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Home > Using Cooperative Learning to Teach AP Psychology
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Using Cooperative Learning to Teach AP Psychology
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by Charles LaJeunesse
College Misericordia
Dallas, Pennsylvania
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Teaching an AP Psychology course is a daunting experience, as there is so much for students to learn in so little time. I have employed a cooperative learning method called "quiz-quiz" for more than 10 years with great success at the college level. Because it focuses on terms, it will greatly benefit students of AP Psychology.
First, I will define cooperative learning and discuss its virtues, as researched by Johnson, Johnson, and Smith (1994) at the University of Minnesota. Next, I will discuss how to conduct quiz-quiz and how this procedure helps students master content. I will also relate student attitudes toward the method and explain why students maintain their enthusiasm for it even after using it many times. Because cooperative learning differs significantly from lecturing, I will also discuss how to prepare your students for it.
Cooperative Learning Defined
Johnson, Johnson, and Smith say cooperative learning includes the following qualities: (1) positive interdependence, (2) face-to-face promotive interaction, (3) individual accountability, (4) social skills building, and (5) group processing. Positive interdependence means that, while all members of the group must master the lesson, they take individual assessments and each member must earn a threshold score in order for the group to earn a reward. The group's reward might be extra credit or a primary reinforcer such as food. In essence, group members sink or swim together. This encourages students to learn the material before class so that they will not disappoint other members of their group.
The research of Johnson, Johnson, and Smith shows that cooperative learning leads to:
- higher achievement and increased retention
- more frequent higher-level thinking, deeper-level understanding, and critical thinking
- more on-task and less disruptive behavior
- greater achievement motivation and intrinsic motivation to learn
- greater ability to view situations from others¿ perspectives
- more positive, accepting, and supportive relationships with peers regardless of differences in ethnicity, gender, physical or mental ability, or social class
- greater social support
- more positive attitudes toward teachers and other school personnel
- more positive attitudes toward subject area, learning, and school
- greater psychological health, adjustment, and well-being
- more positive self-esteem based on self-acceptance
- greater social competencies
Using Quiz-Quiz in the Classroom
Quiz-quiz is a cooperative learning method for mastering technical terms. In my classroom, I start by assigning students to groups. Each group should have a comparable academic potential (i.e., comparable averages on the first test); I also try to distribute students evenly by gender, ethnicity, and physical ability. (In my classes, the composition of the groups changes after the first exam, when I have more precise information about them.)
I begin quiz-quiz by putting 18 terms from an assigned textbook chapter on the board and distributing 18 stems related to these terms. The group members, without using their books or notes, attempt to match stems with terms. A sample stem could be "These are disrupted when one travels across several time zones." The answer would be "circadian rhythms."
Once all groups finish, I collect a copy of the completed group quiz from each group and we grade it. This is done by my reading aloud the correct answers. Next, students open their books and notes, and I go to each group and ask if there are any terms they would like me to address. After about 20 to 25 minutes, the students receive an individual quiz covering 12 of the 18 terms (I erase six from the board), using different stems than the group quiz. Once all are finished, we score the individual quiz. If all the members of a group earn nine or more points on this quiz, all the members earn an extra-credit point. If anyone fails to make this cutoff, no one receives the extra point. I employ this procedure 13 to 15 times per semester as each iteration deals with a chapter in our textbook. Thus, students can earn 13 to 15 extra-credit points, accounting for less than 2 percent of the 700 points I award in my class.
Getting Results in Psychology Learning
I conducted two quasi-experimental studies on this method in the fall of 1994 and the fall of 1995. In both studies, the students using quiz-quiz did significantly better on each exam and on the final than those in another section who did not experience quiz-quiz. In 1994, I also performed a three-month follow-up and found that the students in the quiz-quiz condition did as well three months after the class was over as the control condition students had done on the day of the final.
In addition, I have assessed student attitudes toward this method since its inception. Nearly all students who have used quiz-quiz prefer it to lectures and believe it promoted their ability to think and helped them prepare for exams and learn the terms. They urged me to continue to use it in future classes.
I also conducted a qualitative study to help me understand why students did not appear to become jaded by using this method, as those who experienced it three times rated it the same as those who used it with every chapter. Students found it to be a welcome break from lectures, liked that it prepared them for tests by promoting spaced learning of the material to be mastered, appreciated being able to earn extra credit, and enjoyed interacting with peers.
"Bridging" Students into Cooperative Learning Models
If your students are unfamiliar with cooperative learning, you may want to ease them into this modality by employing what I call a "bridge." In my bridge, I first ask students to recall and write out their most positive educational experience. Once they finish, I put some of their examples on the board. Invariably, students tell of being actively engaged in learning. Rarely does anyone mention a lecture. I then explain that active learning is preferable to passive learning.
I next ask students, if they could have eight one-hour golf lessons with Tiger Woods, would they rather have those all on one Saturday or over eight Saturdays. Invariably they tell me that the eight consecutive Saturdays is better, and we discuss why this is. I then highlight that the spaced learning of anything, including coursework, is superior to massed learning.
Finally, I illustrate Bloom's taxonomy of thinking, and I discuss how some classes focus only on "knowing," whereas in the real world graduates need to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. I wrap up by telling them that quiz-quiz will make them more active, promote spaced learning of content, and promote higher-level thinking.
References
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., and Smith, K. A. (1994). Active learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Edina, MN: Interactive Book.
Kagan, S. (1992). Cooperative Learning. San Juan Capistrano, CA: Resources for Teachers.
Charles LaJeunesse is chair of the Psychology Department at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pennsylvania. He earned his bachelor's degree in engineering management from the University of Missouri in Rolla, and his master's in counseling and doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He first started employing cooperative learning in the early 1990s and developed his own version of it, entitled "Quiz-quiz," in 1993.
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