teams just waste time. Teams are just structures. By themselves, they will accomplish nothing. Your students need social cues, prompts, and systems to establish and guide behaviors. Let’s break down how teams can work. In my middle school classes, teams of five seemed to work best. For elementary school, temporary cooperative groups of four or established teams of four work well. I have drawn the following ideas from many sources (for example, see Kagan, Kagan, & Kagan, 1997).

      • Allow the team to have a unique name, slogan, cheer, celebration, and logo: This builds social status and camaraderie. Give students time for each of these when building teams.

      • Give everyone a unique and valued role: Roles engage more of the class and build positive interdependence (examples include summarizer, leader, personal trainer, stretch leader, energizer, joke teller, and courier).

      • Set class norms for all group behaviors: This reduces students acting out and builds individual accountability. For example, share three things you expect every team to do, such as (1) contribute to the class, (2) be on time, and (3) support each other.

      • Ensure the team works together daily: Use procedures and rituals that involve everyone, every day. Foster equal participation using turn-taking that leadership and group norms regulate.

      For cooperative groups and teams to be most effective, coach the team leader, and ask him or her to coach and teach the team how to improve. Make it clear to the groups that this is the leader’s role. Reciprocal teaching (students teaching peers) has a strong effect size of 0.74 (Hattie, 2009).

       Study Buddies

      At the beginning of the year or semester, many teachers set students up with a semipermanent study buddy who takes responsibility for the success of his or her partner in that class. The students share phone numbers and email addresses so they can call, text, and email. When done well, study buddies tend to form a sibling-like relationship. As a teacher, create stakes in the relationship. Say, “If you want an A or B, you must help your partner get an A or B.” If one passes a test and the other does not, it’s a shared failure. A teacher who uses this strategy finds it helps students at the secondary level build relationships and learn to help one another.

      One way to assign study buddies is to have students write out a passion related to the subject area on an index card. Using language arts as an example, you could have students complete the statement, “What I think needs changing in this world …” Collect the cards and sort students into similar interests and passions. That year or semester, students will work with another kindred soul who shares the same passion for change or a specific topic (Henderson, 2012).

      If students don’t want to work with the partner you assigned, give them some more time and new tools. Allocate relational time in your class to help students get to know their partner. Use simple one- to two-minute activities, and rotate them. For example, students could discuss each other’s academic strengths, areas where they need help, or something that was important to them while growing up. These question activities help students build trust with others and give them a moment to exchange likes and dislikes. Additionally, pairing this activity helps with communication and conflict-resolution skills. Changing partners won’t solve the problem if a student doesn’t have the social skills to work with a partner.

      When conflict arises, here are five basic partner steps for students when practicing conflict resolution.

      1. “I feel”: “I feel discouraged and disconnected when you don’t talk during our partner time.”

      2. “When that happens”: “When that happens, we don’t solve problems or learn what we need to know. Yesterday, I really needed help in class.”

      3. “I need”: “I need to know we can work together, can we?”

      4. “Listen”: Now, the one who just spoke will listen to his or her partner.

      5. “Review and resolve”: “To review, what you’re saying is … To resolve it, how about if we do this one thing differently each time we work together and see what happens?”

      Study buddies should sit next to each other in class and share key content as well as be a cheerleader for the other. They will each know the other’s progress and be mindful of changes in progress. Both can sign off on this process with their parents and the teacher. Give students time to make plans for what to do next after getting feedback on a quiz or any other formative assessment.

       Student Mentors

      Student mentors are also powerful. Every student can benefit from receiving guidance, encouragement, and leadership from someone who has more experience. Fourth graders can mentor second graders, eighth graders can mentor sixth graders, and eleventh graders can mentor ninth or tenth graders.

      For secondary students, set up a partnership with local colleges or universities for undergraduates to mentor (or tutor) juniors and seniors. For example, undergraduates can tutor students for forty-five minutes after school. High-poverty schools in Los Angeles used collegiate mentors for fourth and fifth graders with solid success (Coller & Kuo, 2014), noting that mentoring programs appear to be useful in promoting social relationships (with parents, mentors, or peers) and reducing conflict. Other mentoring programs have shown significant positive changes in youths’ relationships with parents and teachers and were significantly associated with better youth outcomes, including self-esteem, academic attitudes, prosocial behaviors, and less misconduct (Chan et al., 2013). Check out appendix A (visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction) for several resources about mentoring.

       Temporary Partners

      Even well-managed teams and partners can get stale, so to freshen up the learning and social experience, teachers can use temporary partners. One way to effect this is to engage elementary or secondary students in a simple walk-and-talk activity:

      Oh! I’ve got a great idea that should only take a minute. Please stand up. Great! Now, when the music begins, and I say, “Go,” please touch three walls and four chairs that are not your own. Once you get to the spot, wait for further directions. “Ready, set, go!”’

      Now that you’re in a new spot, look around, point to the person nearest you, and say, “You’re it!”’ If you still need a partner, raise your hand. That new person will be your temporary neighbor for the next sixty seconds. Now that you have a partner, here’s your challenge. Earlier we were discussing ____________. and it’s time to finish that.

      You can then introduce the activity, such as students acting out a pro-and-con role, summarizing key points of the lesson, creating deeper and more interesting questions, or sharing what they know and need to learn. Once students finish the activity,