Module 21 Blog 1

My question about the module:

What role does cooperative learning play in the classroom? The section on cooperative learning in the book introduced it as the way schools are structured, but in its description made it seem like it was just a day-to-day teaching method. I can definitely think of examples in my own primary and secondary education where cooperative learning was at times implemented, but I wasn’t sure if the book was referring to schools that based their entire structure on cooperative learning or just intermittently used it to augment typical classroom methods.

Vygotsky Scenario:

For a very young child who is just learning to speak, he is internalizing nouns that are seen all around his environment. In the child’s bedroom, he might hear the word “crib” spoken over and over again. The parents will certainly mention it to each other as they put the baby to sleep and to bed. After hearing the word over and over again, the baby may start to understand that the large wooden piece of furniture that he wakes up in every morning and falls asleep in every night is “crib”.

He may show that he knows this word verbally by speaking it. He also might start to associate the word “crib” with going to sleep, especially if the mother or the father says, “I’m going to put you into your crib for the night”, every night as he or she puts the child to bed. When the child hears the word “crib”, it could cause a response if the child is having more fun playing with his toys. The child may respond emotionally as well. If the child is scared of the crib because he woke up from a bad dream in it, or maybe fell out of it and hurt himself, he may start to cry just from hearing the word crib. All of these responses from the child show that he is internalizing this specific word and is truly starting to comprehend its meaning.