Opinion Blog

Classroom Q&A

With Larry Ferlazzo

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to lferlazzo@epe.org. Read more from this blog.

Education Opinion

Q&A Collections: Cooperative & Collaborative Learning

By Larry Ferlazzo — July 09, 2020 2 min read
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During the summer, I will be sharing thematic posts bringing together responses on similar topics from the past nine years. You can see all those collections from the first eight years here.

Here are the ones I’ve posted so far:

This Year’s Most Popular Q&A Posts

Race & Racism in Schools

School Closures & the Coronavirus Crisis

Classroom-Management Advice

Best Ways to Begin the School Year

Best Ways to End the School Year

Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning

Implementing the Common Core

Facing Gender Challenges in Education

Teaching Social Studies.

Today’s theme is on Cooperative & Collaborative Learning. You can see the list following this excerpt from one of them:

* ‘To Maximize Group Work, Make It Metacognitive’

A three-part series of supporting effective student group work is “wrapped up” today with commentaries from Nancy Frey, Doug Fisher, Michael Fisher, Dr. Laura Greenstein, Debbie Zacarian, Michael Silverstone, and Cindy Terebush.

* ‘Maximizing Student Learning Gained Through Collaboration’

Katrina Hankins, Dawn Mitchell, Andrew Miller, Andrea Keith, and Michael D. Toth share their ideas about ensuring that group work in the classroom goes smoothly.

* Effective Group Work Starts With Classroom Culture

Karen Goeller, Jill Kester, Rachael Williams, Kara Pranikoff, and Cheryl Mizerny share their ideas for effective student group work.

* Effective Ways Students Can Teach Their Classmates

Bobson Wong, Adeyemi Stembridge, Jennifer Davis Bowman, Starr Sackstein, Kathy Dyer, and Rachelle Dene Poth share ideas on how students can teach their classmates.

* Students Can Become ‘Co-Teachers’

This second post in the series on students teaching their classmates includes commentaries by Rita Platt, Paul Solarz, Laurie Buffington, Dr. Laura Greenstein, and Anne Taffin d’Heursel Baldisseri.

* The Value of ‘Peer Teaching’

Amber Chandler, Cheryl Mizerny, Andrew Miller, Dr. Karen Goeller, Michael D. Toth, Megan Bang, Laura M. Brady, Stephanie A. Fryberg, and Mary C. Murphy share their ideas on students as teachers.

* Students as Teachers in the Classroom

This four-part series on peer teaching is wrapped up today with responses from Bryan Goodwin, Dr. Jenny Grant Rankin, Sarah Thomas, and Bradley Witzel.

* Assessing Students on ‘What Really Counts’

This post features commentaries from Andrew Miller, Suzie Boss, Meg Riordan, Abbie Sewall, Daniel Schwartz, and Vicky Layne. They primarily discuss assessment in project-based learning.

* Different Ways of ‘Learning by Doing’

Guest responses in this post come from educators Suzie Boss, Jeffrey Wilhelm, Steven Anderson, and Stephen Lazar.

* Learning by Doing—Part Two

Jeff C. Marshall, Nancy Sulla, Derek Cabrera, Christopher Panna, and Heather Wolpert-Gawron and Ron Berger all share their thoughts.

* The Best Advice on Doing Project-Based Learning

This post is a Part Two to last year’s popular one by Suzie Boss (and readers!) on Do’s and Don’ts for Better Project-Based Learning. Suzie agreed to share additional ideas this year, as did many readers.

* Do’s and Don’ts for Better Project-Based Learning

Few people know more about project-based learning than Suzie Boss, and she graciously agreed to respond to this “question of the week.”

I hope you’ve found this summary useful and, again, keep those questions coming!

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.