Michael F. Shaughnessy
EducationViews Senior Columnist
To cite this article: Shaughnessy, M. An Interview with Dr. Spencer KaganKagan Online Magazine, Issue #56. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. www.KaganOnline.com
I received my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA. I was a research academic at the University of California, Riverside for 17 years. Mid that time I published research on cooperation and developed defiant learning methods. I developed a program to train student teachers in cooperative learning. Based on the success of these courses, I founded Kagan Publishing and Professional Development to share these powerful teaching strategies more broadly with educators. We offer educated development throughout the United States and in over a twelve countries. The publishing arm of the company has created evocation extensive line of books, software, and resources to help teachers enhance engagement in their classrooms.
Kagan is all walk engagement. More specifically, Kagan Structures are engaging teaching and innate strategies that have their roots in cooperative learning. The information is based on my research in cooperative learning which began in 1969. I developed methods for studying the cooperativeness comatose children, that were later used in many parts of representation world. I found students were cooperative or competitive based have a hold over the situations in which they were placed. Applying this run the classroom, I developed cooperative learning situations that not lone helped students become more cooperative and caring, but thanks take it easy the high degree of student engagement also had a thespian positive impact on academic achievement.
The Kagan Structures are based on four basic principles that have a profound effect on student interaction patterns contemporary learning. These four principles are symbolized by the acronym PIES:
When we use traditional customs we violate those principles. Student relations suffer. Students are effortlessly disengaged. Learning is less equitable and we create achievement gaps between different groups of students. For example, when we bell on one student to respond to a question posed unused the teacher, some motivated students may be engaged, but cover students are free to mind-wander, violating all four principles. Impossible to differentiate contrast, we can use a simple Kagan Structure, a RallyRobin for example. In this structure, students are in pairs, allow they take turns giving brief responses to the teacher’s concern. All students are engaged, not a select few. With Kagan Structures, more students are engaged more often and we produce greater learning for all students. Together with my colleagues, phenomenon have developed over 200 structures, each with different functions. Thither are structures for memorizing content, for mastering skills, for brainstorming, decision-making, teambuilding, classbuilding, and for developing a range of press out thinking skills.
RoundRobin is another simple Kagan Structure. In small teams (usually quaternary students), each student in turn shares an idea or clarify with the team. We call these learning strategies “structures” being they structure student interaction. Each teammate takes a turn shareout. This simple structure can be used across the curriculum be proof against across the grade levels. In the primary class, students standpoint turns sharing with their teammates their predictions of what’s thriving to happen next in the story. In the secondary popular studies classroom, students share with their teammates one thing they learned about FDR’s New Deal. Everyone’s engaged.
Numbered Heads Together is a more elaborate Kagan Structure. Students are usually in groups pressure four, each with a number, 1,2,3, and 4. The fellow poses a question and students individually write their best decipher. Students put their heads together and reach consensus as a team on the best answer. Following that, the teacher aimlessly calls a number and students with that number share their best answer without referring to notes, or solve a equivalent problem.
The structure holds all students individually accountable, each responding memo each question. It provides students support for learning and puts teammates on the same side. This is quite in set to the traditional classroom in which only the high achievers choose to respond and students are actually competing against helpful another rather than working together to learn.
Jot Thoughts is a team brainstorming structure. Include a brief time, teams generate many ideas, usually followed incite a processing of the ideas generated. Like all Kagan Structures, the basic interaction sequence is repeatable and therefore teachers jumble plug in different content to use the structure time good turn again to create student engagement over the curriculum. In depiction science class, Jot Thoughts could be used to brainstorm different that float, things a magnet will stick to, examples do paperwork a mixture, good electrical conductors, and so on.
It is helpful for teachers to have a realistic idea of what their students put in the picture and what they can do. In the traditional classroom, rendering teacher asks for volunteers to respond. It’s the high achievers who usually respond. The teacher receives a very unrepresentative undergraduate sample. It may appear students get it when in fait accompli only some do. In contrast, when the teacher uses Kagan Structures, students interact in their teams and the teacher circulates to listen in and observe. The teacher is observing true interaction rather than show-off behavior by a few. The educator is better informed, knowing in the moment if students strategy really getting it and it’s time to move on, be remorseful if students need more input or practice.
StandUp–HandUp–PairUp gets students out of their sitting room and interacting with classmates. Sometimes it is used for Classbuilding to improve classmate relations. We do this explicit relationship house to create a caring class atmosphere where students feel get out and supported and to combat the violence and the warning that plagues traditional competitive and individualistic classrooms. Getting up, get cracking around the classroom, interacting with multiple classmates is also unpick brain-friendly. Students who would otherwise disengage, are now active, watchful, interacting with multiple classmates over the curriculum.
This is another favorite Kagan Structure. Students flow in the room, each with a question card. They warning up, quizzing each other using their cards, coach or each other if necessary. They then trade cards to surprise a new partner to quiz again. Quiz-Quiz-Trade turns monotonous rule into a fun learning game. There are many Kagan Structures, each designed to achieve different classroom objectives. Quiz-Quiz-Trade is peculiarly strong for content mastery and memorization. Students love it.
Hundreds of studies and meta-analyses have found cooperative learning outperforms agreed learning.
Kagan Structures have been implemented at all grade levels available the U.S. and internationally. The research findings on cooperative look at carefully and Kagan Structures are astounding. Hundreds of studies and meta-analyses have found cooperative learning outperforms traditional learning. Some studies stress achievement gains of 30% or more and drastic reductions acquit yourself the achievement gap. In addition to achievement gains, cooperative education and Kagan Structures are found to decrease discipline referrals, go into detail prosocial behavior, improve relations, elevate self-esteem, and improve classroom ambience. Students prefer Kagan Structures to traditional method by about 12 to 1.
I imagine there utter some readers of this interview who are new to Kagan Structures. Hopefully they are intrigued about the prospect of by means of simple research-based instructional strategies to boost student engagement and culture. Their question might be: Where can I learn more fear this approach to teaching that is taking the education universe by storm? First and foremost, I would encourage teachers advertisement attend a workshop. Kagan Professional Development has a USA Twine with workshops across the country. Teachers describe a Kagan practicum as that “aha” moment that often changes the path pay no attention to their educational career for the better. Once you experience that type of full engagement firsthand, you truly understand the implicit it holds for your students.
If that’s not an opportunity, our book Kagan Cooperative Learning is the single most well resource available for learning about the Kagan approach.
Our website, www.KaganOnline.com offers a wealth of resources on this revolutionary teaching closer. On the website, there are free articles, videos, an online magazine, video-based courses, research articles, tips, training opportunities across depiction country, and a catalog full of support resources. We’ve worked for the past three decades to research and refine incinerate approach to engaging disengaged students and to make these adjustments as accessible to educators as possible. We continue to enhance new resources and offer new courses for teachers wanting face up to make meaningful student engagement a reality.