Sunday, July 31, 2005

Cooperative learning and wining on reality T.V.

I have been watching lots of T.V. lately. I should say too much T.V.! There are many Reality T.V. shows on the air. There is the Apprentice with Don Trump (don’t get me started on that loser), Big Brother 9999, Survivor (somewhere new but same old show), I want to be a Hilton and The Law Firm. All of these show have wannabe famous contestants with a mediocre intellect with high opinion of their own intellect.
Another common theme is in these contests and the topic of this post is: they all do things that the Co-operative learning literature talks about. The teams, tribes and inmates are put or form their own groups, and compete to complete a task. After completing the task they themselves or Donald grades them. This is similar to how group activities work in the classroom. I know there are some students who hate cooperative learning and group work, but I think now I can sell this cooperative learning (group activities) more easily to such students. I would make a T.V. show called the Economist where two groups the Dismalist and the Marginalist compete for _____ and I can tell one student each week “You have failed!”

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