Product reviews for The Beginner's Guide to Cooperative Learning

Jakob Werdelin and Drew Howard have produced an excellent guide to Cooperative Learning that provides teachers with a coherent philosophy and a detailed structure for bringing it to life in the classroom. Far beyond many teachers’ view of ‘group work’, the CLIPs concept is clearly defined with lots of examples. Most importantly, the authors have pitched high, insisting that all their suggested activities deliver the rigour required for PIES – the four requirements of positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation and simultaneous interaction which ensure that all children are participating, thinking and learning. This is great to see. Jakob and Drew’s audacious claim that Cooperative Learning is the solution to everything might be hard to accept, but nonetheless it’s an interesting challenge to explore and, as well as being practical as a handy guide, this book makes an engaging and compelling case for more Cooperative Learning in schools.