Implementing Cooperative Learning Strategies: Five Essential Components Class Meetings: Creating Positive Interdependence As I researched Best Practices

for strong DLI programs a common theme emerged, the use of Cooperative Learning Strategies. The second week of school we began having Class Meetings to help support Positive Interdependence or feeling a connection and responsibility to the group. The first activity was to brainstorm a list of things a good friend does. I asked the class, Qu hacen los buenos amigos? What does a good friend do? Jos translated for the class, What does your good friend do? Ricardo immediately raised his hand and shouted out, Juegan bien! They play nice! This struck me, because he had been having difficulty getting along with the other boys in the class. He was very physical and had a habit of taking things out of other I was encouraged that he saw this as an

students hands without asking.

important trait. The next comment came from Jos, Si no tienes el almuerzo, comparten contigo. If you dont have lunch they share with you. As students shared their ideas, I wrote them down on chart paper and drew a sketch to describe what they shared. If the student answered in English, I would repeat what was said back to them in Spanish and then write the phrase in Spanish on the chart. This is standard practice for teachers in the DLI

program; whenever English is spoken we repeat the phrase back in Spanish and encourage the student to echo the phrase. Several students volunteered to translate what was said into English. Initially, there were two standout translators. Michael, whos dominant language was actually English, but had a Spanish speaking nanny since birth and Jos, who was excited to translate, but his English was often difficult to

understand.

I used a thumb up or thumbs down signal to check for

understanding after a student would translate. Often it took a few versions of what they thought I was trying to say before I got a thumb up from the majority of the class. Both boys appeared confident and happy to be able to help out their classmates. I struggled with allowing translations, but I also found it difficult to create a sense of community and help form friendships, without the input of all students. Im still conflicted about translating, since within a few months, my NES were contributing regularly. would they be contributing as often. I wonder if I hadnt allowed translating,

Qu h acen los buenos amigos? What does a good friend do? Juegan bien! Play nice! - Ricardo (NSS) Si no tienes el almuerzo, comparten contigo. If you dont have your lunch, they share with you. Jos (NSS) Un da, Vera no tenia bocadillo y yo compart con ella. One day, Vera didnt have her snack and I shared with her. Gianna (NES) Leen libros juntos. They read books together. Steven (NES) Comparten juguetes. They share toys. Evan (NSS) Te ayuden cuando te lastimes. They help you w hen youre hurt. James (NES) Te empujen en los columpios. They push you on the swings. Shane (NES) Figure 3. Class Meeting Chart: What do good friends do? (The original chart was in Spanish only.)

I was pleased that both NES and NSS gave their input during our class meetings. It was important to me to have students share explicitly what they thought good friends do, especially since several of my students were having

behavior problems. I was hopeful that if they heard their classmates describe what they thought a good friend should do, they might begin to try out more positive behaviors. Developing Norms and Celebrating Good Behavior: Building our Social Skills My initial intention was to have students start working with their partners right away and begin using the protocols I had researched. Reality set in

quickly! I first had to establish expectations and formulate class norms that were clear to all students. Just sitting on the rug next to each other without I was surprised at how

somersaulting was a challenge for some students!

quickly students picked up key phrases in Spanish, especially one that I repeated throughout the day constantly during the first few weeks of school: No tocamos a los amigos. (We dont touch our friends.) My dream of having students work together as peer to peer mentors couldnt possibly take place if they couldnt sit next to one another without poking, hugging, pinching, and even kissing each other. I quickly realized that clear boundaries needed to be established before any collaboration could occur. I worked on role-playing with students, different scenarios I had noticed come up throughout the day. Some students had

difficulty asking a friend to pass them a pencil; instead they would just climb across the table and get it themselves, truly not a very collaborative move. I had also noticed a lot of grabbing and hoarding of materials. Although students said that sharing was important to them, many were not putting it to practice. We clearly needed to set some guidelines for what was acceptable behavior in our class. After several days of class meetings we came up with a list of class norms:

Escucho con atencion. ~ I listen carefully. Levanto la mano antes de hablar. ~ I raise my hand before speaking. Hago mi trabajo calladito. ~ I do my work quietly. Termino mi trabajo. ~ I finish my work. Soy un buen amigo. ~ I am a good friend. Camino calladito. ~ I walk quietly.

Figure 4. Class Norms and Behavior Clip Chart

In order for students to internalize our class norms, we repeated them two to three times a day for the first few weeks. I went over the norms first thing in the morning and asked students to give examples of what it looked like to follow certain norms. We revisited the norms after our morning literacy rotations, to check in and see if as a whole class there were any norms we needed to work on. This turned out to be a great opportunity for my NES to expand their vocabulary in Spanish. Since we were repeating the norms throughout the day, I began to hear students using the same phrases in our class discussions.

Another important system I implemented was a behavior chart. I have mixed feelings about behavior charts and treasure boxes for good behavior. I think they can condition kids to expect something for behaving, instead of teaching them that being kind is its own reward. However, the behavior of a few students was negatively impacting our class and making it hard to get through the day, so I gave in. Im glad that I decided to use the behavior chart, because it was effective at improving the behavior of most of the class. Another classroom management tool that I used was simple yet surprisingly effective. The class earned caritas felices or smiley faces for awesome behavior. I kept track of the smiley faces on the whiteboard and when we reached a certain number the class earned a reward. One of their favorite

rewards was a Soul Train style dance party. Students would line up on either side of the carpet, creating an aisle for the dancer. They loved it! Lucky for me the dance fever didnt wear off as the year went on. As simple as it was I think the smiley face chart helped bring my class together as a community. They encouraged each other to follow the rules and worked together to clean up. I

would over hear them talking about getting enough caritas felices to have a dance party!

Figure 5. Dance Party!

Friendship Building Activities: Fostering Group Processing through Positive Feedback In order to promote a strong bond between my students and help them form friendships where they would seek each other out in both play and academics, I chose several friendship building activities. Faulkner and Miell (1993) discovered that children who had well-established friendships upon entering school had better social and communication skills. They concluded that the ability to make friends influenced childrens performance in a range of learning activities, particularly those involving collaboration and cooperation. I reached out to the other Kindergarten teachers on my team for ideas to help build friendships and positive behavior in my class. There was one activity that they all found useful for promoting kindness and friendship, filling buckets. The activity is based on Carol McClouds book Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids. The book encourages children to fill friends metaphorical bucket with kind words and kind deeds. It also discusses the

importance of not being a bucket dipper or someone who uses unkind words or does unkind things. After reading the book we discussed things we could do and say to fill our classmates buckets. I made a bucket for each student and put them all in a pocket chart hanging on the wall. I made slips of paper with images of kids helping one another for them to write down ways that their friend had filled their bucket. The first time we did this activity was amazing! After generating a list of phrases they could write on their bucket filler cards, I put stack on each table group and gave them a chance to write messages and fill buckets. As I walked around the classroom, I heard students telling each other, Im writing one for you, porque juegas bien con migo. (You play nicely with me.) It was hard to get them to stop! After they had written for about ten minutes we reconvened on the rug and I read some of the slips from the students buckets. I asked the class how it felt to have their buckets filled, Me hace sentir feliz. (It makes me feel happy.), Julia said. We discussed the importance of using kind words throughout their day. I let them know that I would leave the bucket filler cards out for them to fill their friends buckets whenever they liked.

Figure 6. Students filling up buckets.

I had anticipated that students would be rushing over to fill out bucket filler slips throughout the day, but this didnt happen. I realized that unless I mentioned it during our morning meetings as an activity to do when they were finished with their work, it didnt get done. They needed constant reminders, just like with the class norms. However, when I pointed it out as an option they almost always chose to fill someones bucket. It also became clear that it was important to them to have time to sit and read their notes and for me to highlight a few students notes at the end of each day. Although students were writing the bucket fillers in Spanish, almost all of the conversations around bucket filling were in English. I heard a lot of code switching and borrowing of Spanish or English during their discussions. Code switching is the use of more than one language in a single conversation or sentence. Borrowing is used when someone is not yet fully bilingual and they insert a word or phrase from either language into the sentence when they dont

know the correct word. For example my student James said to me, Ayer I played futbol with mi papa. He is using all the language he knows in Spanish, but borrows the words he doesnt know from his native language, English. On the other hand, speakers practice code switching when they are mostly fluent in both languages. The majority of the conversations I heard were exclusively in English, with the exception of the phrases they were writing in Spanish. Hearing that much English being spoken was concerning to me. As I considered the amount of English I was hearing in my classroom I began researching issues of language and power in bilingual programs. Dual Immersion programs strive to bring equity to both languages and bring diverse groups of students together with a common objective of becoming biliterate. However, I wondered if the societal inequities can be overcome by curriculum and teaching practices. Students know that English is the language of power and wealth. Its transparent in the cars their parents drive, the houses they live in and the clothes they wear. Observing Student Interactions: Unstructured Play I decided to videotape groups of students during unstructured playtime to see what language they chose to speak. I have a pocket chart on the

whiteboard with six choices of activities: house, cars, coloring, beading, Legos, and puzzles. Student names are written on popsicle sticks and I take turns asking each student, Qu quieres jugar? What do you want to play? I noticed that several students wanted to wait until their friend chose an activity, before they chose. James (NES) said, Esperar mi amigo Emilio. Wait for my friend Emilio Emilo is a native Spanish speaker. I was pleased to hear James continue

to take risks in Spanish; he was progressing in Spanish quickly. students to wait and make a choice after their friend.

I allowed

As I walked around the room with my iPad videoing their interactions, several things struck me. The group of students who were beading (4 NES girls, 1 NSS boy, and 2 NSS girls) spoke exclusively in English. They would lean in and whisper to each other when I walked over. The native Spanish speakers in this group were silent. The group playing in the house area was a mix of students from my class and the other DLI Kindergarten class. It was a pretty even mix of NES and NSS, but mostly girls. Again, English was exclusively being spoken. There was a group of boys putting together a train track (3 NSS and 1 NES, James). I was really interested in hearing whether or not they chose to speak in Spanish, since James is one of the NES who has picked up Spanish very quickly. They actually didnt speak either language! They made car and train noises, but didnt speak at all while I observed them. This same thing happened when I observed Juan (NSS) and Fiona (NES). Fiona joined our class the third week of school and had a difficult time making the transition to the DLI program. She was vocal about not understanding Spanish and loudly said, Qu? What? throughout the day or Whats she (meaning me) saying? Often times I think she understood what Im saying, but chose to feign misunderstanding. Anyway, she and Juan were playing cars. They had built a very long track and had it completely covered with cars. Fiona explained to me, We made a traffic jam. While I observed them, they didnt speak very often. They took turns laying down pieces of the track, then filled the track with cars. I

asked Juan if he enjoyed playing with Fiona and he said, Si! Juan translated my question to Fiona and she smiled and said, Hes fun to play with! After my observations, I determined that the dominate language during playtime was English. My observations during the first few months of school were that during academic activities more Spanish was spoken. However, most of the NES were still in the silent stage so most of the talking was being done by NSS. Most students tried to speak Spanish to me and to each other while working in small groups during Language Arts rotations. Ultimately, the

language during academic activities shifted to mostly English as the year progressed. Students still spoke Spanish directly to me and with their peers during Reading groups with me. However, when students were working on an activity in a small group either alone or with an English-speaking parent volunteer, they spoke mostly English. I struggled with the amount of English I heard during our morning literacy rotations and during playtime in the afternoon. I spoke to my teaching partner Meghan and she said she was noticing the same thing. She decided to start giving out incentives when she heard students independently using Spanish. At our school students can earn cougar dollars (our school mascot) for good behavior. So, we decided to pass them out for speaking Spanish. I told my class explicitly that I was hoping to hear more Spanish being spoken. I didnt specifically tell them that would earn cougar dollars, but they picked up on it pretty quickly. When I heard a student, either a NES or NSS, say a phrase or sentence in Spanish I praised them by saying, Que bien que estas hablando espanol! Its so great that youre speaking Spanish! Then I would give them a cougar dollar. The effect of the cougar dollar snowballed. I would hear students

purposely looking up to see if I was listening and begin speaking Spanish. It was a little artificial, but I was happy that students who hadnt taken risks before in Spanish were beginning to make more of an effort. I was careful to balance the rewards amongst both NSS and NES. Activities to Promote Face-to-Face Interaction In small groups, I began working with compaeros on sharing materials, in an effort to get them talking with one another and in the hope that they would begin to see the value in working with a friend. This was an ongoing effort. I wondered if it was developmental; maybe they are so concerned with themselves at this age that they dont look outside themselves or to the teacher for possible solutions. During small group rotations (students were split into groups of eight, two groups worked with parent volunteers and I took the third group), I modeled practicing sight word flash cards. First, we practiced whole group: I held up the card and they chorally repeated back the word. Then, I modeled working with a partner with one of the students and explained that its important to allow time to read the word, then offer help if their partner needs it. I assigned specific spots in the room and they practiced. I observed one pair closely: He doesnt know any of the words, Fiona announced loudly. Juan looked deflated and disappointed. I reminded Fiona, Una de nuestras reglas es: Soy un buen amigo. Hay que ayudar tu compaero. One of our rules is: I am a god friend. You need to help your friend. Fiona looked up at me and said, Huh, what did you say? Her partner Juan replied,

Maestra said be nice. Fiona shrugged and we walked back to the table to meet with the rest of the group. For most of the pairs, this first attempt went better than expected! I noticed students focused on the cards and offering help. As I reflected on this, I realized I should ask students to share out what worked well and what we can still work on next time they work in pairs on sight words. Also, I noticed there were several students that did not know their sight words and their partners struggled with how to offer help. During a class meeting we generated a class list of how a good friend offers help. It was important for them to have some guidelines and for me to have an anchor chart I could refer back to after students read with a friend, worked on flashcards.

Que h acen los buenos amigos? What does a good friend do? Te escuchen. They listen to you. Juan (NSS) Si no intiendes algo te dicen. If you dont understand something they tell you. Jos (NSS) Comparten contigo. They share with you. Fiona (NES) Te dicen, Buen trabojo! They tell you, Good job! Anna (NES) Ponen el libro en el medio. They put the book in the middle to share. Evan (NSS) Figure 6. How do good friends offer help? Class chart

After building a foundation of what it looks and sounds like to work positively with a friend, I decided to have students begin giving each other feedback during Interactive Writing time. My hope was that this activity would

serve as a starting point for helping students move towards working together on projects that required more collaboration. During Interactive Writing time,

students came in from recess and picked up a mini whiteboard, a marker and a sock and sat on the rug. Students sat next to their compaero on the rug and I sat on a low stool in front of the group. I wrote a sight word on the board and students followed along on their boards. They held it up to show me first. Then I asked students to turn and sit knee-to-knee and eye-to-eye with their compaero. They hold up their boards and tell each other, Muy bien amigo! Good job friend. Getting them to really look at their friends work was a challenge, but they from the smiles on their faces I could tell they were super excited to get the feedback from their partner. Initially, students parroted back the compliments that I modeled, Excelente trabajo! Excellent work! Then we transitioned to giving a specific compliment. I asked students to pick out one letter that they noticed was written especially well. I noticed many students focusing on their own work more than their partners work and this specific direction forced them to take a closer look. At first, this did not go so smoothly. Lola, one of my focus students who was also defiant and difficult to deal with, often didnt do the writing I had modeled. Her compaera Elena was just the opposite, always on task. Shes not doing it right! Elena informed the class. Lola had been working on an elaborate

drawing of her family on the whiteboard and hadnt written any of the words we were practicing. l no lo hizo tampoco! He didnt do it either! Lola complained as she pointed at James, who was drawing a smiley face on the carpet! I

practiced a lot of patience during those first few weeks and took many deep breaths. The practice and patience paid off and after awhile students were able

to turn knee-to-knee and eye-to-eye and give each other feedback. In order for all students to have their work seen, even if their partner was off task, I had them show their board to the person sitting in front of them and in back of them. This seemed to solve the problem of fairness, when a partner wasnt finished with their work or was drawing, they could choose another friend. I wondered if the skills they had learned in giving each other feedback during interactive writing would transfer over to other activities throughout the day.

Figure 7. Interactive Writing

Student Tally Chart: Encouraging Individual Accountability In order to encourage students to take an active role in creating friendships with their compaero, I designed an input chart to track which ways students were helping each other. I knew that they all loved being recognized for making good choices. Throughout the first few weeks of school I heaped on the praise for students that were following our class norms. For example, if many of the students were calling out answers, I would focus on the students that were following our class norm: Levanto la mano antes de hablar. I raise my hand before speaking. I repeated this comment many times, Me encanta como nuestro amigo Juan levant su mano antes de hablar. Que bien que esta siguiendo

nuestras reglas! I love how our friend Jorge raised his hand before speaking. Its great that he is following our class norms! The reaction from Juan and other students was immediate, big smiles, raised hands with out yelling out. Of course this was not a magic bullet! They needed constant reminding. The days that I tried to plow through activities and curriculum without taking the time to praise behavior individually and specifically always backfired. My students reverted to calling out, grabbing materials, and running in the classroom (yes, often with scissors!). I realized that taking the time to point out and encourage positive behaviors was essential to holding them accountable and to preserve my mental health! In the book Responsive School Discipline (2011), the authors detail the importance of using direct positive language with students to encourage positive behaviors. By affirming the exact action, students know what is expected. If teachers are too general in their comments, such as, Its important to be friendly students will not always know what specific behaviors are expected. I modeled giving specific compliments, Me gusta como compartiste los crayones con tu amigo. I like how you shared your crayons with your friend. I decided to use a tally chart to record when students were helping each other and in what way. I included the headings: Mi compaero me ayudo a decir algo. (My friend helped me say something.), Mi compaero me ayudo con mi trabajo. (My friend helped me with my work.) and Mi compaero jugo bien con migo. (My friend played nicely with me.) Initially, I thought I would explain the chart during our community meeting and model adding smiley faces to the chart for the different categories. I planned on letting students come up during the day and add smiley faces when a friend helped them. However, once we began

discussing the chart, I realized that I had found a very valuable way to collect data! I was thrilled when students began sharing very detailed descriptions of the way their friend had helped them to read a word or finish a project. I realized that the discussion that came out of that first meeting was really great and I needed to document what was being said. So, I audiotaped our next community meeting. We had just finished our morning rotations, where

students rotate through four different activities in groups of six students (with their compaero). I began by asking students if anyone had helped them say anything or helped them with the meaning of a word. I was pleased when one of my focus students, Fiona, who has been reluctant to use Spanish said, Ayude a Lila. I helped Lila I praised her for helping out her friend and also for speaking in Spanish and I put a smiley face next to her name. The next comment came from James, Ayudar, ayudarI helped Emilio draw a spider. There were

several more comments about helping with coloring. Students had noticed what someone had drawn and wanted help to do the same thing. At the end of our meeting, Naomi said, Yo puedo ser la amiga de James porque Gretta no esta aqu y Juan tan poco. (I can be James friend today, because Gretta and Juan are both absent.) I was so pleased that she had made that connection after wed been talking about helping out friends.

Figure 8. Student Tally Chart