Cooperative Learning

I've used Cooperative Learning while instructing for Ford some years ago. However, I had forgotten about it until Sat. in Alpharetta when we used it all day in our assignment. My father-in-law and I went for an ATV ride on Sunday (He is a retired full bird col. in the Army of something like 35 years) and during our breaks, after cleaning the chunks of roosted mud from our helmets, we discussed cooperative learning strategies. He had been in military teaching for quite some time and to my surprise, provided some very valuable input about it. Settling down after a hard day of trail riding and trying to stay clear of each others roost, I got a couple of ideas about doing it in the classroom. I knew I had a couple of things planned for class in the first of the week but I said "What the heck, I'll implement some of these strategies and give them a whirl.
I started by creating a rubric first thing this morning which was followed by the making of a 31 topic list that they could chose from (no topics were the same in each class but were reused for next classes). When the students got there I introduced cooperative learning, laid out my expectations, paired up the students, assigned the topics, and last but not least.....I gave them their rubrics and a list of possible resources. I decided to make this a 4 day assignment that should make for extremely busy days. Much to my surprise, the students loved the assignment! There were multiple students that I checked out text books for the night so they could make theirs the best it could be. It was definitely a first! I would advise anyone to give this a shot. Not only does it make for great enthusiasm but the lessons are fairly easy to write and make for a pleasant day.

P.S. Yo Craig, how'd you get fired on yo day off? Stealin boxes? What was you doin, buildin a clubhouse?