Cooperative Learning Strategies for Your History Block

Are you looking to wake up your students and bring engaging learning strategies to your history block? You have come to the right place! Read on for ideas on how to use cooperative learning strategies in your history block to engage your students and make history more interactive!

Why Use Cooperative Learning Strategies in Your History Block?

Cooperative learning is more than just group learning or group work. It is strategies built with the express purpose of ensuring all students participating share the work equally and have a vested interest in succeeding. Through collaborative learning structures, students are able to hold one another accountable. This happens all while working on embedded social skills and achieving a common goal. In short, cooperative learning activities are a model for real-life work experiences. They require participants to work together collaboratively with positive interdependence.

By incorporating cooperative learning strategies into your history block you are engaging students in all the best parts of cooperative learning while hammering home the content at the same time.

Cooperative Learning Strategies for Your History Block

Jigsaw Method

My absolute favorite cooperative learning strategy for history is the Jigsaw Method. This strategy puts students in the position to work with one another cooperatively to teach the whole class about a small part of the information needed to learn. It takes the teacher off the stage and puts the student groups in the driving seat.

For more information on the Jigsaw Method check out this post.

This strategy is great for learning new information.

Find Someone Who

The Find Someone Who cooperative learning strategy is perfect for use with just about any worksheet you already have copied and ready to go! Each student needs a worksheet and writing utensil. The procedure is simple. Students take their pen and paper and travel around the room trying to find someone who can answer each question.

Students pair up, trade papers, and choose a question to answer. Once they answer the question they initial their answer and trade papers back. This process is repeated until all questions are answered.

This strategy is great for reviewing information.

Fan & Pick

The Fan & Pick strategy is a great strategy to use with task cards on any subject, but I find myself using it most during the history block.

To complete the strategy:
1. Establish a group of four
2. Use the “role placemat” to assign roles to students.
3. Student A then fans out the cards and says, “Pick a card, any card!”
4. Student B chooses a card at random and reads it to the group.
3. Student C answers the question.
4. Student D either praises or coaches student C (if coaching I teach “tip, tip, tell” details below.)
5. The “role placemat” is rotated so that student A becomes student B and so forth, and the process is repeated.
6. Continue to repeat the process for your allotted time.

Want More Cooperative Learning Goodness?

There are a lot more cooperative learning strategies out there that will rock your socks off! Check out this post on all things cooperative learning for more strategies, tips, and tricks for making cooperative learning work for you and your students!