Step 1 Focus. The teacher will ask students to evaluate how people reform physical environments with agriculture. The teacher will state the lesson objective: to understand that changing the environment to has many potential positive and negative effects. Some of these are intentional, some unforeseen. Then the teacher will use the historical events to show how similar influences are taking place in the United States today.
Step 2 Input. The teacher will review the five themes of geography, standard of living indicators, economic systems and infrastructures, and introduce the physical geography of former civilized agricultural center that supported large urban population bases.
Step 3 Organizing Learning Teams. The teacher will share the procedures for the jigsaw activity to which the students will be held accountable during class time including dividing the students up into groups of no more than five keeping in consideration that ability ethnicity and bender should exist as variables within the group. Discuss the roles and job duties. The potential roles are: Facilitator/Leader, Scribe/Recorder, Timekeeper, Materials Person, and Encourager/Motivator
The teacher must:
- Define the group role
- Establish the time lines
- Review the materials; and,
- Work with the teams on communication skills.
These instructions should be written and verbal. Assign a task to each group.
Examples could be:
- How agriculture affects the increasing spread of desertification. Justify.
- How agriculture contributed to the “Dustbowl Years” in the United States. Justify.
- How agriculture affects native plant and animal species like bison and wolves. Justify.
Step 4 Check for Understanding. Students should outline the material first, so the teacher can be sure they know what information they are supposed to master.
Step 5 Supervised Work. The teacher must keep in review the expert groups as they become mixed and tutor each other
Step 6 Assessment. The students understanding will be assessed by a true/false test given to each student based on the shared information.
Step 7 Recognition. One of the most important steps is to recognize the individual and group efforts. Individual grades should aligned to a rubric/grading scale. Each group should also get teacher input based on how the group dealt with collaboration and teamwork
Closure: Cooperative learning develops academic, affective and social learning skills and impact both cognitive and affective learning.
References
Arends, R. I. (1997). Classroom Instruction and Management. McGraw-Hill.
Harper Collins. (1992). Developing a Teaching Style (1st Edition ed.). Harper Collins.
Louisell, R., & Descamps, J. (2001). Developing a Teaching Style (2nd Editioin ed.). Waveland Press.
