Kagan's Articles - FREE Kagan Articles
Research & Rationale
Test Scores Show Kagan Structures Work At Long Hill Elementary School
Kathy Kennedy, Principal To cite this article: Kennedy, K. Test Scores Show Kagan Structures Work at Long Hill Elementary School. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. Kagan Online Magazine, Summer 2000. www.KaganOnline.com
During the summer of 1996,
Kathy Kennedy was named principal of Long Hill Elementary School. Kathy's
extensive
training in Kagan Cooperative Learning enabled her to provide staff development
opportunities for her teachers. During classroom observations and demonstration
lessons, she reinforced the active learning structures, which the teachers
utilized
as a result of the training. At the end of their first year of using Kagan
Structures, test scores showed an increase in both reading and mathematics,
the two areas
tested by the state of North Carolina. Carrie Bonner, a fourth
grade teacher, believes that the Kagan strategies have helped her become
a more
effective teacher. She writes, "Through the use of Kagan Structures and theory,
I have been able to become a teacher who uses a variey of techniques to reach
and enhance the learning styles and needs of all of my students. Before I began
using the Kagan Cooperative Learning strategies, I was exposing my children
to a lot of group work where the brightest, outgoing children were in control.
Now, with Kagan Structures, my low perfoming, shy, and high-performing students
work as a team to complete a task or goal. I am now a facilitator of student
learning as opposed to a teacher, who in a sense dictates the material, lessons,
and activities." One of her students, Marissa Ihus, states, "I like to sit
in cooperative learning teams in my classroom because it gives us a chance
to not
only learn things ourselves, but to learn together and help each other." Kagan Cooperative Learning
Structures contributed to much of this increase in student achievement. The
structure, Simultaneous RoundTable is used weekly in all grade levels to
foster
the creative thinking of children. Personal or imaginative story starters are
provided by the teacher, to students, and Simultaneous RoundTable is used
to spark
the writing process. After students complete their stories as a team, they
use Spend A Buck to determine the best story for their team. This story is
shared
with the entire class and constructive feedback is provided by the teacher
and the class. Students then distribute the stories their team wrote among
the teammates
and work with a partner to edit the paper. These papers are taken home to revise
and submitted as a final draft by the end of the week. Students may choose
to
conference with the teacher, a volunteer, or their editing partner before submitting
the paper to their teacher. A few other structures we use to assist with
the
writing process include, Match Mine, Same-Different (enables students to practice
descriptive communication), and Similarity Groups (enables students to locate
other students having difficulty with the same part of the story....ie: beginning,
middle, end). To Contact Kathy Kennedy  |