So Tell Me More About Kagan... Part One

If you have read my past blog posts, I am sure you have read about how I use Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures within my classroom. I found out about Kagan through an email sent to me by my principal. He offered to send a few of his staff to professional development in Kagan- during our summer break. After some consideration and weighing the pros of going to professional development to the cons of giving up some of my summer, I decided to go for it. I'm so glad I did!

Not Another Curriculum, Please!

Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures isn't a new curriculum and you don't plan your lessons around cooperative learning- you just implement the structures in logical places where it makes sense to have students to process new information or demonstrate and apply their knowledge. It is based on scientific evidence to provide a brain friendly environment to learn. In other words, we all know kids love to move and they love to talk. Having a student sit silently for an hour long lesson goes against what kids want. Instead, with Kagan Cooperative Learning, students are provided the chance to share their ideas with each other and they are provided opportunities to get up and get moving. In other words, Kagan works with what the kids want! We get them learning and they get to talk and move. I don't know what you call that, but I call it a win-win situation!

Breaking the Group Work Misconception

Now I know what you are thinking, I do group work all of the time. I let my students talk. Wrong! I was shocked to discover this too, but group work is not cooperative learning. Let me repeat that once more so it can truly sink in, GROUP WORK IS NOT COOPERATIVE LEARNING. Now let me explain why. In cooperative learning all students must work together to share what they know for the common good of the team/partnership. Now lets think about group work for a moment. Do all students have to work together? Can they just sit there and listen as a chatty person at their group leads the discussion? Could they completely zone out? So, since group work doesn't depend on everyone working together, it falls flat.

Kagan is based on 4 basic principles: PIES. 

P- The P stands for Positive Interdependence. Kagan Structures promote students helping and encouraging each other and they NEED each other to do their jobs for task completion.

I- The I stands for Individual Accountability. With Kagan everyone is accountable to show what they know. In other words, we don't have people that can zone out. They can no longer hide.

E- The E stands for Equal Participation. This means that the Chatty Kathys and the Quiet Suzys are all participating at the same amount.

S- The S stands for Simultaneous Interaction. Kagan Structures simply make sure that there is a large percentage of the class actively engaged.

Every structure is based on these principals to guide the activity. When I look at the bones of Kagan compared to the bones of group work, the biggest ingredient that I see Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures has that group work doesn't is STRUCTURE! The activities are structured so carefully based on these principals to get ALL students engaged.

Kagan Isn't Time Consuming

Dr. Kagan and his team has already created many structures that could easily be incorporated into your classroom today and change the way you engage your students. So incorporating these strategies isn't going to require tons of money or work for you. I know your time is valuable and we already spend enough time as it is working in our classrooms. All you have to do is research the structures, learn about them, and incorporate them into your classroom. 

Now Let's Learn a Structure

One structure that I use and implement frequently in my classroom is called Round Robin. It is called round because you work around the table which is usually a group of 4 (sometimes 3 or 5) and the robin part of the structure name comes from where you have to share orally. So you simply present an open ended question and announce that you are going to do a round robin discussion. Then students will take turns each sharing a response. Once finished the students will always give each other feedback and praise each other. 

There is much more to Kagan Cooperative Learning than I can possibly share- so if you have an opportunity to go to a Kagan professional development conference- DO IT! I promise it is worth the investment of your time and energy.