`Cooperative learning' replacing `chalk and talk'

DATE                  5/7/90
NEWSPAPER             THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION               METRO
EDITION               EVENING
PAGE                  b01
STORY LENGTH          17 INCHES
HEADLINE              `Cooperative learning' replacing `chalk and talk'
BYLINE/CREDIT         Dan Froomkin:The Register
SUBJECT TERMS         OC:SCHOOLS:FACULTY:EDUCATION:STUDENTS
  KEYWORD-HIT

     The day begins with chairs and desks in straight rows in Judy
  Johnson's classroom at Orange High School.
     But by afternoon they have been pulled, pushed, dragged and slammed
  together into a variety of clumps.
     In Johnson's English classes, students in groups of four read their
  essays to each other, soliciting advice before they turn them in to the
  teacher.
     In threesomes, they work on multimedia research reports.
     In groups ranging from two to 10, they prepare poetry readings,
  divvying up the lines and plotting dramatic ways to present them to the
  class.
     And sitting on either side of a center aisle, they lob questions
  about literature to each other, competing for class-participation
  points.
     Johnson, who has been teaching since 1971, describes her class as
  student-centered rather than teacher-centered.
     "I used to think that everything had to come from me," Johnson said.
  "But the point is, if they don't discover it for themselves, they're
  going to forget it anyway."
     Like Johnson, a large number of teachers and administrators in
  Orange County have come to the conclusion that exclusive use of the
  lecture format -- the traditional "chalk and talk" -- is passe.
     In its stead, "cooperative learning" has swept through the schools.
  Its basic premise is that children will enjoy themselves more,
  participate more and retain more if they work together.
     The furniture might suffer a bit, but students and teachers alike
  say it's worth it.
     "We can learn together, instead of just having it pounded into our
  heads," Dale Murphy, an 18-year-old senior, said while planning how to
  paint Chad Richters' face for their presentation on the hunting theme
  in "Lord of the Flies."
     Bryan Ellis, a 17-year-old junior, agreed. He had just finished a
  performance of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,"
  during which he and friend Dave Rogers trotted into the class
  accompanied by tape-recorded horse noises.
     "You kind of get more feeling from it that way, more than just
  reading it from the book," Ellis said.
     During a recent honors English class, students were asked to read
  each other's essays and attach comments.
     Senior Tumai Tran turned to clump mates Joel Cloud and Quan Nguyen
  and read from her essay on an Anton Chekhov short story: "In a coma,
  maybe suicide is justified."
     "Tell me if it makes sense or not?" she asked.
     Cloud and Nguyen answered in unison: "You can't commit suicide if
  you're in a coma." Tran scratched the sentence.
     One clump away, Sarah Wue and Katrina Lim giggled while they read a
  third student's essay in unison. Then they savaged it.
     "Personally, we think he was just babbling," Lim said.
     Johnson said that when her students know they are writing for each
  other, they sometimes make their points more clearly and they often
  take students' comments very much to heart.
     Sometimes, the result of a cooperative learning exercise is far from
  ideal. After the junior class staged poetry readings, for example,
  students were asked to explain their poems' deeper meanings.
     " `Snowy Evening,' " Ellis said, "is about this dude, he's on his
  way to go somewhere and he stops somewhere, just to check it out."
     Johnson said that when her students are working together she tries
  to "make sure they're finding the things I want them to find." But when
  that doesn't work she will go back and explain.
     Cooperative education has other drawbacks. Senior Gwen Westervelt
  said she generally dislikes working in groups, "because some people end
  up doing all the work. Like me."
      Discipline sometimes suffers. When Johnson is watching one group,
  another might be discussing weekend plans.
     But students today are different, Johnson said. "They simply don't
  do homework. They have jobs. You have to do a lot more in class. They
  want to be entertained."
     Johnson said that when she used to lecture about poetry, students
  would forget quickly what she said -- and hated the whole experience.
     "This way," she said, "they may not remember the poem, but they'll
  remember it was fun."